What Can You Do with a Music Degree?

I want to be a rock drummer!

I remember being in middle school, jamming on my crappy drum set at all hours of the day. I spent hours and hours working on the usual drum fare at that time, including Tone Loc's Wild Thing (boom-chik-boomboom-chik-boomboom-chick.."Wild thing") and Wipeout, all under my happening New Kids on the Block poster. I figured I was going to be an amazing rock drummer someday.

Practicing eight hours a day.

Sometime after my eighth grade year I decided that I wanted to become a professional concert percussionist. In fact, I decided I wanted to be the first female percussionist in the Boston Pops. That summer before high school, I spent close to eight hours a day rolling on my snare drum, crashing cymbals, practicing timpani on a set of bar stools, and striking the triangle just so to Smetana's Moldau. When high school started, I managed to practice at least three to four hours during the school day, trying to perfect my percussion chops. To be honest, I was a total snot, interrupting classes with my marimba playing and loudly drumming on my sneakers when my biology teacher wouldn't let me escape to the band room.

College Life Decisions

By the time I was finishing my bachelor degree in music, I had transferred schools, changed majors from percussion performance to composition, and was looking towards a master's in fine arts in new media. Of course, being on the five year program by now, I found myself scrounging to pay for that final year of school by working as a music teacher at an at-risk elementary school, a science demonstrator at the Museum of Science and Industry, and even as a preschool teacher at a high-end early childhood academy.

Then my abuelo (grandfather) died, I moved back home, and I found that although I had been a very prolific composer in school and had graduated cum laude, my only job prospects were a short stint as a portrait photographer and a computer specialist at Kinko's. Yes, Kinko's.

A Master's in Music Technology

At the University of South Florida, I had been very involved in SYCOM, an avant-garde experimental group of musicians and artists whose main goal in life seemed to be freaking out the audiences that were crazy enough to attend our insane concerts. In all the madness, I fell in love with music technology. Finding out that nearby Florida International University had a new Master's in Music Technology, I contacted an old friend to meet Dr. Kristine H. Burns, head of FIU's Electronic Music Studio. Soon I was earning my Master's in Music Technology, teaching a class at the university, writing new works, meeting amazing musicians, and I even had an internship in New York.

Wedding Bells

Shortly before leaving for New York, I met up with Mr. Right. (Ironic, since by that point, I had decided that I was going to live my life alone like the Simpson's crazy cat lady). I decided to stay in South Florida, got married, and spent three years working with the ArtREACH program, an arts program for homeless children in South Florida run by the Young at Art Children's Museum and the School Board of Broward County.

And Life Goes On...

About two years ago my husband took a new job in Western Kentucky. Yes, a big change for this South Florida chica. I began teaching electronic music at the local university while earning money through music grants, commissions, and my writing. My compositions have been performed throughout Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia, I have a small studio of composition students, I am actively involved in the local art guild, I blog and write music for international corporations, and overall, lead a very happy, and fulfilling life.

So, no, I never became that awesome rock drummer or the first female percussionist in the Boston Pops, but I jam on the congas every week with some local musicians, and maybe someday I will win the Pulitzer Prize in Music. But until then, I will just enjoy this symphony we call life.