There are a lot of majors out there that supposedly “don’t have jobs.” You may have heard that you “can’t just get a job at the Philosophy factory,” or that tenure-track professorships are going away. Fair enough. However, unemployment is currently at a decade low, which means all these philosophy and music and history majors are finding work somewhere. How? Well, my guess is that a lot of them know…
Due to events that I’m deciding to call “out of my control,” I did approximately diddly-squat this past week. Sometimes life happens and you end up procrastinating. Let’s say you got bit by a mosquito and things spiraled and you went to the ER for a little bit. Or maybe your life isn’t as unnecessarily dramatic as mine and you just spent time sleeping instead of doing homework. Regardless, it’s…
First seen on my Patreon! In my nearly six years of post-secondary education in music, I’ve discovered that there are six easily identifiable kinds of music major. Not every student fits one of these categories, but you’ll see these people on the regular, regardless of your school The Basement-Dweller: I don’t mean to use this in the pejorative sense. Instead, I mean that this kind of music major lives on…
First seen on my Patreon! I took 156 credits in 8 semesters during my undergraduate career. That’s an average of 19.5 a semester, and most music classes didn’t offer interim options. I spent my entire undergrad deeply overloaded. Why? Because I had this deep, ingrained idea that once I graduated, that was it. That was my chance, and I wasn’t going to get the opportunity to learn this stuff in…
So! Everyone I know right now seems to be having a quarter-life crisis. Some people don’t feel like they’re good enough for their field. Some got through 5+ years of education only to find out they hate the nitty-gritty of their field. Still others just don’t know what they want to be when they grow up despite being old enough to pay for their own insurance. Whatever the cause, a…
So you may have a research paper coming up. You may just want to know more about music. If you’re interested in getting more info on music, then here are the tips that’ll get you results. Free to anyone: Guide to Using Music Libraries: This one includes a lot of things specific to my school, but everything outside of stuff regarding the campus is universal. It contains guides for using…
Unless your entire school has fewer than a thousand students, it can be really easy to fall through the cracks. For example, I am one of maaaaybe 80 music grad students at my current institution. I got all my documentation in two days early. They still have not enrolled me in an important seminar, now two weeks later. The only way to get this resolved requires me to be my…
Musicians complain. A lot. If you’re a musician, and have complaints, I’ve developed a little FAC (Frequently Answered Complaints) for you to refer to when times get tough. Here’s seven common complaints musicians have, and how to stop having them! Practice sucks/is hard. Schedule it, make it a habit, and don’t push yourself too hard. The fewer decisions you have to make to get to the practice room, the simpler…
Practice: it’s what makes us good musicians! It is also the number one thing most musicians complain about online! Why is this? Well, because practice takes discipline, and that’s hard sometimes. Here’s how to make practice easier. Make it a habit. Every semester, I choose a time every day of the week to practice. Hopefully, it’s close to the same time every day, but no matter what, I set aside…
We musicians can be our own worst enemy. Our passion causes us to care too much, our perfectionism causes us to avoid practicing, and our unclear career paths stress us out no end. So in order to make sure we actually succeed in this art that we love, we need to take care of ourselves. Here are four self-care tips for musicians to make the most of their passion. Take…
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