Artist Revenue Streams

Going to Music School

Posted on January 12th, 2012 by Jean Cook in What We're Learning. 4 Comments

The FMC team spent some time with the Network of Music Career Development Officers at their annual meeting on Thursday, January 11, 2012 at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City.  Here are some slides from our presentation, which look at some of the survey results with respect to conservatory and music school graduates.

In this presentation we looked at the characteristics of the 2,728 musicians and composers who said they graduated from a conservatory of music school.  The top regions for this group were New York, Boston, Washington DC, Long Beach/LA, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Detroit, Madison, Minneapolis, Nashville, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth and Rochester.

View ARS survey: conservatory graduates in a full screen map

We found that music school or conservatory graduates were more likely to be earning more, working more, and were more likely to have a graduate degree.

This revenue pie aggregates the income of 2,728 respondents.  This group is more likely to teach, be a salaried player in an orchestra or ensemble, or perform live than non-graduates of conservatories or music schools.

Conservatory or music school graduates are more likely to teach than people who did not attend conservatory or music school.  61 percent of music school graduates report having teaching income, compared to 35 percent of those who did not attend music school.  Here is more on where these musicians teach, when they do.
We also spent quite a bit of time looking at the case studies we’ve been developing for this project.  The ARS Case Studies look at actual verifiable financials for real musicians, composers and groups and go into fascinating detail.  We’re still a couple months away from finishing the case studies and releasing them publicly, but you see a sneak preview of a draft of a Jazz composer-performer-bandleader on NPR’s A Blog Supreme here.



4 Responses to “Going to Music School”

  1. How much money do jazz musicians make? | Rob Bennion says:
    February 19, 2012 at 5:42 pm

    [...] I also found this study which shows that of the $25-40k a jazz musician is making, only 20% of that money comes from live performances, the rest coming from teaching, salaries, and session work:   http://money.futureofmusic.org/going-to-music-school/ [...]

  2. Do Jazz Musicians Really Earn $23,300 Per Year? | Drum Groove Trainer News says:
    February 29, 2012 at 10:30 pm

    [...] gives some data for the entire project’s 5,371 respondents. And the correlation of attending music school and income — much bandied-about in this age of jazz history — is also [...]

  3. #Fact: Music School Grads Earn More as Artists « Get to the Music says:
    March 6, 2012 at 8:08 am

    [...] degree from a music school like LA Music Academy (LAMA) is more important than ever. According to a new article in the money section of FutureofMusic.org, going to Music School shows an impact on artists’ [...]

  4. Future of Music Coalition Releases ‘Money from Music’ Results | Music That Resonates says:
    March 19, 2012 at 9:35 am

    [...] Results with respect to attending music school [...]

Artist Revenue Streams is a multi-method, cross-genre examination of how US-based musicians’ revenue streams are changing, and why. This site is the home of our project’s releases and findings. We will issue multiple reports and presentations here from January 2012-June 2013.