Music majors with a performance emphasis develop skills that enrich their lives, like serving the church and community or entering graduate study at major universities throughout the country. A graduate degree in performance may lead to a career as a professional musician. It may also prepare you for a career of teaching music at the college or university level. If you wish to be a musicologist, ethnomusicologist, composer, or college professor in music history or theory, then an undergraduate emphasis in music history or music theory may be for you, laying the groundwork for graduate school. The most prestigious graduate schools in the country have welcomed music graduates from Goshen College into their programs.
Most pianists teach the instrument as some part of their career.
The courses in the piano-pedagogy emphasis develop the skills necessary for you to teach in your own home studio or in a wide variety of educational institutions. The course work focuses on ways in which children learn, developing a course of study for students at all ages and advancement levels and selecting the best available teaching materials. In this emphasis, you learn through practical experience by teaching young children in the Piano Preparatory Program under faculty supervision. Church music emphasis The Goshen College Music Department prepares church musicians by developing skills in singing, piano and organ playing and conducting. Topics course in Church Music explores the function of music in the worship setting from the Biblical and contemporary perspectives.