With all respect Sam, I feel you're missing a crucial thing here: It's not us failing them, it's an ultra capitalist system that in itself is hostile to the arts.
The system in this country is not designed to support the arts, with extremely few grants available and an increasingly hostile attitude towards creativity by corporate capitalism. If rents and housing are unaffordable (thanks to private equity and a ballooning housing market), artists have just as hard of a time surviving as any other people in the service industry. If artists' incomes are squeezed by corporations like the streaming (and now also AI) industry, revenues that used to go to artists are now going to share holders and big corporations. If art school tuitions were reasonable (state funded education!), and student loans affordable (not 7% interest rates) then graduates would not have the financial burden they now have. The entertainment industry (the bigger the audience, the more $$) is a bit different, because capitalism is friendly to that.
In the 1940s -'60s in NYC rents were very affordable, and jazz musicians would play 15 gigs a week and tour nationally and internationally and make a decent living. Musicians could get a 6-month engagement in a club, 4 nights a week, 2 sets, club owner's rents were affordable too. Musicians did not need to have a non-music related side gig. That gave them room to sleep and practice during the day, to develop their music, which was one of the reasons jazz was blossoming in those days.
In other western countries there are subsidies for the arts and for performance spaces, there is affordable housing for artists, and tuition is free or very low, in comparison to the US. That completely changes the equation. I speak from experience: in the 1980s and 90s in my hometown Amsterdam there was a flourishing scene with plenty of state supported clubs in the country, a state subsidy system for the arts (including supplements to your fee for every jazz gig), a conservatory tuition of $500 a year, state student financing was party a gift, partly a loan (I had only $2000 or so student loan debt in my case) and my rent was $250 (public rent controlled housing). I was surviving comfortably as a musician, supplemented by 1.5 days of teaching. It was the system that made that possible.
This is about political choices that a society makes, not a problem of the schools, which are doing plenty to support student's entrepreneurial skills. The problem is affordability.
Thanks so much for your very insightful and beautifully stated response. And yes, I’m 100% on board with everything you named. It’s unfortunate that we’re now speaking about many of these things in the past tense, especially the affordability of simply being an artist and surviving through music alone.
Part of the reason I even wrote the piece is because I understand exactly what you’re describing. My point is that this is no longer the environment most young musicians are inheriting after graduation. Yet many institutions still educate students as though that older ecosystem still exists.
The current model simply is not set up for the reality students are walking into. We can absolutely acknowledge the larger structural issues—corporate capitalism, the collapse of affordable housing, the funneling of revenue away from artists and toward massive corporations, the shrinking economic value of recorded music, the impact of streaming and now AI. All of that is real. I don’t disagree with any of it.
But unfortunately, we also cannot build educational models around a world that no longer exists.
Technology can absolutely widen participation and access. More people can create, distribute, and be heard than ever before. But in terms of sustainable income, we continue to watch money that once reached artists get absorbed by larger systems and platforms.
So I think the conversation now has to shift from nostalgia to preparation. Rather than continuing to frame the old ecosystem as the implied destination, we need to say plainly: this is the current landscape. Given that reality, how do er prepare students accordingly?
My parents figured this out in 1978 when I got accepted into a then fledgling but now famous music school. Thankfully I went into computing/tech. In my mid 20s, had the good fortune to spend some time with the great bassist Abraham Laboriel who had done many clinics at that very same school. He said in his beautiful compassionate voice "Brian, your parents were very wise not sending you to that school".
Oh come on. Do you really think the students are so clueless? Do any of them seriously believe there are tons of jobs out there for musicians?
All through their childhoods they took lessons from talented musicians who exemplified what their career path was likely to be. Mozart himself gave lessons.
For too many, a performance degree is just that—a performance!
On the one hand, it offers a kind of freedom from the usual transactional expectations of schooling—and it could be better leveraged. On the other hand, it leaves people exquisitely trained for when they're onstage and structurally underprepared offstage. We end up producing artists who can execute at a very high level, but who were never given the serious economic tools needed to build a life. At some point, the answer is not demanding that school do more of what it structurally cannot, but passing the baton to the right kinds of real-world mentors once school is over.
In 2026, music degree will no longer be one of the few degrees with low ROI. Degrees with low ROI will be close to the majority of majors, and I hate to tell you this, but the collapse of university degrees has begun slowly already. Due to AI changing the landscape of knowledge, intelligence and learning, and frankly, almost all aspects of human flourishing. I think it's time to start rethinking college degrees in general, and beyond. We have to start asking harder questions. How should the human species live without "having a job," and still wake up in the morning to something meaningful in life. And when we think about our existence and meanings, we musicians are actually the luckier ones. Love, Meg
Yeah, I think you’re right. We do need to start rethinking college degrees in general, and what having a “job” even looks like going forward. By the time our daughter gets to college, I honestly have no idea what kind of world she’ll be stepping into. And I’m not convinced it’ll be one where a degree is the answer.
As for musicians being the lucky ones, I get that in terms of purpose. But when it comes to knowing how to keep the landlord off our backs, I’m not so sure.
As jazz musicians, we have an at least limited advantage over, say, classical musicians. Classical musicians are taught to conform to the status quo with all of its inadequacies and limitations--e.g., aspiring to compete (with 200 other players) for that eighteenth second-violin chair in the Podunk Symphony. Jazz musicians are taught to improvise, and that includes improvising a career. To varying extents, I've been a professional jazz musician since 1970, and I've earned a living as a reed player, composer-arranger, bandleader, jazz historian/writer, record and radio producer, and educator. And there were some day gigs in there as well. I've always managed to pay the bills, and as a freelancer I've learned the advantages of not having a single tyrant dangling the sword of Damocles over my head. (In my early 20s, I had a day gig for two years; it was the most miserable two years of my life.) The employment terrain keeps shifting, as it has for hundreds of years, and as always, musicians need to keep adapting--keeping our ears to the ground for existing opportunities, and creating new ones to make use of our unique skills. And yes, Sam, having a built-in teaching certification is a partial solution. Though truth be told, I've taught over 1000 students in 4 major collegiate jazz programs for 35 years--with nothing more than a B.A. in English. (The late pianist and L.A. studio mainstay Mike Melvoin's degree was the same as mine--we bonded over this--and Dave Liebman's is in American history.). Welcome to my world. It ain't for everyone, but it's worked out okay for me.
It is true that there were musicians like yourself who taught in higher education without a terminal degree, but the bar has been raised. Many institutions now require a PhD or DMA. I also think you inherited a jazz world where people didn’t expect everything for free. Yes, gigs could always pay more, but many today pay close to nothing—at least in certain scenes.
I agree with everything you say above, but to expand a little bit....
It's true that many institutions, especially state, now require advanced degrees--
many of my contemporaries and I were lucky to get involved in jazz education when life experience was sufficient to open doors. But as one of them, who has major performance credits and went to the effort to get a master's in jazz studies, remarked, "Many of the schools that demand the most degree 'credentials' are ones that can be found only on satellite surveillance photos."
And alas, many gigs today DO pay next to nothing. But that's nothing new, and why teaching became more and more attractive beginning a few decades ago. As I'm sure you know, a few of the heaviest-hitters make the big gig bucks, and the next rungs down on the financial ladder pay significantly less. So as I tell students, piecing together a career now more than ever requires dipping into several wells.
I don’t know enough to know what the real roots of the issue are and I think this can help people have a healthier discussion about expectations and results.
I think many undergrads in many fields struggle to level up in their field and understand how to get a job, while in other fields school is more of a track straight into professions. I imagine music schools exist that focus more on job placement?
I think at the masters level a student should be able to provide real value in their field and be pretty competitive when seeking a job.
Yeah, Joel, I think having a master’s definitely makes a difference, even in music. It can make a student more competitive in the job market. And you’re right, a lot of undergraduate degrees don’t carry as much weight on their own. It’s usually at the master’s or PhD level where things start to open up a bit more.
But even then, there’s still a gap between what skills actually translate into real income. For some reason, with music, that connection just feels a lot less clear.
My undergrad was in religious studies. I was really into it and a professor I enjoyed sat me down and was like, you could do this, you could get a masters and PhD, but only a handful of universities even have religious studies departments and the people there rarely turnover. And there’s no private sector work for people with religious studies degrees… so don’t expect a job.
And that’s partly why I got a masters in business, because everything is a business, even non profits, and it’s a degree with immense flexibility or the ability to work in any industry… I even worked for a short time advising bands in Australia about reducing the time, cost and risk of getting into the US market… and got myself to SxSW a couple times… but that’s a giant tangent.
On the business side- it makes me think there is a big opportunity for someone (or some university) to create a music school which both teaches music and teaches one to have a career in the industry. The industry is probably getting assaulted by AI and it will still need people to do all the production, marketing, management, booking, etc etc that we as consumers just take for granted.
I'm very curious to see how AI will factor into things. It hasn't really been an issue where I teach. But I'm sure it's a major topic of discussion in instiutions like Berklee.
I just want to thank you for speaking about it. Most of the learned and highly skilled musicians I know teach, at university level or somewhere within a system. Many understand the problem you’re outlining, but are afraid to rattle the cage, or bite the hand that feeds them. You cannot fix a problem that nobody wants to talk about.
It’s understandable why most don’t talk about it. When it requires a major overhaul of a system, it usually brings more work and headaches than people signed up for. But many are more focused on protecting the sanctity of an outdated model of music education. Thanks for reading.
I think it’s admirable and a solid practical goal to have some type of structure with a hiring pipeline, licensing accreditation or something comparable as part of college and university music degrees. However, the floor is always shifting. What might seem like a practical career path changes with technology. Was it reasonable to expect students 40 years ago to understand the some to be realized changes in computer sequencing, workstations, and iPods? I also think that Meg is correct, AI it’s going to have major consequences on ROI for university degrees.
It is true that whatever is in place to help students navigate the current music landscape will need to remain open to revision. As we all know, technology is restless. But I think this is miles ahead of sweeping it under the rug and leaving it for the next shift to clean up.
I have long felt that collegiate music programs should be required to include at least one course on business skills in the music industry. Hell, all arts programs in general should respect their students enough to provide these tools before graduation.
Many do require a semester of music business, but the material is often outdated. It’s geared toward an industry that existed before digital downloads, streaming, and social media.
Great writing, as usual. Graduates from even the top music programs struggle to make a living performing artistically satisfying music. There are simply more schools producing more graduates than there are jobs to support them. A teaching certificate is one solution, but not every performance major wants to teach, especially in a primary or secondary school setting.
I agree with you completely that students’ expectations should align with reality. I graduated with an English degree. Neither I nor most of my classmates expected to make a living as an author. We knew our degrees were a kind of luxury. We expected that we’d have to do something else. Music students, especially those who are not in a top tier program, should probably approach their performance degrees with the same realistic expectations. They should know that even with an advanced degree or teaching certificate, they could end up teaching middle school orchestra part time, unable to repay their student loans. They should also know that because of the discipline, creativity and work ethic they acquired while pursuing their performance degrees, they are equipped to pursue professional studies in business, law, and many other well paying careers. Their teachers would have to let them know from the outset that the vast majority of them won’t be able to make a living performing artistically satisfying jazz. And that their day gigs, even in the music field, won’t leave them with a whole lot of time and energy to devote to their art.
It’s akin to collegiate sports, where the athletes know that only a tiny percentage will succeed in professional sports. But the devotion and sacrifice are still worth it.
With all respect Sam, I feel you're missing a crucial thing here: It's not us failing them, it's an ultra capitalist system that in itself is hostile to the arts.
The system in this country is not designed to support the arts, with extremely few grants available and an increasingly hostile attitude towards creativity by corporate capitalism. If rents and housing are unaffordable (thanks to private equity and a ballooning housing market), artists have just as hard of a time surviving as any other people in the service industry. If artists' incomes are squeezed by corporations like the streaming (and now also AI) industry, revenues that used to go to artists are now going to share holders and big corporations. If art school tuitions were reasonable (state funded education!), and student loans affordable (not 7% interest rates) then graduates would not have the financial burden they now have. The entertainment industry (the bigger the audience, the more $$) is a bit different, because capitalism is friendly to that.
In the 1940s -'60s in NYC rents were very affordable, and jazz musicians would play 15 gigs a week and tour nationally and internationally and make a decent living. Musicians could get a 6-month engagement in a club, 4 nights a week, 2 sets, club owner's rents were affordable too. Musicians did not need to have a non-music related side gig. That gave them room to sleep and practice during the day, to develop their music, which was one of the reasons jazz was blossoming in those days.
In other western countries there are subsidies for the arts and for performance spaces, there is affordable housing for artists, and tuition is free or very low, in comparison to the US. That completely changes the equation. I speak from experience: in the 1980s and 90s in my hometown Amsterdam there was a flourishing scene with plenty of state supported clubs in the country, a state subsidy system for the arts (including supplements to your fee for every jazz gig), a conservatory tuition of $500 a year, state student financing was party a gift, partly a loan (I had only $2000 or so student loan debt in my case) and my rent was $250 (public rent controlled housing). I was surviving comfortably as a musician, supplemented by 1.5 days of teaching. It was the system that made that possible.
This is about political choices that a society makes, not a problem of the schools, which are doing plenty to support student's entrepreneurial skills. The problem is affordability.
Thanks so much for your very insightful and beautifully stated response. And yes, I’m 100% on board with everything you named. It’s unfortunate that we’re now speaking about many of these things in the past tense, especially the affordability of simply being an artist and surviving through music alone.
Part of the reason I even wrote the piece is because I understand exactly what you’re describing. My point is that this is no longer the environment most young musicians are inheriting after graduation. Yet many institutions still educate students as though that older ecosystem still exists.
The current model simply is not set up for the reality students are walking into. We can absolutely acknowledge the larger structural issues—corporate capitalism, the collapse of affordable housing, the funneling of revenue away from artists and toward massive corporations, the shrinking economic value of recorded music, the impact of streaming and now AI. All of that is real. I don’t disagree with any of it.
But unfortunately, we also cannot build educational models around a world that no longer exists.
Technology can absolutely widen participation and access. More people can create, distribute, and be heard than ever before. But in terms of sustainable income, we continue to watch money that once reached artists get absorbed by larger systems and platforms.
So I think the conversation now has to shift from nostalgia to preparation. Rather than continuing to frame the old ecosystem as the implied destination, we need to say plainly: this is the current landscape. Given that reality, how do er prepare students accordingly?
That, to me, is the real challenge.
My parents figured this out in 1978 when I got accepted into a then fledgling but now famous music school. Thankfully I went into computing/tech. In my mid 20s, had the good fortune to spend some time with the great bassist Abraham Laboriel who had done many clinics at that very same school. He said in his beautiful compassionate voice "Brian, your parents were very wise not sending you to that school".
Nice to hear that it worked for you. But I do feel it’s a pink elepahnt in the room that many choose to pretend is not there. Which I understand.
Thankfully, as a retired software geek, I continue learning music purely out of love for it!
Much respect to true artists like you Sam!
Thanks, Brian. I appreciate the kind words. And glad to hear that your love for the music has not lessened.
Is this B Bowman, San Francisco, Guitar Solo, Bay Area musician?
... Different Brian Bowman. Not the famous euphonium player either. Just a retired tech geek with love for classical and jazz guitar.
Oh come on. Do you really think the students are so clueless? Do any of them seriously believe there are tons of jobs out there for musicians?
All through their childhoods they took lessons from talented musicians who exemplified what their career path was likely to be. Mozart himself gave lessons.
A very good and thoughtful piece, Mr. Newsome.
Is this B Bowman, San Francisco, Guitar Solo, Bay Area musician?
Truth be told, Sam
For too many, a performance degree is just that—a performance!
On the one hand, it offers a kind of freedom from the usual transactional expectations of schooling—and it could be better leveraged. On the other hand, it leaves people exquisitely trained for when they're onstage and structurally underprepared offstage. We end up producing artists who can execute at a very high level, but who were never given the serious economic tools needed to build a life. At some point, the answer is not demanding that school do more of what it structurally cannot, but passing the baton to the right kinds of real-world mentors once school is over.
In 2026, music degree will no longer be one of the few degrees with low ROI. Degrees with low ROI will be close to the majority of majors, and I hate to tell you this, but the collapse of university degrees has begun slowly already. Due to AI changing the landscape of knowledge, intelligence and learning, and frankly, almost all aspects of human flourishing. I think it's time to start rethinking college degrees in general, and beyond. We have to start asking harder questions. How should the human species live without "having a job," and still wake up in the morning to something meaningful in life. And when we think about our existence and meanings, we musicians are actually the luckier ones. Love, Meg
Yeah, I think you’re right. We do need to start rethinking college degrees in general, and what having a “job” even looks like going forward. By the time our daughter gets to college, I honestly have no idea what kind of world she’ll be stepping into. And I’m not convinced it’ll be one where a degree is the answer.
As for musicians being the lucky ones, I get that in terms of purpose. But when it comes to knowing how to keep the landlord off our backs, I’m not so sure.
Landlords off our backs? Who’s talking? 😂
As jazz musicians, we have an at least limited advantage over, say, classical musicians. Classical musicians are taught to conform to the status quo with all of its inadequacies and limitations--e.g., aspiring to compete (with 200 other players) for that eighteenth second-violin chair in the Podunk Symphony. Jazz musicians are taught to improvise, and that includes improvising a career. To varying extents, I've been a professional jazz musician since 1970, and I've earned a living as a reed player, composer-arranger, bandleader, jazz historian/writer, record and radio producer, and educator. And there were some day gigs in there as well. I've always managed to pay the bills, and as a freelancer I've learned the advantages of not having a single tyrant dangling the sword of Damocles over my head. (In my early 20s, I had a day gig for two years; it was the most miserable two years of my life.) The employment terrain keeps shifting, as it has for hundreds of years, and as always, musicians need to keep adapting--keeping our ears to the ground for existing opportunities, and creating new ones to make use of our unique skills. And yes, Sam, having a built-in teaching certification is a partial solution. Though truth be told, I've taught over 1000 students in 4 major collegiate jazz programs for 35 years--with nothing more than a B.A. in English. (The late pianist and L.A. studio mainstay Mike Melvoin's degree was the same as mine--we bonded over this--and Dave Liebman's is in American history.). Welcome to my world. It ain't for everyone, but it's worked out okay for me.
It is true that there were musicians like yourself who taught in higher education without a terminal degree, but the bar has been raised. Many institutions now require a PhD or DMA. I also think you inherited a jazz world where people didn’t expect everything for free. Yes, gigs could always pay more, but many today pay close to nothing—at least in certain scenes.
I agree with everything you say above, but to expand a little bit....
It's true that many institutions, especially state, now require advanced degrees--
many of my contemporaries and I were lucky to get involved in jazz education when life experience was sufficient to open doors. But as one of them, who has major performance credits and went to the effort to get a master's in jazz studies, remarked, "Many of the schools that demand the most degree 'credentials' are ones that can be found only on satellite surveillance photos."
And alas, many gigs today DO pay next to nothing. But that's nothing new, and why teaching became more and more attractive beginning a few decades ago. As I'm sure you know, a few of the heaviest-hitters make the big gig bucks, and the next rungs down on the financial ladder pay significantly less. So as I tell students, piecing together a career now more than ever requires dipping into several wells.
I don’t know enough to know what the real roots of the issue are and I think this can help people have a healthier discussion about expectations and results.
I think many undergrads in many fields struggle to level up in their field and understand how to get a job, while in other fields school is more of a track straight into professions. I imagine music schools exist that focus more on job placement?
I think at the masters level a student should be able to provide real value in their field and be pretty competitive when seeking a job.
Yeah, Joel, I think having a master’s definitely makes a difference, even in music. It can make a student more competitive in the job market. And you’re right, a lot of undergraduate degrees don’t carry as much weight on their own. It’s usually at the master’s or PhD level where things start to open up a bit more.
But even then, there’s still a gap between what skills actually translate into real income. For some reason, with music, that connection just feels a lot less clear.
My undergrad was in religious studies. I was really into it and a professor I enjoyed sat me down and was like, you could do this, you could get a masters and PhD, but only a handful of universities even have religious studies departments and the people there rarely turnover. And there’s no private sector work for people with religious studies degrees… so don’t expect a job.
And that’s partly why I got a masters in business, because everything is a business, even non profits, and it’s a degree with immense flexibility or the ability to work in any industry… I even worked for a short time advising bands in Australia about reducing the time, cost and risk of getting into the US market… and got myself to SxSW a couple times… but that’s a giant tangent.
On the business side- it makes me think there is a big opportunity for someone (or some university) to create a music school which both teaches music and teaches one to have a career in the industry. The industry is probably getting assaulted by AI and it will still need people to do all the production, marketing, management, booking, etc etc that we as consumers just take for granted.
I'm very curious to see how AI will factor into things. It hasn't really been an issue where I teach. But I'm sure it's a major topic of discussion in instiutions like Berklee.
I just want to thank you for speaking about it. Most of the learned and highly skilled musicians I know teach, at university level or somewhere within a system. Many understand the problem you’re outlining, but are afraid to rattle the cage, or bite the hand that feeds them. You cannot fix a problem that nobody wants to talk about.
It’s understandable why most don’t talk about it. When it requires a major overhaul of a system, it usually brings more work and headaches than people signed up for. But many are more focused on protecting the sanctity of an outdated model of music education. Thanks for reading.
I think it’s admirable and a solid practical goal to have some type of structure with a hiring pipeline, licensing accreditation or something comparable as part of college and university music degrees. However, the floor is always shifting. What might seem like a practical career path changes with technology. Was it reasonable to expect students 40 years ago to understand the some to be realized changes in computer sequencing, workstations, and iPods? I also think that Meg is correct, AI it’s going to have major consequences on ROI for university degrees.
It is true that whatever is in place to help students navigate the current music landscape will need to remain open to revision. As we all know, technology is restless. But I think this is miles ahead of sweeping it under the rug and leaving it for the next shift to clean up.
I have long felt that collegiate music programs should be required to include at least one course on business skills in the music industry. Hell, all arts programs in general should respect their students enough to provide these tools before graduation.
Many do require a semester of music business, but the material is often outdated. It’s geared toward an industry that existed before digital downloads, streaming, and social media.
Great writing, as usual. Graduates from even the top music programs struggle to make a living performing artistically satisfying music. There are simply more schools producing more graduates than there are jobs to support them. A teaching certificate is one solution, but not every performance major wants to teach, especially in a primary or secondary school setting.
I agree with you completely that students’ expectations should align with reality. I graduated with an English degree. Neither I nor most of my classmates expected to make a living as an author. We knew our degrees were a kind of luxury. We expected that we’d have to do something else. Music students, especially those who are not in a top tier program, should probably approach their performance degrees with the same realistic expectations. They should know that even with an advanced degree or teaching certificate, they could end up teaching middle school orchestra part time, unable to repay their student loans. They should also know that because of the discipline, creativity and work ethic they acquired while pursuing their performance degrees, they are equipped to pursue professional studies in business, law, and many other well paying careers. Their teachers would have to let them know from the outset that the vast majority of them won’t be able to make a living performing artistically satisfying jazz. And that their day gigs, even in the music field, won’t leave them with a whole lot of time and energy to devote to their art.
It’s akin to collegiate sports, where the athletes know that only a tiny percentage will succeed in professional sports. But the devotion and sacrifice are still worth it.