A degree in early music?

A few weeks back this article made the rounds on social media. It raises some really excellent points and questions that anyone getting ready to apply for school should consider and is honest about the state of the professional world right now.

HOWEVER, there is a lot more to this question than simply “do you have to get a degree in Early Music (or “historical performance”) to be a singer who specializes in that?.

Like many other career paths, there are ways around getting a degree. Practical experience goes a long way, and those who are focused and dedicated can make up for a lack of schooling with self-directed learning and non-degree opportunities (training programs, apprenticeships, pure luck, etc.). These different paths all teach one how to do something.

The thing that a degree can do (and should do, but that’s a different issue) is teach one WHY things are done that way. A degree can provide the understanding behind the performance practice - it’s one thing to learn how to ornament Monteverdi by listening to recordings or having a director/conductor tell you what they want. It’s something else to have read the treatises (and know which treatises to read) and understand which types of ornaments should be used not just for Monteverdi, but for different Italian composers from different regions of Italy in different time periods.

To switch fields, it’s like the difference between learning how to code versus having a computer science degree. Many people can learn to be very good at coding - there are a lot of opportunities to develop that skill. But a degree in computer science gives you a more solid foundation in not only how to code, but how different programming languages work and why they function that way, thus allowing you to quickly pick up most any language you need alongside a much broader base of understanding beyond just “how to code”.

The same is true in Early Music. Singers can learn to ornament or to sing in the proper style without a degree. But sometimes, the best and most fulfilling opportunities come to those who don’t have to be given explicit instruction every time. Already having the knowledge can provide an advantage (not to mention the networking with peers and instructors that comes from a degree program). There’s a larger discussion that needs to happen, primarily with directors and contractors, around not settling for singers who don’t know the style - it happened with instrumentalists and it’s time for it to happen with singers. This is the heart of the “historical performance” movement anyway - not all music should sound the same, so why settle for singers who don’t know how to sing the style especially when there are so many excellent singers now who DO have this knowledge and experience (degree or not)?

Do you have to have a degree? No.
But is there value in having one? Absolutely.

Parsons Nunc Dimittis

Robert Parsons is best known for his setting of the Ave Maria (mainly because it was included in the Oxford Book of Tudor Anthems). But he was much more than a one-hit wonder! Here's a beautiful setting of the Nunc Dimittis from his First (or "Great") Service.

Purcell's Rondeau

One theme, many points of recognition! Early Music people recognize this as the Rondeau from the incidental music Purcell wrote for the play Abdelazer. Modern orchestral players know it as the theme from Benjamin Britten's "A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra". (Theater people know Abdelazer as one of the works of Aphra Behn, one of the first English women to earn a living by her writing, but they may or may not know the suite by Purcell...)