<p>Hey all! I'm currently a freshman at a Liberal Arts school in New York. The school is great, but recently I've made the realization that my dream is to either be a music performer or educator. </p>
<p>This isn't a goal that just came out of the blue; I applied to the school I go to early decision senior year of high school thinking that I would find out what I would want to do while I was in college, but unfortunately, the rest of my senior year was filled with events and factors that would lead me to arrive at the conclusion that music is what I want to pursue with my life, to a degree that cannot be offered at the school I attend. </p>
<p>My problem is I am unsure where to start. Does anybody have any advice on how to bring this up with my advisors to get assistance, and how to find the schools that fit best with my musical abilities? Or any other aspects that I might be missing?</p>
<p>Why don’t you start taking music classes at your current college? They’re likely to have a BA in music. You can always get a masters in music education after you graduate or even apply for an MM in performance if you’ve studied performance seriously - which is possible at liberal arts colleges, as well as conservatories.</p>
<p>As for advice for you - without more information about your skills and past experience it’s difficult to advise.I would suggest reading threads on the Music Major forum. But, again, there’s no reason you can’t pursue music at your current school.</p>
<p>@ goldenpitch-
It all depends on your background and what you mean by ‘studying music’. What instruments do you play? When you talk about majoring in music, do you mean performance on an instrument (like the piano) or academic music (music history, composition can be studied this way)…in performance, you can get a BM in performance, some schools offer a BA on an instrument that is slightly different but still concentrates on playing an instrument (or voice). It is hard to really give advice without knowing what you plan, what your background is (for example, if you said “I played piano since I was 5, I had a high level private teacher, took lessons all through high school, still take lessons with a good teacher” it would be different than “I am curious about learning to play piano”. It is possible to study performance at a liberal arts college, but it all depends on where you are and where you want to end up being (when I say where you are, I don’t mean what school you are at, I mean where you are with music:). </p>