I wasn't going to say anything on the value of these courses, but hey...
10 years ago there weren't many courses about, 15 years ago there weren't any...in the mean time hundreds of ex-players, engineers and producers have turned to teaching music and music technology, fuelled by the fact that a lot of young people want to make music, and parents are happy for them to pursue their interests.
The problem is there's very little work out there, and what work there is tends to be low paid. The last 15 years have seen a shift from live musicians to synths, from large scale to small scale studios. The technology has changed – the tape op, the old first job after tea boy, isn’t needed in a digital age. The work has changed too - gone are the record companies who would develop a band and pay for studio time, gone are a lot of the bands who want a demo as most people have a PC that is capable at home. (most of the studios I've worked in recently have been getting more work from companies like Alpine doing the voiceovers for sat nav systems...not music!).
So the education system is churning out musicians and engineers who have nowhere to go. I was lucky and fell into education after a stint as a touring sound engineer, but my BA in Popular Music Studies is only worth anything because it has the University of Leeds on the top. Still, and like many graduates of all disciplines, I would have to seek further training to find a different career.
The old school History/English/science degrees have the best success, as they open up many career paths, but do you want to study them?? The problem with media studies in particular is, if you want to work in media a degree in History of English is a much better option! Music tech, if you’re willing to work for probably nothing (although I do know one guy from the year above myself who earned £80k on his last contract…) or go into teaching, then pop music studies/tech is fine. Plain vanilla music degrees are a good option, as long as they come from a good university they are valued in the real world to get onto graduate training programmes.
I’d be very careful of selecting BTEC, a lot of Russell Group universities won’t even entertain you if you have a BTEC, despite the fact they are supposed to be worth the same as A-Levels. Try an A-level in Music Technology instead.
Rant mode off….
