CHAPTER 3

Formal Education versus Learning Onstage

In 2000, I was asked to work with Ricky Minor, then-music director of BET’s Harlem Block Party, when they were opening an office in New York City. The celebration was an evening of stars from all genres of black music: Stevie Wonder, Mary J. Blige, Wyclef Jean, and many others. During a rehearsal, one of the featured artists, a singer, came late, and she had not learned the song that she was supposed to sing (it was the Roberta Flack/Donny Hathaway duet, “Back Together”). I was sent to purchase the CD of the original recording so she and the band could learn it (they, too, had no knowledge of the song). After several listens to the song and several takes, she gave up and left the studio in disgust. Interesting, two of the other musicians in the house band could not “hear” their parts, either. During a break, I talked to the de facto band leader about the rehearsal and how difficult it was for him to work with them. He was a Berklee College graduate (whom I had met years earlier when he was playing jazz) who had left jazz to go to work with pop artists, including Madonna. He shared, with me, his frustration and that he had suggested that they should get some formal education. That night, the singer called Ricky and convinced him to let her sing her hit song, which he agreed, so the program was altered. In fairness to those musicians, in 2000 there was plenty of work across all platforms, so school was not as necessary.

Bill Zuckerman, founder of Music School Central, a music college student admissions advising firm, wrote a piece titled “What Happens to Music Majors After They Graduate College? New Study Reveals Amazing Data.” He summarized and commented on a study by an accomplished and published music education professor at Indiana University, Peter Miksza, in conjunction with educator Lauren Hime during the years from 2012–2015 that tracked those who graduated with music degrees.1

Here are some excerpts from Zuckerman’s piece:²

If you aren’t sure what the difference is, Music Education students are primarily trained to teach in the public school system, although many end up going into careers that include private school teaching and conducting regional youth ensembles.

Music Performance majors, on the other hand, are those that majored in a specific instrument, usually in classical or jazz disciplines, although popular music and even hip-hop have now become majors at some colleges. [. . .]

For the study, Peter & Lauren surveyed musicians from over 150 different institutions to ensure that not all of the results came from just a few schools.

They surveyed high school, undergraduate, and graduate alumni for this piece. Overall, there were 1,434 respondents from liberal arts colleges, public and private universities, and institutions dedicated solely to the performing arts.

One thing to note is that the study only used respondents from US music schools. [. . .]

The Results of Peter & Lauren’s Study

According to this study, over 50 percent of the students in the music performance group found work relevant to their major within four months of graduation.

Additionally, more than 75 percent of the music education group also found work within four months of graduation.

Ultimately, more than one out of every two of all the respondents stated that performance or education was their jobs. [. . .]

To put this in perspective, approximately one in four students who graduate college in other majors end up working in a field related to their major.

Another interesting thing to note is that one out of five in the performance group found a job concurrently teaching in a public school, suggesting that it is a relatively common practice for students who major in performance to also teach.

Those in the music education group reported annual incomes between $20,000 and $60,000, with a small number making over $60,000. The authors noted that although the average in this group would be lower than the national average salary of $56,000 for music education teachers, he concluded most musicians wouldn’t attain the average salary until they are further along into their careers.

For music performance majors, the salaries were wider in range—although many reported starting annual incomes in the $20,000 area, some did make more than $60,000. [. . .]

Heck, I [Zuckerman] went to university for composition and am now a college consultant for music students looking to attain a degree in music. It took me years to get to where I am now, but I am here now and I am doing well. [. . .]

What about Musicians Outside of Performance and Teaching?

Although the study did not address majors outside of performance and teaching, the career prospects for those in other fields, such as Music Production and Music Composition, can be very good.

I [Zuckerman] have known composition alumni to make great salaries outside of teaching. The opportunities for composers includes, but is certainly not limited to, commissions for orchestral, chamber, and solo music, orchestration and arranging for other composers, engraving music (the art of taking written music and processing it through a notation program like Finale or Sibelius), writing film/commercial music, etc.

Music Production majors also have very good career prospects. Some of these include working in recording studios, working independently as recording engineers, mixing and mastering tracks and albums for artists, running live sound in music venues, producing & DJing music, and consulting for record labels. [. . .]

If you have a dream, a passion, and you desire to work in music, then even if you decide to regard any study, you can make a career for yourself after you graduate college.

The above study reveals some benefits to getting a degree in music. Music schools can provide the necessary experiences and training to help you navigate the industry. Colleges and universities offer an array of degrees from film scoring to engineering. (Will Calhoun and Jeremy Pelt, respectively, studied those at Berklee.) Higher education gives you exposure to your future peers and to some of the greatest leaders in your field. It will also give you discipline and structure. Another key element in acquiring a music education is the relationship that you build with your instructors. When doing your research into the institutions, look at the faculty list as well as the alumni. By the time you reach high school, determine if college is in your future. There are many schools with music programs, but few have highly developed, prestigious music programs. Tuition costs vary from as low as $12,000 to $60,000 per year. Do your homework to find what school is best for you.

Below are the top schools, worldwide, found on several lists:

• The Juilliard School

• Berklee College of Music

• Eastman School of Music

• University of Southern California Thornton School of Music

• Manhattan School of Music

• University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna

• New England Conservatory of Music

• Yale School of Music

• Curtis Institute of Music

• The Royal Academy of Music

• Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University

• Mannes School of Music

• Oberlin Conservatory of Music

• Peabody Institute

• University of Miami Frost School of Music

THE PROS AND CONS OF GETTING A DEGREE

Some of the greatest jazz musicians could not read a lick of music, but their musicianship was, and is, beyond reproach. As in any art form, exceptions find their way to the top. The late Ruth Brown said,

I had no formal training, and I can’t read music. I could sing anything I heard. My music teacher in high school, Ora Lee Churchill, told me, “You’re gonna regret that one of these days.” Sometimes when I went into the studio to record, the arranger would bring lead sheets. In the beginning, you did not have to worry about it; they’d send you a demo, and you would learn from the record. Now all of the arrangements have a sheet for vocal line, but I still can’t read it; I hear it. I’m not sure that young people are really learning music now. They can make a star out of the mixing board. Anyone can sound like they are singing. In those days, that was impossible. One thing that was important was all of the great singers—Ella, Sarah, Carmen, Dinah—played piano. I didn’t do any of that. Dizzy Gillespie said, “Ruth could hear a rat peeing in cotton because she can hear it.” That is what I depended on. I can hear chord changes. That is why most of my musicians stayed with me.

According to Aaron Diehl, “education is important in anything, yes, recordings are still important to listen to but there are fewer opportunities to learn on the bandstand and why young people are creating opportunities for themselves.” Ulysses Owens, who acquired his BA degree at the Juilliard School, said that “one doesn’t need school to be a professional musician, education gives you a perspective yet you need to be focused on what you want to do as a performing artist. The top five jazz schools give you a network and you’ll be learning and working with the best.”

Richard Smallwood, who holds an MA from Howard University, supports that idea,

I think that it [formal education] is very important. If God has given us a gift, we are charged to develop it, and to be the best we can be. A lot of things that you know by ear, or that you do naturally, you get to understand why they are, or how they are put together. You learn about the history of music and why you do what you do. Knowing who the pioneers are helps you to be the best when you get there. I started formal classes at age seven and continued through until I graduated from Howard.

Some formal training is good, but work experience is invaluable. Ron Carter, an educator, suggests that on-the-job training is important:

Probably 60/40, sixty learning on the bandstand, forty meaning formal education. You can’t have one successfully, completely, without the other. I mean, you need discipline to know how to prepare a lesson, how to prepare an arrangement. Discipline to learn how to arrange, how to compose. Bandstand: how to put two sides (sets) together and see what level your talent is. Yes, I worked as a musician while going to school.

Getting an advanced degree was one of the best decisions Javon Jackson made. While a student at Berklee College, he landed a dream gig when he joined the band of drummer Elvin Jones. Against his family’s wishes, he dropped out of school to take that gig because that was an opportunity he wouldn’t pass up—especially given the low band turnover—to play with those master musicians. After his stint with Elvin, he went on the road with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. In 2003, while teaching at SUNY Purchase, upon the urging of the dean, Javon decided to complete his degree work. Along the way, Javon became friends with Ron Carter, who encouraged him to continue his education to seek an MA. Being armed with a bachelor’s degree in music from the Berklee College of Music (Boston, Massachusetts) and a master’s degree in music from Purchase College (Harrison, New York) put him on a trajectory that led him to his current position as professor and division director at the Jackie McLean Jazz Studies Division at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School. The demands of academia have not diminished his recording and touring career; he has maintained his presence in both.

In spite of himself, Will Calhoun attended Berklee College. College wasn’t something that he wanted to pursue, but he felt that he had no choice. In his junior year, he dropped out of school, but on the urging of Harry Belafonte and a promise of a gig upon graduation, he returned to finish his last year. Will explained that the upside to going to Berklee was that

it benefited me because I was arrogant being up there, I hated Boston. I didn’t want to go to college, my friends were starting to take off, Scott La Rock was the DJ and rapper with KRS-One, he was in my high school. He got a record deal and I was in the dorm eating Chinese food. . . . I was frustrated, I’d call home and saw that “my boys” were getting signed. Drummers I was studying, me, Sterling Campbell, and others were disciples of Kenwood Dennard. . . . I’d turn on the TV at night and would see, on the Johnny Carson show, my friends playing with Cyndi Lauper or Duran Duran, they were getting all of the great gigs. I was angry and bitter about being up there because I thought I was missing out on something. [Jazz master] Lou Donaldson is a member of my mother’s church. My mother told him that I was a musician and that I wanted to go to school. She introduced me to Mr. Donaldson, I told him that I was studying with Horace Arnold and I was going to Berklee. He said, “What the hell you want to do that for?” Ralph MacDonald lived near us, I was a close friend with his son . . . Ralph said, “Calhoun, you’re not gonna learn how to play in school, they’ll turn you into one of the cookies . . .” But the hip-hop cats were encouraging me to go. They said, “naw, man, go up there and get that information, we need soldiers in other places . . .”

“It’s difficult to tell your mother, who has two master’s degrees and a PhD, that you don’t want to go to school, so I had to find a way to make it work.” He went to audition for New York University (where his mother and sister had received their master’s degrees) but, instead, got directed to Berklee by Abdul Malik, an instructor in the NYU music department. The first year at Berklee was great.

I thought that I’d learn how to play, they had some great instructors and students. . . . After the first year I realized that I wouldn’t make it in the school as a performance major, the baddest cats were in New York who I could study with, so I switched my major to recording and engineering. That’s how I benefited from the school but I still did my drumming. . . . I also took a film scoring class. All three years I was there I recorded my band, Dark Sarcasm. There I learned all of the components of recording. . . . It was a great incubator for me to get my act together, for me to realize my competition and the things I wasn’t learning in New York City. . . . It was a great terrain for me to check myself.

Now an assistant professor at Michigan State University College of Music, Etienne Charles says,

Formal education is learning your instrument, it doesn’t have to be in a school. You can develop ensemble skills, but for jazz, [learning] on the bandstand is crucial, as is being onstage; you have to be in front of people. Universities should do more to create working and performing opportunities for students . . . they need to create steady work for them, not just one hits.

He was fortunate to attend a school that had great instructors, who included visiting musicians such as Marcus Roberts. “At Florida State the big band study was important but they emphasized more small combos group playing. Our combo class was important. Rodney Jordan had us learn music as a band. He had us learning from records for us to get a feel for how a band worked, then he would have us play the music that music.”

As an instructor at Berklee College, Tia Fuller has an opportunity to steer students to develop a positive working mind-set beyond the academics. “How students talk to elders is embarrassing,” she sighed. “They don’t want to take a gig unless they’re getting paid and they’re in school! You never know what you’ll learn by taking a free gig. It’s a general narrative at the college because it’s more performance oriented. If a professor is asking you to play with them you don’t know what they have in mind for you. It’s not about getting paid. They may be looking at how responsible you are, if you come to class on time . . .”

Tia Fuller and Camille Thurman did not attend the traditional jazz-oriented colleges, so the bulk of their knowledge was not necessarily garnered from school. Tia got her BA degree in music from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia (magna cum laude), and her master’s degree in jazz pedagogy and performance from the University of Colorado at Boulder (summa cum laude). In graduate school, she was a teacher’s assistant in a new program of theirs where she taught jazz improvisation. She also did her residency in the public school system.

After her bad experience at famed Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, Camille Thurman became sour on being a musician. In her senior year, she took off a semester and studied geology and fell in love with it. She was not in a financial position to attend the schools that she wanted, then set her sights to upstate New York for school. Determined to not do music, she attended Binghamton University, from which she graduated with a degree in science. While there, she decided to play while pursuing her degree. At Binghamton she went to take a music class but passed up the audition out of fear that she couldn’t play. The teacher asked her to take the improv class and heard that she can play and told her she didn’t need to be there, and he encouraged her to join the band: “that was a blessing because joining the band was a way for me, for the first time, to play without being judged or being criticized and treated unfairly, and I got to meet the visiting city musicians, who would ask me, what are you doing here, you have to come to New York.” She met Tia, who was playing with Beyoncé. Tia was the first woman she’d seen playing jazz. Camille’s parents told her that she’d be broke if she played music, but Tia said, “I’m doing it, I’m making a living.”

SOME FORMAL EDUCATION

Monte Croft attended Berklee for two and a half years before returning home to Cleveland, Ohio. He didn’t have regrets that he didn’t finish nor did he have any aspirations to teach. Michael Wolff said, “I was in college; I was at UCLA to study music, and they had on an OK jazz band, really nice guys . . . down in San Fernando Valley State College, which is called something else now, I can’t recall. Gerald Wilson had a jazz history class.” Regarding formal education, he says,

It depends on the instrument. I think for piano, it’s good if you have both. Also, the great people that I admire have both. I don’t know if Thelonious Monk had formal training, but nowadays the guys that were my idols, like Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Keith Jarett, they’re all classically trained. I am not a classical pianist, but I studied that stuff, and it really helped me out as a composer to study music. But I think that, you know, you can’t just learn that in college, either. I think the way jazz is now [2004], it’s all just about education in college, which is sterile! Great musicians stand out, no matter whether they’re in college or not, they’re always going to be great. But I think, seeing that I got so much from hanging out with the guys, the vibe . . .

To appease his parents, Eric Reed went to college for one year. He, like Michael Wolff and Kenny Washington, weighed in most heavily on the side of learning on the bandstand:

Not to put down the idea of formal education—I believe in education, under any circumstances—but I think we’ve gotten to a place where we have placed so much emphasis on formal education from an institution that we have kind of done away with the whole middle ground of skilled workers, done away with the whole idea of apprenticeship. . . . I’ve heard it said, I think an attorney once told me—a guy who went to Yale University—“anything worth knowing/learning, can’t be learned in a classroom.” I thought that was interesting coming from him. He was not casting aspersions at education, university, or college, but making the point that information can be attained through a variety of sources and places. To place so much emphasis on a college education, you have already limited your options for learning.

Paula Kimper is a little more critical of schools:

You can’t not learn as you go. You have to use someone else’s experience to help you teach yourself. I think everyone has to be self-taught. As far as learning institutions, I was a little disillusioned. I was put off by the whole academic approach to music, and that is why I never went to get an advanced degree. It meant writing twelve-tone music in the way they wanted you to do it; they want you to be innovative, but that is the opposite of being innovative. That’s not what I want. What I hear is melodies, and I really love song forms and music that is much more accessible than what they were trying to teach. They were trying to be as inaccessible as possible. So I left that, and I’ve never gone back to any kind of academic thing.

WHEN FORMAL EDUCATION IS A MUST

It is rare in classical music for someone to be successful without formal education, but Dorothy Lawson has known of this happening: “That is much more difficult. I have only seen that where people got that from the family, where there is a lot of music and they got a lot of training inside the family.” Every few years, I will read or hear about a virtuoso in either classical music or jazz music, so I asked Dorothy to explain what one is. “A virtuoso is a person who has control of her instrument and is so fluent and so smooth between her brain and her hands, there is no perceived block when you are listening to her playing. You are not observing a lot of work, but a lot of thought. It can be simple; it does not have to be technically showing off.”

David Randolph (1914–2010), a conductor, music educator, and radio host, said,

Formal education is very important. Nobody whom you ever heard of got there without ability. You have to have the ability! They all have their craft, in varying degrees. After that, it is being in the right place at the right time, contacts, and whom you know. I can assure you that there is competition. Like at school, like Juilliard. Everybody who gets in goes with the idea of being a big star. No one has the idea of being the second violin in the Houston Symphony Orchestra. They all want to be Itzhak Perlman. A person who studied at Juilliard told me, “It’s a jungle; they are after each other; they claw over each other.” How can they not claw at each other? When you get a bunch of virtuosos, how can they not? It’s human nature.

About Juilliard, Dorothy Lawson said,

Juilliard was a great experience. I loved parts of it. It was all-encompassing. It’s a great school. They are as good as any music school, in my opinion. I was lucky that when I went, I had done so much other work, and especially that I was not an undergraduate. I noticed among the undergrads a distinct anxiety, a higher level of anxiety-driven competitiveness. They were worried that if they did not cut it and make it big at Juilliard, they would never succeed. My perspective from my travels was that they were on a very good level, and they’d probably do nicely whether or not they were on the top of the heap in Juilliard. I didn’t feel as vulnerable to that kind of pressure. The beauty of being an older student is that you appreciate your teachers more and search them out from your own interest, rather than to fill a school requirement.

NOTES

• Higher education is a choice, not always a necessity.

• Know what you want to get out of college and what kind of experience you want to have.

• At least have 40 percent formal/institution, 60 percent on-the-job training.

• Persevere, seek out mentors.

• Forge relationships with like-minded students.

• Find work outside of the school environment.

1 Peter Miksza and Lauren Hime, “Undergraduate Music Program Alumni’s Career Path, Retrospective Institutional Satisfaction, and Financial Status,” Arts Education Policy Review 116, no. 4 (2015): 1–13, doi: 10.1080/10632913.2014.945628.

2 Bill Zuckerman, “What Happens to Music Majors after They Graduate College? New Study Reveals Amazing Data,” Music School Central, March 1, 2016, https://musicschoolcentral.com/what-happens-to-music-majors-after-they-graduate-college-new-study-reveals-amazing-data/.