Conclusions

    Clearly, I can make no claims that these data have any support for my original hypothesis of more career satisfaction among performer-pedagogues.  Even though this is a sample of teaching musicians, their overall job satisfaction reported at the time of the survey was quite a bit lower than the mean from previous research, in some part accounted for by the context surrounding the survey.  However, this study has raised a different, unexpected set of questions.

Given the enormous role that pedagogy plays in the scope of these musicians’ careers, my attention turns to the total absence (seven people reported none) or lack of training they had in this area.  Of the interview volunteers, all of them had pursued graduate study in performance, and all but one had received a master’s degree.  None of them had more than a single one-year class of pedagogy training, and of those who did, they did not remember, value, or otherwise emphasize how that training had affected their teaching.  

    What they did mention in nearly every case was the role their teachers and mentors played in their musical development.  Several of the people I interviewed grew up in environments where music was distinctly present, and all of them spoke of how their primary teachers had affected their musical growth in positive or negative ways.

    When one takes into consideration the recommendations they made for training young people who desire to become orchestra musicians, the unanimous response was the importance of the teacher with whom that student studies and the student’s commitment to this domain.  Eight of them in some way stressed the role that competition plays in acquiring a job, and that it is very important for young people to have a fair idea of how hard it will be to earn a living as a musician. Though all of them have made ends meet by teaching, in most cases for several years, none of them specifically cited pedagogy training in their recommendations for young people training for careers as orchestra musicians.  Is the teach-the-way-you-were-taught method sufficient?  As a point of departure, is there nothing for musicians to learn from current research in lifespan development, the uses of technology for education, or theories of cognition that warrant attention in the domain of music training?  Is the competition so great that the thought of an even higher level of achievement too frightening?  Would these pursuits be only a distraction to the artistic commitment musicians make?  Consider the unanimous response to the question regarding whether what they learned from teaching affected their own performance. Not only did it affect their performance, but each person mentioned specific ways in which their teaching improved their playing.  These questions are real and I think warrant at least some attention.

Further investigation into the avenues of effective teacher training and its presence or absence at the university level is a safe recommendation.  Is this group commensurate with those in other locations and levels of orchestras?  Are the ten graduate level music programs represented by this sample offering better opportunities or more emphasis on pedagogy now than when these alumni were students?  Is there a need for change within the community of Western classical music?

As seems to be the case in my limited experience with research, this study leaves me with many more questions than I have answered.  The possibility also exists that this sample is much too limited to represent any trend in the musical domain, but the role of pedagogy in the life of a performing musician may be yet more prevalent than I had even dreamed.  

Thank you to Erin Lehman and Richard Hackman for providing materials from their study of symphony orchestras.