From music student to professional: the process of transition

TABLE 2 HERE

Shortage of time for practising was found to be a feature of the lives of many
professional musicians: “I practise as much as I can, as time will allow... I can cut
corners... But really, I’m always short of time ” (Classical, portfolio musician).
Donna, a professional classical singer, described how she felt when faced with
insufficient time to prepare: “I always feel like I’ve kind of short-changed the music.”
The strong message from all of the musicians was that practising continued to be a
foundation stone of musical development throughout higher education and beyond;
some of the undergraduates recognized that finding time to practice, post-graduation,
could pose problems: “I think making time to practice will be a big one - it seems
hard now, but actually it's not at all” (Classical, undergraduate).

Self-doubt: Although the theme of self-doubt was found to be less prominent in the
accounts of popular musicians it was clearly perceived to be an important issue for
musicians from all genres (Table 3).

TABLE 3 HERE

Doubt as to whether one could live up to one’s own expectations as a performer, as
well as the expectations of audiences, was articulated several times. Henry, a classical
musician who had branched out into popular genres, described how the performance
stakes continued to rise:

“As you get older it gets a bit more serious somehow and those performances
start becoming more anxiety ridden rather than just purely for pleasure. You
think, „I’ve got to go out there and perform to a certain standard’.”
(Portfolio musician)

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