Just read an interesting article in The Guardian which outlines the employability music graduates. The article goes on to discuss the array of professions that music graduates enter – and the important skills that good degrees indoctrinate into their awards. I would be interested in what colleagues think – including ex students. What are the important skills????
Music graduates are more employable than you might think | Education | The Guardian.
Paul Carr 
An interesting article, the awareness of the benefits of learning music, let alone studying for a degree in music are well known to many and i agree wholeheartedly, and more publicity is always welcome. However, i have a few issues with this rose tinted perspective.
Firstly, Nicky Morgan’s (Michael Gove’s) opinion of the creative arts and the impact this has had on music instruction in schools is devastating in some quarters for both students and teachers, they are feeders for our music schools and universities. Without a healthy music environment in primary and secondary education the likelihood of producing potential music undergrads could possibly diminish quite radically, well for the working class at least!
Secondly, many of my fellow students when studying at music college went on to work in fields other than music. Yes, i’m sure all the positives mentioned in the article attributed to them finding employment and that’s great, and many are happy in their work, but the reason they left the field of music is because there’s little work available, and the work we do find is often low paid and very similar at times to a zero hours set-up, it’s no wonder some look to other fields for employment.
Thirdly, all this talk of the benefits of music education and how attractive music grads are to employers is not very accurate, especially within the music sector. There are cases where, individuals with more than twenty years experience in the music industry, a music degree, a teaching licentiate in music, a postgrad diploma in music, and a masters degree in musicology is not even enough to get an interview for a post teaching music in many FE and HE institutions. However, look at the requirements for teaching jobs in some other subjects and it’s surprisingly low when compared. Perhaps music grads should apply for anything other than music posts?
I do believe studying music is multi-beneficial, and agree with the article in principal. Everyone should have the means and opportunity to take part in musical activities, but to study music just to spend the rest of your working life in another field, which is implied in this article, would be incredibly frustrating for myself and many of my colleagues.
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Well said – I agree with all of this – there is the ‘idealist’ perspective and also the ‘realistic’ – which I know can be frustrating for young people attempting to enter the industry. From my own experience (many years back) – I wanted to study music purely because I wanted to understand ‘how it works’. Making a living etc came as a direct consequence of simply wanting to engage with something I loved so much.
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