usic school teaches more than just spelling chords, singing, playing an instrument or performance etiquette. While those skills are among the ones learned by musicians, other very valuable skills are also taught..

What You Will Learn

Time Management

A music degree requires the ability to manage time effectively. It has been estimated that musicians are second only to medical doctors in the amount of time they spend training for their careers. In addition to a full course load of academic classes, the music student must also budget time for ensembles and rehearsals, practice (several hours every day), homework and leisure.

Music students tend to be among the busiest on any college campus. Very few of them do only the minimum requirements for graduation. Most seek out opportunities to perform and to play, as well as to attend concerts, recitals, and master classes. While one might expect a busy music student's grades to suffer, this is usually not the case. Most music schools report grade point averages significantly higher than that of the general student body of their parent institution. Music students learn early in their collegiate careers that time management is a necessary tool which they need to learn.

Analytical thought

Successful musicians possess the abilities to view or listen to a piece of music, evaluate it and make explanations or suggestions for improvement. From music theory to critical listening, a musician must learn to view music as both a whole and as a series of component parts. This skill transfers well to the ability to write, read critically, analyze media and solve problems.

Imagine, for example, that you are practicing a piece of music and you come across a difficult passage. In order to master that passage, you need to identify the problem, break it down into its component parts, determine a practice strategy and work on those parts individually. After practicing those components, you must then reassemble the pieces to create the musical whole once again. Likewise, an attorney must be able to break apart a legal problem into discreet arguments, perfect each argument and then present the case again as a unified whole.

Self-Motivation

The musician must be a self-motivator, willing to push himself or herself to learn and to improve daily. Most learning in music school takes place outside of the classroom or the lesson. It occurs during practice and rehearsal. As a music student, you will learn to set goals for improvement and to push yourself toward achieving these goals. This is a skill highly valued by most employers.

Personal interaction and communication

Although Musicians spend much of their playing time practicing alone, very little music is ever performed by one person. Most pieces require an interaction between or among two or more musicians. As a result, you will learn how to interact successfully with others in order to produce an effective performance. You will need to learn the most efficient methods of expressing your musical ideas to others so that you use rehearsal time well. There are very few jobs in which some form of interaction and communication with others is not required.

Self-confidence and awareness

As a musician, you will be performing. Performance requires self-confidence. You will be presenting your interpretation of a work of art for others to hear and to evaluate. You will learn strategies to handle the pressures of performance, thereby becoming an expert at stress management