I sat down in April to talk with Maestro Jacob Joyce, the associate conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, where we talked about:
- The power of networking 💪
- Making a change in your music career (Maestro went from violin to conducting!) 🎻
- Managing studying both music and another degree at the same time (economics and music at Yale!) 📚
- The top things that young musicians can focus on in their career. 🎶
- How Maestro Joyce prepares for important auditions. 🏆
- And much more!
But sometimes, our busy lives do not grant us the time to read a whole 45 minute conversation, so that is why I have created a clip of this conversation here.
In this clip, we cover:
- Switching instruments in the music world (Maestro went from violin to conducting)
- Studying music AND economics at Yale
- Finding and balancing interests outside of music
Let’s get started!
Your host, Eleanor:
Let’s talk a little bit about you studying violin and you studying conducting, because making the change from studying violin at Yale and then conducting seems like a big transition. I mean, for me, I will be making the transition from a long scrape oboe reed to a short scrape oboe reed when I go and study in the UK, but you changed from one instrument to another, completely different position in an orchestra, which is, to me, like a huge transition. So why did you make the switch? And, to anyone listening who might be interested in making a big switch like that, what are some things that you would want to say to them?
Maestro Jacob Joyce
So the reason why I ultimately made the switch was because I felt for a number of years before I actually fully made the switch that I was really interested in conducting and, like the you know, when I started violin when I was a very little kid, I had this passion for violin where it was the thing that really felt like, you know, my, the thing that I loved most in the world to do, and I was motivated to practice and I listened to a lot of music, especially violin playing, and you know, I had that fascination and curiosity that you associate with being really passionate about something. And at some point in high school around then it kind of evolved for me to feeling that way about conducting, or at least about orchestral repertoire. And so I got really interested in orchestral repertoire and the idea of conducting and, uh, and once you have that bug or that itch, I think it’s very you know, it’s like anyone who wants to follow their passion. If you really, uh, feel strongly about it and you don’t want to be denied the opportunity to do that, then you know you really feel like you need to go for it. And so I think the thing that gave me the confidence to really make a switch, which was, admittedly, a very big switch and a big gamble on my future and my future in the music world was the fact that I really felt like I would be unhappy or unfulfilled if I didn’t fully go for it, because this is what I really really wanted to do.
And even when you have that feeling, I think it takes a lot of confidence to fully pull the trigger and, you know, say I’m going to make this switch and, as a result, I kind of eased into it.
You know, I kept playing violin and I think I wouldn’t ever encourage someone to just cold turkey, completely alter their career path. If there’s a lot of uncertainty there you’re really you’re really passionate about and you you really want to go for and you feel like you have that drive and that ability to outwork everybody else because you, you just love it so much, then I am a firm believer that it’s it’s worth it to to take that leap and and try to try to make a big switch like that if it’s, if it’s the right thing for you. I think you know that what’s important is that you really have to feel like you couldn’t do anything else, because you need that kind of fire to encourage you to keep working, keep practicing, keep studying, so that you can always be on the very top of your game yeah, that makes a lot of sense, especially when you were talking about you needing to feel like, if you didn’t make the switch, you would feel like you’re missing out on something.
Your host, Eleanor
I definitely feel that way in terms of long scrape reads and short scrape reads. I’m currently playing a long scrape reed and I will be transitioning, and when I was trying to make that decision, that definitely came into play. I was like, if I stay on the long scrape, I don’t, I’ll feel like I’m going to miss out on the short scrape, and so that is part of the reason why I’ve decided to make the switch. So, yeah, that’s really, really, really interesting. Talking a little more about university, and that time you were also studying economics as well as music, and when I read that about you, I was like whoa, I had absolutely no idea. So why did you decide to study both music and then something outside of music, and how has studying economics informed your music career throughout your life?
Maestro Jacob Joyce
You know, I think the main reason that I studied econ particularly was just that I had a real secondary interest in it. I took a lot of classes my first year and I was curious to see what I would actually be interested in, and I particularly enjoyed my, my economics classes. And so then for me it was a. It was, uh, I was more motivated to try to, to try to get some proficiency in something other than music and take some higher level classes, uh, that that demanded a little bit more specialized knowledge. I had the opportunity to because I was majoring in music. I didn’t have to progress far in any other field in college to complete a major, and so I could have just taken a lot of introductory courses, and sometimes I wish I had done a little bit more of that. But I do think, you know, there was something about economics and working hard, just like I had been trained since I was a young kid in the music world to work at something for an extended period of time and hone a craft. I kind of wanted to do that with some some academic discipline, and so I, you know, I did that with econ. But I will say, um, I don’t know, you know, I don’t know how much my econ per se has has informed my, my musical career, but I do think that, more broadly, studying something other than music and really just being academically curious and motivated and continuing to read and learn, that is something that has, I think, benefited me enormously.
I find it, I think it’s a really important element of being a well-rounded musician, a well-rounded colleague, a collaborator.
You know, in conducting particularly but this is true for all musicians there’s a lot of interpersonal skills, managerial skills, social skills, and not just kind of social skills in the more colloquial sense, but kind of sociological skills that you really need to have.
And so I think having thought critically and having the ability to think critically and having developed that in some academic discipline outside of music is really horizon broadening and gives you a better platform to to navigate what is going to be a very multi-faceted career, regardless of of what you do in music. And so I think that’s for me that’s been uh, really valuable as well, just just not so much maybe econ per se, but the fact that I continue to study, continue to read, and you know I do, I do so today, I I recently have been kind of more interested in English and and literature and and and reading, catching up on some reading that I feel like I I missed in in my college days and and you know, I feel like that that benefits me in in some way. I’m not sure exactly how to to quantify it, but just continuing to to be curious, I think, is something that is, is it really has helped my music making yeah, yeah, that’s really interesting, especially staying curious and focusing on something outside of music.
Your host, Eleanor
I feel like a lot of, I guess, the vibe or the feeling about if you’re going to study music, you have to study music and music is your whole life, and if you have any interests outside of music, then you’re a bad musician, and I feel like a lot of people might think about that, but it’s definitely not true. Like we’re just humans and we’re people and and we’re interested in things, and music is one of them and that’s what we want to make our career out of. But it’s perfectly fine to to be interested in something else. Um, I think one of the things that maybe student musicians who are thinking about maybe studying music as well as something else one of the things that they might be thinking about is can I take on that load? Because music is a lot, but then adding something else completely different is also a lot. So, to any of the listeners who might be feeling that way or might be thinking about making that choice, but they’re still kind of a little unsure, do you have anything to say to them?
Maestro Jacob Joyce
Yeah, you know, I think the most important thing, it’s really important. I think what you said about the vibe around musicians not having to focus exclusively on music, I think that’s totally misguided, and so if people feel that way, it’s important to not succumb to that kind of peer pressure or whatever it might be. I think it is really important in your kind of formative years if you want a career in classical music and especially in performance. It’s true, and it’s always going to be a truism of the classical music world that you’re going to have to practice a lot and really achieve a high level of technical and musical proficiency, and so to get a job, it is true that you just have to put in a lot of time and you have to work at your craft to really get good at. You know just the fundamentals that I think people don’t really stress enough you have to be able to play in tune, you have to play with a good sound, you have to be able to technically execute passages, um, that are required of your instrument, and so those things.
you know that takes a lot of time and and a lot of practice that being said, I think you know, I think one of the biggest, biggest issues for young musicians is that they don’t practice particularly efficiently, and so I never understood personally.
I mean, I know everyone’s a little bit different and you know people take different amounts of time to learn things, but I personally did not practice four hours a day consistently ever it’s. It didn’t feel to me like that was even valuable and that I was getting good returns on my time. What I did was that I would practice an hour and a half a day maybe, um, but I actually had a really clear plan every day that I practiced of what I wanted to do to get better, and it wasn’t just going through the motions or playing stuff. I wanted to see by the end of the hour and a half that I had really that was like worth my time. I hadn’t just four hours in a practice room and I had improved in some very tangible way, and so I do think I practiced comparatively very efficiently and that gave me some extra time to do all this other stuff
I think that more musicians have that ability, then then maybe they give themselves credit. For you know, I think if, if you can, you don’t want to be hard on yourself, but you just want to look, um, look at your practice sessions really objectively and say am I really maximizing the use of my own time and there are areas that you can expedite the process, or you’re focusing too much on things that are really not helping you with those fundamentals of? Am I just getting better at my instrument? Then maybe it’s it’s worth reworking a little bit because, uh, you want that time to do other things
If you enjoyed this short snippet, let me know in the comments!
All my best,
Eleanor
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