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Perhaps you have a musical gift, and your family and friends say you must go to music schools. Maybe your band teacher says you show promise with your instrument. Perhaps, you're dubbed as a great singer. As such, you've practically won every talent competition that you joined. This gives you an idea: I can make a living out of this. So you go on making dreams of being a professional and a popular musician. But you have no proper training; you obviously need a good musical education.

You enroll in a music program-maybe in a university , or maybe one of those pro-music trade schools that practically promises you a job when you're done. Your award? Learning and good grades. Of course, you graduate. The degree or diploma is in your hand.

Now what?

Many music schools fail to teach their students that many of their graduates don't actually get a career in music. Among those who stay in music, can you guess what many of them end up doing with their degree?

The response: teaching music.

That's right; even if a musician finds a paid engagement elsewhere, chances are at some point, that musician will at least supplement his/her income by some form of teaching in music schools. The reason being that many programs forget to train their students to do anything else. Many of them are academically sound, and may even offer good practical advice on job placement. But in reality, most of the job offers in this type of business are not based on talent, but on connections - and the educational systems have not emphasized this. That being said, it is evident that only in the academic community does a music degree hold any bearing. Thus, music school graduates have have depended on teaching when they've been denied with a "real music" job. So rather than turning out fresh musicians for the business, music schools have generated an ingrown cycle where teachers are teaching the students to teach others to teach.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with a career in teaching music; without music teachers, there would eventually be no musicians! But let it be known that this is not what most students expect after graduation. When music graduates end up teaching simply because they can't find work elsewhere, there is a disconnect along in the process. At that point, the educational system is only looking at its own welfare.

These days, serious music students really need an education that is not detached from the "real world." Music schools offering the training within a real-life context, with real-life connections, would erase the gap for musicians-so the only people who end up teaching are the ones who truly want to do so.