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Teaching multiple instruments in higher education

ByBret Pimentel

My academic credentials in multiple woodwind instruments have served me well so far: I was fortunate to be one among my graduating class who did get a college teaching job right out of school, and it’s a job that happens to be an excellent fit. Part of the reason it’s a great fit is because teaching multiple instruments is what I want to do, at least at this point; sometimes others assume that I’ve taken a multiple-woodwinds job as a stepping stone to something else, but that isn’t the case.

While I thoroughly enjoy the variety in my day (I’m teaching oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone), there are some additional things worth considering if you take on multiple instruments in a collegiate teaching career. For example:

  • Resources allocated per faculty member sometimes get spread extra thin. When I arrived at my new job, I was given a little bit of funding for library acquisitions in my area. If I were teaching a single instrument, my current and future students would have benefited from all that money being spent on items directly relevant to them. Instead, I was able to get only a few items related to each instrument. My students, through no fault of their own, got fewer applicable new library resources.
  • Time also gets spread thin. We recently hosted a high school honor band on our campus as a recruiting event. At one point the visiting students were sent to masterclasses with the professors on their instrument, so I got all the reed players. It’s certainly not impossible to run a worthwhile masterclass in that situation, but the circumstances do complicate things a bit. The same problem exists with studio classes for my college students.
  • Some of the work multiplies. When we hold our ensemble auditions, I select audition excerpts and sightreading material for four instruments instead of one. When it’s time to submit textbook orders to the bookstore, I submit separate requests for each instrument’s separate batch of course numbers.
  • It is common for applied music professors to attend their professional organizations’ conferences annually, and to seek out officer positions in those organizations as a way to enhance their tenure portfolios. I would love to attend the annual conferences of the International Double Reed Society, the International Clarinet Association, and the North American Saxophone Alliance each year, but my limited travel funding and the potential time away from my teaching make this unrealistic. And since I don’t attend any one conference every year, it’s difficult to get taken seriously as an officer candidate.
Photo, Trevor Hempfling Photography
Photo, Trevor Hempfling Photography

Not that I am complaining—I am grateful every day that I get to do what I love for a living, and most of these problems can be mitigated with a little effort and creativity. But I think they are worth knowing about if you see yourself headed for a career in college music teaching.

 

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  • Students and gig pay

    ByBret Pimentel

    Over a year ago I wrote about responding to free or underpaid gig “offers.” A commenter asked a fair question, which has haunted me since:

    I was wondering how much of this still applies when taking on gigs as a student.

    I’ve wrestled with this a bit and I’m not sure I have a real answer, but I do have some thoughts. (As usual, I’m talking here about markets that don’t benefit from a strong union presence, such as most of the USA.)

    For someone hiring musicians for a gig, I don’t see a good reason to consider student status at all. You should hire musicians who can do the job, and should pay them fairly. If they are students, what does that have to do with anything?

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    But the Right Thing to Do seems a little less clear from the student perspective. In a situation where someone is attempting to treat student musicians (or anyone) in an exploitative way, the options are to accept, to attempt to negotiate better terms, or to refuse the gig. The problem is that freelance careers depend heavily on word-of-mouth recommendations, and being “easy to work with” is a prized quality. A student musician trying to get a foothold in the business could hurt his or her cause by complaining about unfair pay, or by staying home instead of playing.

    Student musicians have to find the best balance they can between advocating for fair treatment and going with the flow. It’s not reasonable for the least-experienced musicians to have to navigate such a complicated thing with their careers hanging in the balance, but it’s the way things are.

    Here are some questions you might ask yourself if you’re a student musician and think you’re being undervalued in the professional freelance marketplace:

    • Who else is on the gig? Would this be a genuine opportunity to make some connections and let some other musicians hear what you can do? Are those musicians the kind who might be able to offer you future opportunities in the near term, or are they others who don’t have much of a career yet?
    • Do you have peers who have taken this gig in the past? Did it pay off in terms of “exposure” or future gigs?
    • Is the experience something that would look good on your word-of-mouth “résumé,” or would it be kind of an embarrassment?
    • Do you have a trusted friend or mentor who is more established in the business, who can advise you on this specific situation? The music world is a small one, and someone who knows the local freelance scene might be able to offer some background.

    Be careful of talking yourself into free or below-market gigs because you “just want to play.” That kind of attitude serves you well in school, but not so well when you’re trying to make a living, and it drags down other musicians’ ability to make fair money and pay their bills.

    A parting thought: I certainly did some free and underpaid gigs as a student, and in some cases that may have opened doors to better opportunities. (It’s hard to connect the dots definitively.) But I think those of us who are established as freelancers should be careful about treating unfairness as a “paying dues” rite of passage. Shouldn’t we be using our success to make things better for the next generation of musicians?

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    Advice on multiple-woodwinds graduate degrees and teaching careers

    ByBret Pimentel

    I often have university students bring up the idea of graduate school and a university teaching career, and I have previously given general advice about that.

    Perhaps since my graduate degrees and a teaching career are in multiple woodwinds, my students sometimes wonder if that’s a path they should take. Here are a few thoughts:

    I’ve mentioned previously that, even for talented and hardworking folks, a graduate education is far from a guarantee of employment. Does a multiple-woodwinds degree help? I think it helped me, but I also had some significant luck.

    The year I was on the job market, I applied for a small handful of multiple-woodwinds jobs and got a small handful of interviews. I landed in the job that was the best match. I kept an eye on job listings in subsequent years, and years went by without a single multiple-woodwinds job being listed. If I had graduated a year later than I did, I may well have been unemployed.

    During my job search I also applied for single-instrument teaching jobs, and got zero responses. Having been on the hiring side of things a few times now, I understand why. Faculty jobs get dozens of applicants that need to be narrowed down quickly, and the ones whose qualifications and experience are laser-focused for the job in question rise to the top. Though I felt I had things to offer, my multiple-woodwinds background wasn’t a precise enough fit, and somebody else’s background was.

    So is a multiple-woodwinds education better, employability-wise, than focused study of a single instrument? It’s a calculated gamble. When you’re on the job market there might happen to be a windfall of single-instrument jobs, and if you’ve been focused on multiple woodwinds instead, you may be out of luck. However, there are fewer multiple-woodwinds graduates, so if a multiple-woodwinds-geared job opens, your background might prove very valuable.

    Multiple-woodwinds teaching jobs tend to be common at smaller schools with smaller music departments, and that may or may not affect your decision. I have a mixed but mostly positive relationship with my small-university job. If your heart is set on teaching at a major university, then most of the jobs won’t be multiple-instrument jobs, and your competition will mostly be highly-specialized, highly-focused single-instrument players.

    One other factor to consider is what kind of multiple-woodwinds education you want to get. Do you want to have a “primary” and “secondary” instruments, or study them in an equal way? Do you want to do a masters degree and a doctoral degree both in multiple woodwinds, or one in multiple woodwinds and one in a single instrument? How you focus your studies will affect which theoretical future jobs you will or won’t be a match for. (Each degree program is a little different, so check with the schools you’re interested in to see how their programs are structured.)

    Graduate study in multiple woodwinds can be valuable preparation for a career in higher education, but the job opportunities are limited and hard to predict. I suggest pursuing that path if you have additional reasons or motivations for doing so, like a fascination with the woodwind instruments and woodwind doubling.

  • Listing your woodwind doubles

    ByBret Pimentel

    Here is a question I’ve gotten a few times recently: if you’re a woodwind doubler, and need to list your instruments, in what order do you list them? Here are some options:

    • Use a common “score” order, like: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone. To musically-literate folks this may be the closest thing to a sort of neutral listing, giving no special preference or ranking to the instruments. (But it can of course be misinterpreted.)
    • Use a ranking, such as by which instruments you play best or prefer. If, like me, your ambition is to play your doubles equally well, and to be a hire-able professional on them all, then listing them this way may weaken that impression.
    • Do a hybrid of ranking and score order, such as listing a strongest/primary instrument first, and the rest in score order. That’s my preferred approach for general cases like on my website or business cards. For me, it’s: saxophone, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon. That highlights my strongest instrument (for now, at least), and also puts it out front for jazz, rock, and blues gigs, which make up a substantial part of my freelance career.
    • Tailor the list to the situation. If I’m submitting a brief biography for an appearance at, say, a clarinet conference, I’ll put the clarinet first. That hopefully helps people see me as a member of the group, rather than a visitor.
    • Randomize. For something like a website, it’s relatively simple with a little coding knowledge to use a different order every time, and help prevent yourself from being pigeonholed. You could also randomize photos of yourself holding or playing various instruments, or video or audio recordings. Here’s a simple example.

    To sum up, you’ll have to consider your skills and goals as a doubler, what kind of work you do or want to do, and to whom you’re presenting yourself.

  • University/conservatory degree programs in woodwind doubling

    ByBret Pimentel

    I’ve updated my list of schools with woodwind doubling programs. The current count as of this writing is 5 schools with some kind of bachelor’s degree program, 15 with a master’s program, and 5 with a doctoral program. Read More “University/conservatory degree programs in woodwind doubling”

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    Frequently-asked questions about woodwind doubling, and their unpopular answers

    ByBret Pimentel

    Q. Should I be a woodwind doubler?

    A. In most cases, no. If you already feel driven to do it, and have the time and resources to devote to it, then maybe.

    Q. What’s the trick to getting in enough practice time on all these instruments?

    A. Figure out what to de-prioritize in your life to devote more hours to practicing.

    Q. What’s the trick to affording all these instruments?

    A. Figure out what to de-prioritize in your life to devote more money to instrument purchases.

    Q. What instrument/mouthpiece/etc. should I buy?

    A. The one that you have carefully, methodically selected from among dozens or more high-quality specimens, without blindly following internet recommendations.

    Q. What’s a good mouthpiece, instrument, etc. for a doubler?

    A. Only buy things “for doublers” if you want to sound like a doubler. If you want to sound like, say, a good clarinetist, use what good clarinetists use.

    Q. Which instrument should I learn next?

    A. Whichever motivates you enough to devote the necessary time and money.

    Q. Playing one instrument already means it will be easy to learn another, right?

    A. If your goal is to develop only a superficial command of the instrument, then yes. 

    Q. How do I know when I am “good enough” at an instrument to count it as one of my doubles?

    A. You stop getting fired for how you sound.

    Q. How do I get gigs?

    A. Sound great, behave professionally, and be liked by the right people.

  • Why college music education majors need applied study

    ByBret Pimentel

    Most of my university students are music education majors, with plans to become public school band directors. Their academic schedules are absolutely packed full with core music theory and musicology classes, keyboard proficiency, teaching methods, ensembles, and of course general education requirements. There isn’t room for anything extra. And yet they are required to take “applied” private lessons on their major instrument every semester in residence (on paper, that’s seven semesters, with the eighth being a student teaching assignment; for many students it turns into more semesters than that). At my school, I think the requirements for the music education applied sequence are pretty typical: weekly 1-hour lessons, 12 or more hours of practice per week (that’s my studio requirement for music education students), a scale/arpeggio exam, juried playing exams each semester, and a small juried recital. That’s a pretty serious multi-year commitment for a student who is already swimming in term papers, exams, rehearsals, and probably a part-time job.

    Photo, peffs

    And it’s likely that many of them, once settled into jobs, won’t have much time to spend with their instruments anymore—they will be consumed with the endless details and crises of running a public school band program, and the ensemble itself will become their primary “instrument” for musical expression. Few of them will ever again perform solo repertoire.

    So why put so much emphasis on applied study for music education undergraduates? Is it possible or wise to reduce the individual instrumental study burden? I don’t think so. Read More “Why college music education majors need applied study”

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