I would advise those enrolling in college who have an interest in music to have a double major with accounting or teaching. Esp if you are borrowing money to pay for school.

I certainly hope that the professional musicians won’t go away, but if you read the Times article I linked above, many of the Juilliard grads profiled in it were no longer performing. Some even sold their instruments.

It’s difficult to keep your chops when you don’t have gainful employment in the music field. You’ve got to log a lot of hours of practice time to stay in shape. It’s hard to do that when you work 40+ hours in another field.

And, if the ship isn’t righted, there’s more bad news. As Steve points out in his post, the number of folks who will continue to attend music schools if the number of orchestras dwindles remains a big question mark. While I very much believe in the importance of musical study as part of higher education, it’s going to be increasingly difficult to tell prospective students – and their parents- that it’s wise to invest in an undergraduate or graduate performance degree if things don’t turn around. That’s another whole industry – the music teaching profession – that will be imperiled by the drawdown of orchestras. This affects composers too. How will a college violin professor keep their recital career going, never mind commission new works, if they don’t have adequate teaching income?

While there are some wonderful dedicated instrumentalists who will practice, find other ways to perform, and live the dream no matter what, once the orchestras start folding, it doesn’t bode well for performing standards or the availability of performers.

My advice to young composers is, and will remain, don’t forget to practice your instrument, learn to sing, take conducting lessons, etc. You may need to perform your own music and the music of your colleagues far more often than you at first think!

I just wanted to throw in my perspective on your comment…

I feel like MORE of my music would be getting played if I was more in shape as a performing musician because I’d be performing it myself. I actually wish I had both taken more lessons in grad school and kept in better shape after grad school.

regarding the orchestra musicians: even if the professional orchestras go away the professional musicians will not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/arts/music/12waki.html

Last night, I had a conversation with a young composer in which he told me it was “stupid” for student composers to be required to develop their performance chops. His laptop is enough for him.

Given the indicators above, composers had better get used to being their own best advocates. There will be less professional performers available to play their work in the years to come.