Never underestimate a music student. An education in music equips graduates not only with artistic skill, but with the professional prowess needed for work in any number of fields.
Trained musicians are all around, even represented in industries one may not expect. Amateur doctors’ orchestras can be found in several major North American cities including Montreal, which is home to the I Medici di McGill Orchestra, made up of physicians, medical students, and medical researchers. Medical schools like Memorial University of Newfoundland have a disproportionate number of students with formal backgrounds in music. Many of history’s most famous musicians — George Frideric Handel, Igor Stravinsky and Andrea Bocelli, to name a few — studied law or worked as lawyers. Top politicians, business moguls, and journalists such as Condoleezza Rice (66th United States Secretary of State), James Wolfensohn (former World Bank president), and Paula Zahn (news anchor) all have formal musical training. Clearly, musicians hold a key to success, but why?
A music graduate’s ability to perform is their most obvious transferable skill. Most careers require performance of some kind, whether that is a lawyer speaking in court, an entrepreneur delivering a pitch to a board, or a teacher delivering a lesson at the front of the classroom. The United States’ National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 73% of Americans are affected by anxiety about public speaking. Music students, however, have a unique advantage: they perform (and therefore face performance anxiety) on a frequent basis, allowing them to develop strategies to handle the nerves that come with being in front of an audience, whether playing a piano sonata, singing an opera aria or simply speaking. Michael Flanders, ophthalmologist and flutist in the I Medici orchestra agrees: “I think [music] teaches you how to perform. It teaches you how to deal with stress.”
Musicians must be disciplined to achieve success. At McGill, ranked Canada’s top university for performing arts in 2020 in the QS World University Rankings, it is recommended that in the first semester of a Bachelor of Music, vocal performance, orchestral instruments, and jazz majors enroll in eight courses. Compared to a typical university baccalaureate degree in which a student usually enrolls in four or five courses, a McGill music student’s workload is daunting. In addition, a 2019 study published in Royal Society Open Science found that top ranked violinists had practiced 11,000 hours by age 20 — if each started practicing seriously at age ten, that adds up to three hours of practice per day. The time management skills required to balance a hefty course load with practice time — along with the self-directed learning that takes place during those many hours of practice — outfits music graduates with the rigour to succeed in any profession.
Of course, musicians are more than disciplined, violin-wielding robots; they are creatives. In the American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics, Lisa M. Wong, pediatrician, Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and musician details the accomplishments of some of history’s most famous musician-physicians. She explains their achievements in these terms: “Creativity coupled with dedication to excellence and lifelong commitment to practice is a formula for success in many vocations.” In 2019, LinkedIn crowned creativity as the top soft skill that organizations seek out in their employees. Over several decades of research, neuroscientists have found that musicians have an enhanced ability to creatively solve problems in both social and academic settings. This stems from the increased volume and activity they demonstrate in the brain’s corpus callosum, which connects the right (creative) and left (linguistic/mathematical) hemispheres of the brain. Musicians also possess a strong knack for creative expression, which they cultivate through performance. This ability is made all the more impressive when one considers how instrumentalists must convey emotion without the aid of words and vocalists must move audiences when singing in foreign languages. Musicians’ creative thinking in both problem solving and communicating makes them excellent fits for the wealth of organizations which prioritize creativity in their employees.
Those who have received a music education are proven to have stronger overall cognition than non-musicians. They have higher levels of executive function, helping them outperform in a variety of tasks, including planning, strategizing, and attention to detail. They also have improved memories and it has been shown that studying music can even be beneficial to those with learning disorders. Musicians are giving their brains a total workout on a regular basis, making them sharp and effectual team members.
Music students are training to be professionals from the moment their studies begin. In such a small and competitive industry, they understand the importance of networking and recognize that they are forming essential professional relationships in every classroom, chamber ensemble, donor reception, and extracurricular gig. When a tenor-in-training steps onto the stage, he is cognizant that an unsuccessful performance is a disappointment endured in front of an audience of colleagues and potential employers. He takes on a level of personal responsibility for his own work that is not found in many other areas of study. In this, a degree in music blurs the line between work and education, providing those who undertake it with the incomparable experience of being a professional long before they have even graduated.
The reality is that, especially in the post-COVID economy, many music graduates will be forced to take their valuable transferable skills — discipline, time management, coolness under pressure, creativity, problem solving, cognitive ability, physical dexterity, communication, and more — and apply them to careers beyond their field of study. A study published in August 2020 by American think tank Brookings estimates that 50% of performing and fine arts jobs in the US will be lost as a result of the pandemic. While the arts industry awaits much-needed funding from the government (funding which many justifiably fear will not come in sufficient quantity), businesses would benefit from considering a musician as their next hire.