Dear professor, I will try to answer the first question.

In my opinion, performance career could be divided into couple stages similar to teachers’ career. In the further text, I will try to describe the career of an average musician (not the child prodigy or someone who discovers his gift in later age).

1. Preparatory stage - it could start as soon as in early childhood (even though the child does not know that (s)he prepares for performance career, yet). The child starts taking classes (in playing the instrument, singing) and (s)he shows high musical talent. He practices more than his peers and shows more improvement. His performance reaches higher quality standards comparing to his peers.

This phase includes the decision to become musician which follows by further studies at conservatories and art universities. Depending on particular school system in different countries, this decision could be made at the age of 14/15 or 18/19 and lead to further studies for 4-5 years. In some cases the studies could take even longer.

During this time the student participate in various competitions, wins awards and becomes "popular" in music field. Many times he takes classes abroad with famous music teachers and receives scholarships to study at prestigious music schools.

2. Start of the professional career - the student graduate starts his own professional career. He becomes an employee of an institution or he is a freelance musician. If he is an orchestra player or a member of an ensemble, he practices new pieces – a repertory of the orchestra. If he is a soloist, his main activities are: looking for opportunities to perform, practicing and giving concerts. This phase requires besides musical skills many personal skills. In the beginning, many performers are disappointed with the situation and barriers they did not expect. The start of the professional career passes to another phase - adaptation.

3. Adaptation (to the career requirements) – during the first year or so, the musician adapts to the new situation. If he is a soloist, he finds ways to perform, to manage the time – he creates relationships with people who decide about the concerts, makes decisions about where and when to perform in order to build a „name“ and to stay financially independent. And of course, he practices. If he is an orchestra player or choir singer, he also has to cope with new issues: he has to go to rehearsals (which is very tiring, especially if he has a performance in the late night), build relationships in the ensemble, and learn the repertoire.

4. Building career – professional rise. This phase usually culminates around 30-35 years of age. The musician is adapted to his work and he feels comfortable with it. He has time and physical potential to work on his own music skills and abilities, he understands the relationships and the situation, his position starts to get better. As an orchestra player he becomes the leader of various sections of instruments. As a soloist, he becomes relatively famous, he can choose the concerts and orchestras to play with, he chooses the repertoire. He does not have to deal with management and logistics. Sometimes, if the finances permit, he hires a manager to do so.

5. Stabilization – after 10-15 years of working in the music field, the musician has created a routine, he has his status in the orchestra or among other freelance musicians. He does not have to “prove“ his qualities, he does not feel as much stress as before. At this point, many performers start actively teaching, because they feel the need to share their experience, and sometimes, they could experience the loss of their physical abilities and they start feeling the limits linked to their health.

6. Career ending - the musician experiences lack of physical strength, he deals with somatic issues (hand trembling, breathing problems, music-related health problems), he starts to get tired of the performances. He does not have enough energy to deal with the requirements and the rivalry with musicians of younger generation. The idea of quitting (retiring) emerges more and more often. Moreover, he cannot cope with changes that are inevitable (they reflect the development of the society), he feels not understood by younger generation. Most of the time he gives up the performance career on focuses only on teaching (if his health enables it).

A music performer can have a career as a teacher (developing young skills in his/her areas of performance profession). 2. Music performer can end up as eentertainmer, organising show, talent showcase and talk shows. 3. He or she also has a career as TV or Radio presenter, enlightening audience on issues and prospect in his area of profession or related performance area. A music performer can develop great career as a music therapist, using his performance skills to calm emotions and condition some psychic situations. There are a lot more that a music performer can do for living. They can champion campaigns and Non governmental organisation in rendering community music services to help immediate communities build a more tolerated society

Thank you, Marian, Rita and Sally for these great responses. For me, the first five years were entirely freelance with chamber music, teaching, some solo work and lots of admin! Then I took a full-time orchestral role and loved that for a while, but as Sally suggests, the passion for music making overrode the very useful stable income and led me to do other things. Many of my colleagues went through the involuntary stage described by Maria. My view of a musician is someone who works in one or more specialist fields, which may or may not include performance. I am really looking forward to more answers from everyone. Dawn

Hereunder are some of the career options in music. Forgive my inability to supply details due to time constraint. However, many authors (some online) have written extensively on this subject matter. Please explore.

1. Composition

2. Music pedagogy

3. Music librarianship

4. Music criticism

5. Conducting and music directing

6. Music merchandise and entertainment business

7. Music production and audio engineering

8. Music documentation and archiving

9. Music journalism and broadcasting

10. Music promotion and artiste management

11. Music therapy and consultancy services

12. Artiste and repertoire management

13. Musical instrument technology

14. Session instrumentalists and vocalists

15. Music-public relations

16. Music insurance and related matters

17. Music copyright and entertainment law attorney

18. Music publishing and reviews

Thank you, Ikenna. It is great to see details from other researchers - different perspectives and information every time. Dawn

My career has changed considerably over my 20+ years since leaving college and I have many colleagues who have made similar changes. I started as a professional orchestral musician. Playing in an orchestra was all I wanted to do. But over the years as I took on part time teaching, I found teaching more rewarding than expected and eventually moved into a full-time university position with part time performing and now also more of an organising role. I think a performing career is very exciting when you're young and single but later in life it can take a toll (depending on circumstances) and while I would never discourage a student from pursing a performance path if that is what they really want to do, many musicians do find this change of direction later in life a good one. Yes, more stability, but also more varied interaction, varied musical perspectives, development of self and students, and freedom to create performance situations. So I encourage students to be open to all opportunities and take any training options they can to give them the widest range of employment options when they graduate.

Thanks, Aidan! I had a similar trajectory, with full-time orchestral roles and difficult decisions to leave. Like you, I don't regret those decisions. Your students are lucky to have such broad advice. Does the curriculum also value or prioritise a broad musician development? It would be great to know whether your views are in line with their whole student experience, and to what extent students need to go outside to enable this development. I attached a lifespan paper in case it is of interest.

Thanks for the paper - it is really interesting to see that studies are being done on this issue and how much it reflects my own experience. Yes, we are developing our curriculum to allow broad development and specialisation in different areas. Students generally come in wanting to be performers but, over the 8 years we've been open, have graduated into a number of different areas as well as performance and following students take note of that pathway. We have had some good success with a course taking students into special needs schools that have ultimately ended up with a number of jobs in the sector. Caitlyn Kamminga, on our faculty, has led this program and more students each year want to be involved so a real momentum has evolved.

Hi Aidan, this sounds wonderful! If you written about the new developments, I would love a copy. Do you know about the CEPROM community? CEPROM is ISME's commission for preparation of the professional musician, and the group focuses on music practice in a very broad sense. I will post below a link to the group including proceedings, which are short papers. And in case you're interested, ISME 2020 is in Helsinki (July) and CEPROM will meet just before that, possibly in something like Estonia. Dawn https://www.isme.org/our-work/commissions-forum/education-professional-musician-commission-ceprom

Thanks for the info which all looks very interesting. I haven't written about our work with special schools myself but colleagues have so I'll ask.

Thanks!

A performer can have more than one profession. For opera singers, available opportunities vs the amount of qualified singers can make it essential to supplement your income in other ways. Each singer has a different journey. I work full time in the technology field and perform locally. The standard blueprint for a career in performance is not always the one readily available, especially to lower income students or young performers first starting out. Young artist programs for example can include an application fee, collaborative pianist fee, air fare, hotel, and transportation to the audition. All of these fees and expenses are for an audition that takes no more than 10 minutes. Often young students apply and pay the application fee, and are not offered an audition. I am happy to see some programs working to change this practice. To give you a few numbers, one program told me that they had one spot open for a soprano, and they received over 900 applications. This is one window into the field, there are other ways to perform but, it gives you an idea of the fierceness of competition for limited positions.

Thanks for the story.

It was great to read an account of a musician's income being derived largely outside music. This is one of the 'successful' outcomes we try to get across to students. Apart from financial considerations, many artists choose non-arts incomes in order not to have the please the market all the time - producing controversial or difficult works that are unlikely to be best sellers. Could you share the company name where there were 900 applications? Did everyone pay an application fee? Are feeds fairly recent? I was never asked to pay a fee, so just wondering. Dawn

I would recommend looking at YAP Tracker for examples of fees. This is a common practice in apprentice artist programs for singers. If you reach out to one of the companies offering positions, I am sure they would share current numbers with you.

Thank you for asking the question. I look forward to your research.

Thanks! I'll do that. Dawn

Hi Dawn, this is a link to an article I wrote for ALT/space, which is a project of the Teaching Artist Journal, a peer reviewed print and online quarterly that serves as a voice, forum and resource for all those teaching their art. It talks about my work collaborating with the Consortium of Disabilities Organization in Trinidad and Tobago. Besides performance, I specialize in service learning. Some of my biggest successes at the Academy for the Performing Arts in Port of Spain, Trinidad have been with students that aren't necessarily suited to the arduous pathway to a career in performance, but love music and want to use their gifts. Caitlyn

http://tajaltspace.com/dreaming-in-technicolor-caitlyn-kamminga/

Dear Caitlyn, thank you so much for sharing this - what a fabulous project! Did you ever meet Chris Gray? He is another bassist and tells a great story about leaving orchestral life. http://www.chrisgrayconductor.co.uk/forthcoming-performances/

Could we include your story in the music career resources? Dawn

Hi Dawn,

I would be happy for you to include my story in your music career resources. I'll look forward to reading/connecting with Chris Gray.

Thanks,

Caitlyn

Hi Jonas and all contributors

I am very interested in this question also. I think we need to obtain prospective data in a systematic way to really understand the career trajectories of young musicians. To this end, I have designed a study and a detailed research questionnaire to be undertaken by tertiary music students with the intention to follow them up at (maybe) two, five, and 10 years, even longer if young researchers come along and pick up the mantle. The project received ethics approval (which has now lapsed), but it would be easy to get it again. The questionnaire may need to be modified to suit different music training institutions in different countries. It has been designed with Australian institutions in mind, but this should not be too difficult. We would need to recruit a large number of tertiary students because of the inevitable drop out (from the study) rate that will inevitably occur with longer follow up periods. I would welcome collaboration on this project from all those who are in contact with tertiary music students.

Please let me know your thoughts on the feasibility of this study as an international enterprise and ability and willingness to participate.

Kind regards

Dianna

Hi Everyone,

This is a terrific idea. Many of us have undertaken small longitudinal studies (we have done a few things in music and dance), but there is a real need for a systematic approach. With the part-inclusion of existing instruments, we may also be able to align existing data with the longitudinal data. There is an ARC in Australia called 'Making music work' (https://makingmusicwork.com.au/) and we are using part of the Creative Workforce Initiative instrument for that survey. It would be really useful to compare instruments as we plan.

I am very interested in this and keen to see what others think. I have attached a chapter (in press) for which we used lifespan perspective theory, which I think could be really useful for a longitudinal study of musicians.

Dawn

Thanks so much for your enthusiastic response, Dawn, and for attaching your chapter, which I will read with interest. I am also attaching a chapter on aging in professional musicians that may interest you. I would be happy for you to be the lead on this project if we can get it up and running. Perhaps we could start with Australian tertiary music students and have a staggered roll-out internationally once all the "bugs" have been ironed out of the methodology etc.

Dianna

Thanks for the paper! At ISPS this year, I convened a symposium titled 'The science of performance careers'. The idea was to bring together researchers from music medicine, education, policy, philosophy and so on. My hope was that we would create some work that looked at performance careers from these multiple perspectives, and we had around 50 people attend. There was an appetite to work collaboratively. As ISPS is in Melbourne next July, I wonder whether this might be an opportunity to meet and think about this some more.

Dawn

I am involved especially on the remuneration end and am particularly interested in how performers are paid for their work and creativity. I can offer both some experience and an open-mind to hear about the work of others.

Thanks, Jim. Do you have any research I could read? Anything longitudinal, and/or from primary datasets? I very much look forward to hearing from you! Dawn

I work with systems that process payments, but I can point you to some basic research and data sets in this area. I've worked with these people and they are very good:

http://money.futureofmusic.org/

It depends on the type of music and where it is performed.

Dear Professor Bennett

I think it could be a considerable approach to quantify the problem using mathematical models. It is really a challenging idea, mostly because of multiple involved variables i.e. the financial issues, the type of music, availability of resources etc. But the model can be used for prediction and also to set the future activities in your area of interest.

I think it requires some pattern-recognition studies to categorize the successful and unsuccessful examples. It helps to adjust the unknown variables of prepared mathematical model. But, to do that, you need some sort of data-sets. Mr. Griffin provides you a piece of this puzzle, you need to find the others and someone to arrange them for you.

Best Regards

Ahmad

Thanks! We are working on some modelling with Ruth Bridgstock as part of our ARC project. It will be interesting to see whether the datasets from @Jim Griffin are applicable and even more interesting if we find that we have comparable data! I'll mention our project lead Brydie-Leigh Bartleet so that she's part of the conversation.

Dawn