To be eligible for full-time, tenure-track faculty positions, performers and composers typically need doctorates. And the degree that most of them earn is the Doctor of Musical Arts, the DMA.* Although universities sometimes hire renowned musicians who lack...
“To be a musician in the service of music is not a job; it is a way of life.” –Isaac Stern, violinist The Musician’s Way, p. 299 I write this amid the COVID-19 pandemic, when music teachers worldwide are surmounting obstacles to provide students with...
“It’s very gratifying to improvise in front of people. I feel I’m including them in what I’m doing, taking them someplace they might like to go and haven’t been before.” -Jim Hall, guitarist The Musician’s Way, p. 102 Improvisation is the most playful way that we can...
“Forward-thinking students uncover multiple career avenues that they would enjoy.” –The Musician’s Way, p. 301 Peter Spellman’s article, 5 Essentials of Music Career Success, gives the following sage advice: “Your goal, to use marketing lingo, is to ‘position’...
From 2026-2031, the college-age population in the U.S. will decline sharply, about 15%, due to the reduced birth rate during the great recession.* Combine that with competition from online learning, and numerous brick-and-mortar colleges are expected to shut down...
“I recognized a gap between what we musicians typically learn during our schooling and what we actually need to know.” -Gerald Klickstein In September 2018, Yamaha Music Media published a Japanese translation of The Musician’s Way, which rocketed to the top of its...
