Four-year Music Degree Program Perceptions of Value from Administrators and Students

Download or read book Four-year Music Degree Program Perceptions of Value from Administrators and Students written by William Raymond Johnson and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The duties required of a musician earning a living wage are starkly different than the musicians twenty years ago. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, pure performance opportunities were often enough for music professionals to support themselves, but the musicians of today require a set of skills not explicitly instructed in a four-year degree, most prominently career management and rudimentary financial management proficiencies. Today, the vast majority musicians are now required to utilize skills tangentially related to the creation and performance of music, with various manifestations of a "portfolio" or “Protean” career becoming a preferred term of scholars and administrators alike. Considering a new performer/teacher/administrator paradigm, institutions of higher education training the musicians of the future have a responsibility to current and future students to maintain pace with current employment trends. For this dissertation, I investigated students and administrators at four-year degree granting institutions and found gaps between what students desire from their education, the goals of administrators in providing this degree, and what the workforce requires. Specific considerations for department policy are presented, and opportunities for future research in a variety of arts disciplines are highlighted.