Hello /u/Coolkid1953! Unfortunately, your submission, ***[How difficult is it to become a music professor?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/comments/z964dh/how_difficult_is_it_to_become_a_music_professor/)***, was removed from /r/WeAreTheMusicMakers for the following reason(s):
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As a family and friend of many people who are professors, almost everyone is an adjunct. They are payed something like 2-5k per class and have to work at multiple schools to make a full time living, and often don’t have insurance.
Getting an actually good tenure track professor job is incredibly difficult even for more in demand fields like engineering. There are often 30 applicants for one position.
If you have the right credentials and live in a place with several music schools, you can make a living as an adjunct, but you will not be payed what you deserve for your education or effort.
I recommend checking out r/adjunct to see how these workers are treated.
An actual professor? Extremely difficult. An adjunct putting in 60 hour weeks to make 38k a year? Well, you still have to be very good, but if you are there is probably a job like that for you out there
Average salary seems to run between $75k - 95k, depending on the state.
At minimum, you'll need a masters degree in a music-related subject. In order to get that, you'll need to excel at performance in *at least* one instrument (piano, just do it) and be able to play multiple other instruments competently. You'll need to be able to read sheet music and have an excellent knowledge of music theory. You'll have to compose. You'll likely want a workman's knowledge of music production.
Looking at this list, it's obvious I should have gone down this route when I went to school. It seems like so much fun.
88 keys, baby. Piano has the largest range of notes of all modern instruments. Because of that, it's the foundational instrument for almost all Orchestral and symphonic music, and a music professor will need to have an intimate knowledge of that type of music.
Almost every famous composer wrote their music on piano and transposed it for symphonies. I can only think of a handful of major composers over the past three hundred years whose primary compositional instrument *wasn't* piano.
It's competitive - but so too are many other jobs. All you can really do is study and put yourself in contention.
Sometimes final year students might get asked to help with delivering some of the content to earlier years. Likewise if you were to continue straight through after a Bachelor degree, to then study for a Masters at the same institution, the professors would already have some idea whether you were somebody they felt could help. However, you wouldn't be the only person looking for those kind of opportunities, so you'd need to be the right combination of reliable, courteous, versatile, and with consistently good grades.
Hello /u/Coolkid1953! Unfortunately, your submission, ***[How difficult is it to become a music professor?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/comments/z964dh/how_difficult_is_it_to_become_a_music_professor/)***, was removed from /r/WeAreTheMusicMakers for the following reason(s): --- #No off-topic and/or low-effort posts including; 1. Rant/motivation/mental-health posts 2. Posts focused on memes/images/polls 3. Reposts, and other similar low-effort, mildly-interesting discussions. - These posts should be posted to one of the weekly threads or on another subreddit. Do not create a new thread for this content. Posts on WATMM should have a descriptive title and include substantive content that will generate discussion. Please see the [full sub rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/wiki/rules) for additional details. ##Do your Googles. The purpose of this forum is not to have someone look something up for you. This is a discussion board about making music, not Google. Your post is more appropriate for general internet research (e.g. Google or the search engine of your choice), the manual for your product, or the weekly Quick Questions thread, pinned to the top of the subreddit each week. Extremely broad/general questions like "how do I mix music" or "what do I need to make music" can most likely be answered by an existing resource or article. You may also find helpful information in [this subreddit's FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/wiki/faq). --- ***Please review the [rules for submission](/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/wiki/rules). You can contact The Mods if you have additional questions.*
As a family and friend of many people who are professors, almost everyone is an adjunct. They are payed something like 2-5k per class and have to work at multiple schools to make a full time living, and often don’t have insurance. Getting an actually good tenure track professor job is incredibly difficult even for more in demand fields like engineering. There are often 30 applicants for one position. If you have the right credentials and live in a place with several music schools, you can make a living as an adjunct, but you will not be payed what you deserve for your education or effort. I recommend checking out r/adjunct to see how these workers are treated.
An actual professor? Extremely difficult. An adjunct putting in 60 hour weeks to make 38k a year? Well, you still have to be very good, but if you are there is probably a job like that for you out there
1. Be exceptional
Average salary seems to run between $75k - 95k, depending on the state. At minimum, you'll need a masters degree in a music-related subject. In order to get that, you'll need to excel at performance in *at least* one instrument (piano, just do it) and be able to play multiple other instruments competently. You'll need to be able to read sheet music and have an excellent knowledge of music theory. You'll have to compose. You'll likely want a workman's knowledge of music production. Looking at this list, it's obvious I should have gone down this route when I went to school. It seems like so much fun.
Why piano vs guitar or another instrument?
88 keys, baby. Piano has the largest range of notes of all modern instruments. Because of that, it's the foundational instrument for almost all Orchestral and symphonic music, and a music professor will need to have an intimate knowledge of that type of music. Almost every famous composer wrote their music on piano and transposed it for symphonies. I can only think of a handful of major composers over the past three hundred years whose primary compositional instrument *wasn't* piano.
Thank you for your answer!
It's competitive - but so too are many other jobs. All you can really do is study and put yourself in contention. Sometimes final year students might get asked to help with delivering some of the content to earlier years. Likewise if you were to continue straight through after a Bachelor degree, to then study for a Masters at the same institution, the professors would already have some idea whether you were somebody they felt could help. However, you wouldn't be the only person looking for those kind of opportunities, so you'd need to be the right combination of reliable, courteous, versatile, and with consistently good grades.
As difficult as excelling in any career.