ABSTRACT
Music is a key sector of the cultural and creative industries as defined by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS 1998). Overall, the music industry is very well researched both in relation to its economic-business dynamics in the private commercial sector (Lorenzen and Frederiksen 2005) and its cost characteristics as a public good within the arts economy literature (Frey 1994). Whether looking at the private commercial sector or the public, a key essential component of all socio-and economic analysis of the sector is related to the role of musicians and their creative work and careers (Bennett 2008; Hracs 2009). While this chapter does not adopt a network-based methodology, it is strongly related to other work in this book, as it explores the initial steps in music careers and music productions which are often at the base of future creative networks. Within this broader field of research, this chapter is specifically interested in exploring the dynamics and characteristics of early career musicians, specifically the ones who recently graduated with music degrees from UK universities. There has been a growing number of works on musicians’ careers; most of them concentrate on specific patterns and aspects of music career structures of people who are already musicians. However less is known about the early steps of musicians, specifically in relation to how music careers start (Bennett 2007). While we acknowledge that many successful musicians are not university graduates, this chapter focuses on music graduates and their career perspectives, using data collected from the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA). Therefore, the chapter considers specifically the role played by a higher education degree in initiating and supporting the careers of aspiring musicians. Following earlier work (Comunian et al. 2010, 2011; Faggian et al. 2013) linking higher education degrees in creative subjects to career perspectives, this contribution aims to specifically explore the relationship between music graduates and their careers also in the broader framework of the creative economy. Many authors highlight the importance of networks in artists’ (Comunian 2012) and musicians’ careers; it is therefore important to take a step back and reflect on when and where these network start and develop. The role played by education in starting and nurturing these networks needs to receive further exploration. The chapter is articulated as follows: the next section introduces the literature and previous research in the field. We then briefly describe the data
and methodology used in this research. The following sections present the results from the short-term perspective of six months after graduation and explore the longitudinal data. Finally, we discuss the findings, conclude and present further possible future research avenues.
