It’s a familiar story in creative fields: your passion for music ignites your creativity, but fears of failure, financial pressures, and responsibilities push you toward “safer” degrees.
While some settle for channelling that spark into hobbies, for the restless dreamers who rehearse late into the night or crave deeper musical insights, switching paths isn’t just thrilling; it’s the pull you can no longer ignore.
After finishing his Bachelor’s degree in IT, instrumentalist, composer, and AIM academic Nick Brown knew it was time to dive deeper into music with a Master of Music.
“I’ve always played gigs, performed, and everything else all along throughout my career, but it was just that IT was my formal education,” he shared.
“My dad was a semi-pro musician, and my sister is a musician and a music teacher as well, so I’ve sort of always played and studied music… then I thought about extending some of that knowledge I had for music, and that’s when I realised I could do a post-grad study to get back into it, and that was a huge, exciting change.”
While his previous studies provided solid training and credentials, AIM’s Master of Music took what he loved most and deepened his understanding of it while forging a clear path to a sustainable career.
“From first-hand experience, the more experience you have – the more understanding and the more pedagogy – the more valuable you are to an employer. I see that in second and third year students, when they start to think towards their graduation, ‘This is great, but I know there’s more I can do, and now I’m really starting to understand the possibilities,’ and that’s where a Master’s is the next step.
“Being able to communicate and think at a higher academic level – which I know can get a reputation for sounding a bit hoity toity – but the people you work with in the industry often want to discuss music at a really high level, so being able to understand or interpret ideas and understand those thought processes and terminology is something I wouldn’t be doing had I not done post-grad study.“
This enhanced ability to dissect music didn’t stay theoretical; it fueled Nick’s hands-on transformation at AIM. Suddenly, late-night gigs evolved into structured, practice-led research, where theory met the fretboard in ways he’d never imagined.
“My Master’s really focused on practice-led research, which was great. All the reading and research I did was putting me on paths I hadn’t thought about before, but there were practical aspects to that. Some of the topics I looked at were particular chord changes and forms of music in jazz, specifically in improvisation, so being able to put those into practice was great.“
“I would research and submit papers, but then I was fortunate enough to be able to put those learnings into recitals as well, so everything I was doing, I had to try and practically translate onto the instrument.“
Marrying his theoretical understanding, passion, and practise, the Melbourne-based musician now splits his time as an Academic Lecturer at AIM, freelance composer, and Creative Director of Kickville Productions, with his work appearing both nationally and internationally on major networks including NBC, Roku, BINGE, Stan, SKY UK, ABC, and more.
Nick understands the power of postgraduate music training, but his key advice for those eyeing a career pivot? Make the degree fit your passion, not someone else’s roadmap.
“Without sounding vague, your Master of Music can be anything. My issue was trying to narrow down my topic! You could say, ‘Hey, I like jazz guitar,’ but I had no idea how specific it could be. Finding a gap in the existing research, or finding somewhere where you can do this research and spend the next 20 years of your life on it. If you have a specific interest, that’s the beauty of this degree, that it can be anything you want.“
“When I started my Bachelor’s degree, I wouldn’t have considered myself as the person who would have done further study at all, but it’s not necessarily about being nerdy; it’s about extending yourself and really pushing your abilities... You might feel a bit overwhelmed by your topic, but having great supervisors and peers really helps you get through it, so for me, it was great because it was something I could relate to my instrument and my own playing. I think the fact that nearly anything is possible within that creative realm is really intriguing, and it’s an avenue to pursue whatever you’re most passionate about.
