Tubas, euphoniums, mouthpieces, and anything music-related.
Forum rules
This section is for posts that are directly related to performance, performers, or equipment. Social issues are allowed, as long as they are directly related to those categories. If you see a post that you cannot respond to with respect and courtesy, we ask that you do not respond at all.
For most recent data available, classical music accounts for less than 1% of total global on-demand music streams. In the United States, classical music represented 0.9% of the total music market in 2023, which includes both streaming and downloads.
Also, be sure and go to those tuba conventions, because all those other tuba players there (who would like to have an orchestra job) are going to help you get a job in an orchestra.
These users thanked the author bloke for the post (total 2):
For most recent data available, classical music accounts for less than 1% of total global on-demand music streams. In the United States, classical music represented 0.9% of the total music market in 2023, which includes both streaming and downloads.
I’m very much of the view that Universities have a duty of care to their students and that they fail to both promote courses responsibly and to teach responsibly. Music is a wonderful subject and can be an enjoyable hobby, but virtually everyone who goes to university does so - or certainly should do so - with career prospects in mind. Regardless of subject studied real and reasonably paying careers need to be a result of university education.
I wonder what (types of) the other 99% of music is and what the life paths of top earners within the industry are, and I wonder - and the same question is valid of many other subjects - what percentage of music graduates actually use their degree in their employment.
These users thanked the author 2nd tenor for the post (total 2):
In spite of the reality of this stating us in the face, the vast majority of colleges and universities are sticking with the conservatory model, where the emphasis is almost exclusively on classical music competence. And it’s not just in the performance area. The “book work” is all classically oriented. You learn music theory ala Bach. You learn music history through the classical lens as well. Just leaf through “the Grout”, the go-to music history text. You’ll see what I mean. Does the “conservatory” model prepare students for the modern music industry job market? Obviously not. To be fair, I have heard of some college music departments being more progressive. But my perception is that it has just been hard to break that conservatory mind set.
Then you have the elephant in the room so to speak. The music education major. I don’t know the statistics, but it seems like there are more music education than performance majors. Even those primarily interested in performance pick up the education certificate as a “fall back” or a “day job”. While classical music may be only a tiny percentage of music consumption, we have this whole HUGE music sub-genre of public and private school K-12 music programs. We have thousands of music teachers graduating from college, teaching certificate in hand, being products of the conservatory model. Then they teach their students -what? Take band directors for example. Band music in the USA is largely music composed specifically for bands by professional composers who specialize in that. This music largely relies on classical forms. So does this music qualify as a sub-genre of “classical” music? And don’t get me started on marching band, or drum corps. Arranging pieces by classical composers for performance on the field has been going on for decades.
So, what is the purpose of school band, orchestra, and chorus programs? All of these very popular programs are promoting a classical or quasi-classical genre of music (chorus less so, but the most elite of these groups are often “madrigal” singers)? Do we expect they will be in band, orchestra, or chorus the rest of their lives? Most don’t. That’s a fact. Perhaps we hope that by exposing students to classical music archetypes, we are helping to shape musical taste for future generations. Give the depressing statistics, it would seem that, if this is the purpose of school music programs, we are somehow failing.
Last edited by DonO. on Wed Sep 24, 2025 8:07 am, edited 2 times in total.
King 2341 “new style”
Kanstul 902-3B
Conn Helleberg Standard 120
"Non-classical" jobs (restaurants, bars, events) mostly pay very low, and its really only worth it as far as covering one's gasoline and a little bit of one's trouble (but the curriculum involved in college degrees generally doesn't train musicians to be able to play these types of jobs anyway). They mostly seem to pay $100 to $125 depending on whether they're single set or two or three sets. Country clubs are really suffering, have had to construct huge buildings with huge workout facilities and such (as the younger wealthy people really aren't as interested in golf). Their Sunday brunch events are way down in attendance as the older members die off, and some of them are only able to offer $300 or so for four musicians, and that's probably only once every 2 or 3 months, as they can no longer afford to pay to have a combo entertaining at their Sunday brunches weekly.
Compared to when I was really busy playing five and six nights a week at two different venues in the early 1980s - whereby jobs paid between $50 and $85, and money was worth four times as much (and frankly, combos would pack in people at the bars and restaurants, and people were perfectly willing to pay a cover charge).
Church work tends to pay more, but often involves two services, a wasted hour in between, plus a separate rehearsal...so - including driving to some church twice - the total amount of time involved in a church job could easily be over eight hours (plus fuel).
With a few exceptions, full time orchestras bring in people to negotiate lower dollar amount salaries when it's time again for contract negotiations. This, with everyone in the United States and probably in most of the western world having experienced a handful of years of hyperinflation.
I chatted with a music director not long ago who has two sons in their teen years. He's strongly encouraging them to develop skills that are in high demand and that they can bring to the market without having to be employed by any sort of company or corporation...and certainly not a "board of directors" herded by an "executive director".
Classical music performance today - at least in the United States - is just about as viable (as far as earning a living) as learning to speak Latin fluently, and other work is mostly for fun - with venues paying a little bit of money to cover part of the trouble of showing up, setting up, and playing.
The problem is that the purpose of universities has shifted over time, from a cultural/academic institution (to preserve, transfer, and advance knowledge) to an ersatz job-training center. Naturally, that works better for some majors than others, but we still tend to treat "college" all as one thing. Works great for engineers. Doesn't work great for music majors.
I have played in orchestras and lived in communities where the entire music scene is made up of people with other careers. They are amazing - passionate, committed, enthusiastic, and the playing is frequently at a decent level. And the audience is always appreciative seeing their friends and coworkers putting on the shows that they see.
However, there is also a place (need?) in my opinion for there to be a group of people who spend their lives being the best possible performers on their instruments and moving the musical, technical, and expressive needle forward. (Sidenote: I think this should include, if not be majority, premiering new works, rather than simply rolling out the same 200-year-old warhorses that, while brilliant art, are getting repetitive).
And because we need professional performers to forward the art, we need a training ground, and that training ground necessarily must include more people than will ever be working professionals. It is impossible (or, nearly impossible) to know when someone is 15 or 16 whether they will be a world class player in 10 years time. Or in 20 years time. Now that certainly doesn't mean that every one of the hundreds of colleges and universities that currently churns out performance majors needs to be doing so. And it does mean that the ones who do churn out performance majors need to be honest with their students as to the reality in the world. But reducing the training ground to only a few schools also concentrates the power of providing access to the professional realm in too few hands, which creates its own issues. But, to me, this is more of a "where should be line be" rather than "should there be a line" issue.
But having said all that, I got a performance degree. I'm still happy I did it. I then went on to get a law degree, and I'm also happy I did that. It results in (a) me wishing I was a more committed lawyer because I'd rather be playing music; and (b) me wishing I played at a higher level because I don't have the time per day to put in the practice I wish I could. But on balance, it's not bad.
If orchestras marched, had a synthetic bass, and dragged four large pieces of unidentifiable crap out on to their marching area with them when they performed, I think they would be more popular.
I think it’s fine if people go to school for postgraduate music degrees so long as they know what they want out of a career and have a clear concept of what they want/need from a program. What bothers me is how common it is for students to decide to enter a grad program as a means to buy time while they figure out what they want to do with their life. I’ve even encountered students pursing a DOCTORATE who throw up a shrug when asked what they want out of a career in music.
There’s nothing wrong with taking a break from academia before you decide to descend into thousands more in debt for another music degree. Of anything, time away from school will help clarify what you want and whether you actually want a career in music.
tubamarc8891 wrote: Thu Sep 25, 2025 1:57 am
I think it’s fine if people go to school for postgraduate music degrees so long as they know what they want out of a career and have a clear concept of what they want/need from a program. What bothers me is how common it is for students to decide to enter a grad program as a means to buy time while they figure out what they want to do with their life. I’ve even encountered students pursing a DOCTORATE who throw up a shrug when asked what they want out of a career in music.
There’s nothing wrong with taking a break from academia before you decide to descend into thousands more in debt for another music degree. Of anything, time away from school will help clarify what you want and whether you actually want a career in music.
You have a point, but with such poor prospects of use in their future workplaces is studying the subject at all a reasonable choice for the vast majority of (university level) music students? University education costs significant amounts of money and precious life too - you don’t get those spent years back and money doesn’t grow on trees. Perhaps the really well off can afford to send their offspring off to University with no thought for either the bill or the outcomes but the rest of us can’t. Following your dream and your talents might be wonderful, but for so many choices (music as well as some others) those dreams are misinformed, misguided and lead to misery that could have been avoided. The world does need professional musicians, but it needs but a small fraction of those that study music at University. The world does not need more disappointed people with shattered dreams and large debts that have somehow got to be paid off.
MiBrassFS wrote: Thu Sep 25, 2025 5:07 am
People’s debt is none of my business nor concern.
Any person attending school for any discipline needs to be cognizant of career paths that do not exactly match their degree(s).
Applying skills to make a living needs to be the goal.
Folk wasting their time in (some courses of) full time education are neither paying taxes or making economic contribution to society; that’s everyone’s concern - spread the load.
Yep, whatever course you follow in life you need to be aware of overlapping paths.
Applying skills to make a living does need to be a goal, but the bigger goal is arguably learning skills that can be applied.
I would agree that even nonsense degrees can demonstrate to clear thinking people that they're wasting their time and they need to stop and go do something else, but to spend $100,000 to $500,000 on four years (eight?) of gaining expertise at or knowledge in something that one doesn't need to particularly be an expert in... That's a serious life decision, and I don't believe it many pre-adults (these days, a plurality of people under 30) take those decisions particularly seriously.
> Gain skills and expertise in something that's in demand.
> Once a person is no longer a burden to others, they then could pursue knowledge and expertise in things that are interesting to them as an individual.
MiBrassFS wrote: Thu Sep 25, 2025 4:04 pm
I know plenty of people over 30 who I wouldn’t consider to have attained adulthood.
Maybe pay for an associate’s or bachelor’s degree (really not even 100% of those as your work should be good enough to garner scholarships, etc.). If they’re not paying you to go to any sort of graduate school, you’re not a top student and should rethink your path at that point.
$100-$500k? Pfffft. And I mean pfffft.
I think University of Memphis is $8,000 the semester now. It was $150 when I went there. Of course, there's been grade inflation since I went there, so if someone graduates summa cum laude today - as I did (not bragging, because it's just a redneck school and just a music degree), I guess that's like a B average from back then.
A friend of mine looked up the tuition at Vanderbilt. Some of the cheaper degrees are like $94,000 a year (two semesters).
My understanding (various articles I've read over the years) is that grade inflation is even a more severe problem today in the elite schools than it is in the redneck schools. (Students and parents expect good transcripts, if they're going to pay all that money.)
these tuition rates:
If the student isn't paying it - or their parents aren't paying it, someone's paying it.
