The Light at the End of the Tunnel

For many of us, our years of higher education are coming to an end. After semesters of work and hours of practice, we are soon to be masters of music. We have spent this semester looking towards the future of classical music, we have discussed and debated many points of view with a healthy dose of zeal because this isn't just a hypothetical future, this is our future. The future that is soon to become our present.

What can we take away from all that we have explored? What lessons can be applied as we take our first tottering steps out of the know into the unknown? Though it may sound cliché, my biggest take away from this class is that the future will be what we make. It is both exciting and daunting to discover that the world that we are about to join on a professional level is in a state of flux. But this is where we can find a certain sense if freedom.

As people are looking for new ideas and new solutions, ways to modernism the classical world, there is new area opening up to us. The marriage between music and technology is no longer only in the hands of people that officially majored in that field, with current advancements with a little know how it is within the reach of you and I.

As Harry Slater wrote in his article Music graduates are more employable than you might think.

"With unique skills and a broad range of graduate jobs on offer, music students have better prospects than people imagine."

I think at least on some level most of us have a fear in the back our minds. We worry that we won't actually be able to make it in the music field. And we wonder how long we will be, pardon my scare quote "starving artists."

But as I read Slater's article I realized how marketable we actually are. Even jobs outside the field of music hire music graduates for their skill sets. Now if you are like me, you really don't want to go into a non- music job upon graduation. However, knowing that I probably could get a job in other fields if it was necessary is completely liberating. I don't have to approach my musical career with any fear. I can create, explore, and discover, taking risks without a fear of failure.

My fellow 2015 graduates, I leave you with a quote, as Ms. Frizzle from the show Magic School Bus,puts it so well. "It's time to take chances,make mistakes and get messy!"

I look forward to meeting you all in the inspiring daylight of our post-Longy lives.

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