Career

From The Savvy Musician: military gigs and the saxophonist

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Dr. David Cutler’s The Savvy Musician blog is worth checking out for high-quality career tips.

In a recent post, he discusses careers as a military musician. A couple of highlights for the woodwind-inclined:

With the possible exception of saxophonists and euphoniumists, few musicians dream of a military career. Yet this path can provide a dependable income, solid benefits, and varied opportunities.

This no doubt refers to the problem of “classically-trained” saxophonists with shiny new BM degrees and no gigs. Symphony orchestras, if you haven’t noticed, don’t hire full-time saxophonists. Military bands are about the only regular “classical” saxophone performing gig out there.

The best candidates are solid and versatile players who read well and are comfortable with number of styles. Doubling on multiple instruments (i.e. a saxophonist who plays flute and clarinet) is also highly desirable.

Even in military bands, the most employable saxophonists are the ones with doubling skills and stylistic versatility (for saxophonists, read: “jazz/rock chops”).

Read the whole thing

Why musicians cost money

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I very much appreciate this brief article by trumpet player Jeff Purtle: Why Do Musicians Charge? [Edit: article no longer exists, but see the video in Mr. Purtle’s comment below.] Mr. Purtle makes the point that it costs a lot of money to be a musician. This is painfully true for woodwind doublers, who need not only a large number of high-quality instruments, but also reeds, maintenance and repairs, insurance, stands, cases, and more for each instrument, not to mention the cost of lessons or even college or conservatory study.

I think the overhead costs of being an instrumentalist are a really important and valid point. But I do think are some more reasons why musicians should expect to be compensated fairly for what they do:

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University woodwinds job postings, 6/6/08

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Another national search for a full-time professor of multiple woodwinds has been announced. This makes the third one in a week’s time!

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University woodwinds job postings, 5/30/08

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Being a doctoral student in multiple woodwinds performance, I like to keep an eye on the job listings for university faculty positions that involve teaching multiple woodwind instruments. There usually aren’t many, at least not many that involve a national search. But two positions were posted to HigherEdJobs.com this morning:

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