Pathways to Becoming a Church Musician

Abstract

This article is the second in our series on dimensions of the social world of church musicians. For the current analysis of how people first become church musicians, we draw on data from in-depth interviews with 47 church musicians conducted by the three authors. The respondents ranged in age from 18 to 71 years (mean age 43.8 years). There were 19 women and 28 men interviewed. Keyboard players, vocalists, guitarists (acoustic and electric), bass players, drummers, a flautist, and a choir director were interviewed. Results indicate the importance of both early and ongoing socialization in the process of becoming a church musician. Our respondents took a variety of pathways to becoming church musicians, including having parents who were church musicians, regularly attending church services during childhood, and receiving early musical and/or vocal training. Our results also indicate the functioning of three enabling mechanisms—being authority directed, volunteering, and being recruited/invited—that determine the likelihood of an individual becoming a church musician as a child, as an adolescent, or as an adult.