20 Musicians Discuss Their College Majors

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Some professional musicians actually studied music in college. But many others chose majors that had nothing to do with their current careers. Either way, it seems that most ended up taking something away from their college experience—whether it was how to perform, cook, secure favors or practice the art of shamanistic ritual.

We spoke with 20 musicians about where they went to college, what they majored in and how they put those educations to use. See how members of OK Go, Suckers, The Mynabirds and other acts remember their post-secondary education.

11. Ben Taylor
JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound

College: Connecticut College, New London, Conn.
Major: Anthropology
Favorite Class: Abstract Math
How have you used your major since graduating college? In a very general sense, Anthro gave me some perspective on how different people live and coexist. It was an Anthropology course where I first heard about “gentrification,” something I became very aware of when I moved to the city and was looking for cheap musician-friendly neighborhoods, and ultimately lead to the writing of “Baltimore is the New Brooklyn.” But to be honest, classes were secondary to everything else I did in college—playing in rock bands, DJing at the campus radio station, running the campus musicians’ co-op, playing in the jazz band, going to shows, etc.

12. Kyle James Hauser

College: Berklee College of Music
Major: Songwriting
Favorite Class: Lyric Writing
How have you used your major since graduating college? As a professional recording artist and teacher, my degree in music has been invaluable to me. It’s informed my playing, writing and teaching in a thorough and elegant way.

13. Mike Deni
Geographer

College: Middlebury College
Major: Creative Writing and English
Favorite Class: The Creative Process
How have you used your major since graduating college? I read everything like a book, including life. College taught me how to do that, how make things into metaphors and find meaning where there are just simple facts. It’s how I enjoy art and thinking and a large part of how I create music.

14. Mieka Pauley

College: Harvard
Major: Biological Anthropology
Favorite Class: Science B-29—Human Behavioral Biology—Nicknamed “Sex”
How have you used your major since graduating college? I have analyzed every party since graduation in a sociological way, and have succeeded because I have science behind me. I am an academic socialite.

15. Taraka Larson
Prince Rama

College: School of the Museum of Fine Arts
Major: Fine Arts
Favorite Class:“Meditations on Violence”
How have you used your major since graduating college? BSing my way through some pseudo-intellectual gallery small talk.

16. Kevin Devine

College: Fordham University, College at Lincoln Center
Major: Creative Writing minor
Favorite Class: Arts Journalism, Writing for Magazines
How have you used your major since graduating college? I did a bit of freelance in the years following and I think I use it when I write songs—the specificity, the inquiry, the self-editor.

17. Anthony da Costa

College: Columbia University (Class of 2013)
Major: Ancient Greek and Roman History
Favorite Class: Greece in the 5th Century BCE . [I have a] classic Oxford-style British professor who stands with one foot on the table and hangs his arm over the podium as he delivers musings on military and cultural history. It was in this class that I learned that the Greeks basically invented the late-night-song hang, aka the symposia. They would drink wine, break out some instruments and sing the songs of the day’s lyric poets, such as we have now in Bob Dylan and Alanis Morissette.
How have you used your major since graduating college? Well, since I haven’t graduated yet, the answer to this question is still to be seen. Despite being a lifetime musician thus far, I didn’t want to attend a conservatory. My friend Jack Hardy told me that as a songwriter I had “spent enough years putting stuff out there” and that it was “time to put some stuff back in,” thus a liberal arts education. Hopefully, it’ll result in some sort of rounding of character and knowledge, or at least a musical version Homer’s Iliad.

18. Mickey Church
White Arrows

College: NYU
Major: Shamanistic Ritual
Favorite Class: Autobiography: The Study of The Self
How have you used your major since graduating college? More often than one would think.

19. Allyson Baker
Dirty Ghosts

College: International Academy of Art and Design in Toronto (has since closed!)
Major: Advertising Design
Favorite Class: Honest to god, the only classes I can even remember were Marketing and Color Theory. Neither of which were faves.
How have you used your major since graduating college? I made a super shoddy wedding invitation for a friend about 10 years ago.

20. Douglas Jenkins
Portland Cello Project

Colleges: University of Oregon, University of Hawaii, Lewis and Clark College
Major: English with honors from the UO, never finished my music degree at UH, and a Masters of Education in Teaching from L&C
Favorite Class: So many—one semester grad seminar reading all of Finnegan’s Wake? A close reading of St Augustine’s Confessions with James Earl? That Astronomy 101 class that was all slide-shows where I caught up on sleep? My independent study of Berg’s Wozzeck that I somehow got English credit for? Ah—Linguistics 101 classes maybe? Some of my writing classes at L&C were amazing—one [in] particular with Tom Romano.

How have you used your major since graduating college? I use my English Degree all the time—communicating clearly through writing is a huge part of the music business (all business I’m sure). I actually think an English Degree might be the most practical degree, perhaps after business, for most careers. From writing concisely, informed, humorous things on Twitter and Facebook to writing press releases, one-sheets, newsletters to the fan email list, and doing email interviews… I find myself working on my writing skills daily.

And my Masters in Ed… ha! Yes, it was very practical. I wouldn’t be in PDX without it to start. I was living in France and teaching on an [expired] visa, which the government found out about and then sent me home. I applied to Lewis and Clark because I thought Portland would be cool, and they accepted me at the last minute before I was essentially kicked out of Europe after living there for a year. I was broke so I needed to get into a college in the states so I could get financial aid to survive and put a deposit down on an apartment, etc.

After getting the teaching degree, it got me stable jobs. It helped pay the bills through the first couple of PCP records before we signed to KRS! Without the money from that teaching job and investing in the Cello Project in the early days, the group would not exist. I guess you could say, Portland Public Schools is part of the foundation of Portland Cello Project!

Ironically, I’ve used the music major the most and the least. There was so much jumping through hoops and learning music theory and arranging in ways that would have been a million times more practical (and quicker to learn) if they were taught more creatively. My true arrangement education came in my first 200 arrangements for the Cello Project and its various orchestral instruments—just studying other scores thinking, “Oh yeah, I want that Rimsky-Korsakov texture here, and that Tchaik scale pattern sound thing there, and those Dvorak sixths in the winds there.” Lots of trial and error… my cello professors were all great though. I learned technical things from them that are absolutely essential to what I do on stage. I hope when they see me play they don’t feel like they wasted their time!