For some people, music is something to put in the background when working. It’s a pleasant noise to fill the silence. However, for others, music is more than that. For many students at Missouri State University, music is another language; and they don’t just listen to music, they speak it- with their voice, hands and heart. Music can allow people to express feelings that words alone can’t say. Pursuing music as a career may not be easy. From stacks of sheet music to hours of practice, music is a passion that may take time, dedication and discipline. At MSU, many students work towards music degrees and take classes that help them grow their talents.
Sophomore Kadin Smith is working on getting her major in vocal music education,
“I love the emotion that you can put behind [music],” Smith said. “There’s a lot of songs that you can find really deep meanings to and you can put your emotion into that.”
Sophomore Chris Meyers plays the flute as part of his Musical Education degree. Meyers has been at MSU for a year and a half but has wanted to be involved with music since 8th grade.
“I love it here, Missouri State is a really good music education school,” Meyer said. “MSU has helped me grow my passion for music by challenging me as a musician, giving me a wide variety of different pieces that I can play and express my musicality. So it’s been really helpful with opening my horizons to different types of music.”
Students at MSU have learned that improving their talents takes time, work, and dedication. Smith said that part of staying dedicated is making sure everything gets done, even when time is tight.
“Make sure that you’re getting all of your schoolwork done, your homework [and] especially all of your music things, because those are the most important classes that you’re going to take.” Smith said, “And also just finding time to practice, knowing your music, working really hard in your lessons, and also outside of your lessons, is really important.”
With dedication comes struggles and slumps. However, there are many ways to come out of this slump using the same passion and dedication as before.
“One thing that has helped me come out of slumps is just to go on Tiktok and find pieces that I want to learn,” Meyer said. “I’ll find a fun piece of music that I want to learn to play on my flute, and we’ll just do that for a little bit, take a little mental break, and then I’ll get right back into it. I’ll also chunk certain parts of my music that are hard and work that up slowly with a metronome to get out of that slope.”
Harboring a student’s growth can require some work. Director of Secondary Education and Professor of Music, Andrew Homburg said that for the arts the passion among students can benefit their development as musicians.
“For music teaching, we’re really we’re lucky here, our students come in really passionate about it already, but to grow that passion, I try to create opportunities and environments where they can talk about that passion, where they can share where, interesting things have happened to them, where they can go and work with teachers who are really passionate about doing this for other students and then take on that passion that the teachers they work with have,” Homburg said.
In a job that can sometimes offer more variety than what some people think keeping a level head and pushing through stacks of paperwork can be essential in bettering a career.
“This job requires other things than just making music. It requires paperwork and meeting with people and other things that aren’t musical. Maybe it was a little easier when I was teaching in public school to dedicate or to do it every day like I don’t necessarily make music every day, but I stay dedicated.”
The culture of somewhere can help bring out and spark more passion within a dedicated student.
“I would just say the culture,” Senior Instrumental Music Education Major Jack Morgan said. “Everybody’s always trying to have a good performance, and we’re full of a lot of people. Especially the marching band [which] has a bunch of DCI [Drums Corp International] members… There’s a kind of caliber of performance expected that is not the case at other places.”
For Homburg, his dedication to music sparked from a chemistry major that didn’t quite fit right.
“My freshman year of college, I was studying chemistry, but I was still singing in the choir and playing in the band, and we went on a choir tour to Sweden, and I just loved all the churches we sang in and the experience in general. And I was not loving chemistry labs. It just wasn’t my thing.” Homburg said. “And so I decided to switch my major and book my life here.”
Most careers take time and work, and the same goes for a music degree, but Morgan said that a music career is worth the effort.
“Even creative pursuits that are just for fun, any progress requires a level of dedication, and that’s easily revealed when you study music,” Morgan said.
