For liberal arts majors, their academic experiences can separate a hobby from a profession.

Marci K and Lesa Terry, who have both studied ethnomusicolgy at UCLA, are getting the most out of their Bruin beginnings. 24-year-old K (a stage name short for Katznelson) is finishing production on her second album of pop songs, due out in September. Terry, who just turned 50, is holding rehearsals with her 24-piece, all-female jazz orchestra for the upcoming Playboy Jazz Festival on June 18.

Yet despite their different goals, backgrounds and experiences, they have one thing in common that has helped get them to where they are today – academic study in ethnomusicology, proving that even the more liberal of liberal arts majors really aren’t as impractical as many students fear.

“Everyone thinks (ethnomusicology is) world music, which it is. But it’s also so much more than that,” K said. “It’s how the music you create influences other people, but sometimes more importantly, how the people and society influences the music created.”

K, who graduated from UCLA in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in ethnomusicology, incorporates influences that range from Carole King to The Beatles with her study of music from different cultures to create piano-driven pop songs tinged with jazz and rock.

These personal and often relationship-focused songs have led K as far as Jerusalem to promote her music and connect with her fans.

“I really want people to be able to relate to both me and my music and to be able to say, ‘I’ve been there and I’ve felt that.’ That’s really important to me,” K said.

K is quick to acknowledge the significance of her experience at UCLA, which included leading the Ethnomusicology Undergraduate Student Association and performing live on campus.

Ethnomusicology professor Anthony Seeger, who mentored K both in and outside of the classroom, noted the department’s goal of establishing not only students’ musical adeptness but also of knowledge on how to apply those skills in the real world.

“Probably the most valuable topic (in the Music Industry class) is about artist and composer contracts,” Seeger said. “It is amazing to me that we spend years training our students how to compose or perform, but rarely train them on how to protect (what) they have spent so many years preparing to create.”

That lesson, however, is already familiar to Terry, a graduate student taking the non-traditional path of pursuing a Ph.D. right in the middle of her career.

Terry brings with her 10 years of experience with the Uptown Jazz Quartet, led by legendary drummer Max Roach. She has also established herself independently as one of the few female jazz violinists in the business, playing on Broadway, several film scores, and even recording with stars such as Whitney Houston, Burt Bacharach and Ray Charles.

She has also played an active role in the academic side of music, exposing students to another side of the violin.

“I’m doing something that’s considered unusual, although it isn’t,” Terry said. “There’s a long tradition of strings in jazz and improvisatory music; (people) just don’t know about it.”

From her travels and studies worldwide, Terry has, like K, applied her knowledge of different cultures and music to her own creations. In particular, Terry focuses on the use of music as a type of oral tradition within black communities.

“I’m trying to understand their music, what they presented and why they presented it. It was music that was purposeful, it was telling a story,” Terry said. “My study now is focused on understanding those stories better, which in kind informs my work.”

As the leader of the Women’s Jazz Orchestra of Los Angeles, Terry is crafting her own story, helping to illuminate the role of women in jazz with the upcoming festival performance. The songs set to be performed were arranged by orchestra members, including two Miles Davis songs; “Full Nelson,” which Terry arranged; and “All Blue,” arranged by UCLA ethnomusicology professor Cheryl Keyes.

Both Terry’s and K’s careers fuse scholarship with performance, a philosophy that represents the ethnomusicology department’s mission.

“Whether it be with an educational background or inspirational background, (the department has) given all its students, including myself, a strong-rooted feeling of being able to move forward in our careers and do whatever it is we want to do,” K said.