Would you love to work in the music industry? It is such a wide business that involves much more than performing. It is also one of the most competitive industries in the world, however, which means that you need to do things to set yourself apart from the rest. One way to achieve that is by completing a music business degree, although not all of these degrees are created equally.
Finding a Good School
Because music is such a huge industry, a lot of schools have tried to jump on the bandwagon to offer programs. Make sure, therefore, that you find a school that is fully accredited, and that their program is accredited as well. This ensures that your degree will be recognized and accepted all over the country, as well as abroad.
Do You Need a Degree?
Getting a college education is always a good idea. However, you do have to make sure you actually get the training that you need. Within the world of music, it is vital that your training is rigorous, specific, focused, and 100% up to date. You will have no benefit completing a generic degree, because the music industry is continuously in a state of flux and development. This is why it is so important that you properly research the program and the school you are considering.
There are alternatives. You could, for instance, go to a trade school. However, this will limit you because your degree will not be as academic, and therefore as respected, as people are looking for. Furthermore, it will not be enough to take you into a position of leadership. Unless you want to be a performing artist, in which case luck is generally more important than education (or even talent for that matter), you will need a lot of education. Whether this is achieved through a trade school is debatable.
You could also consider a mentorship approach. This is getting increasingly popular due to two specific reasons:
- It gives you real life industry experience, working in the environment in which you want to end up after completing your degree as well.
- It enables you to build the important connections and networks that are a requirement within the world of music. Who you know, in music, is always more important than what you know.
The system of mentorship is quickly becoming so popular that many music schools are incorporating it in their curriculum. While internships have always been standard, they are now becoming too generic and too staged to really be relevant. By enabling someone to complete a mentorship program instead, they are really exposed to real life situations. And, rather than a structure internship for a specific period of time, they can be completed for the entire duration of the degree program as well, which means they are even more beneficial to the student. This may be something you want to look into, therefore.