Our son is a piano player who has 11 years experience, and is a junior in HS. His passion is piano. He would love to become a professor and have a private studio someday. Most of the conservatories and private college in CA cost 65,000-75,000 a year. My husband says he has to stay in CA or at least west coast. We are not able pay that much money for college. We make too much for him to qualify for financial need aid…so should he still apply to the dream schools and hope the $ magically appears? Or is he better off to not waste the time with the dream school with a large price tag. He has a 3.88 gpa right now, and scored 1300 on psat. I want to use the money on visits and lessons wisely and not set him up for disappointment because the school is too expensive.
You should post this on the Music Major forum. The cost of a music degree will depend a lot on the talent of the student - although the merit award will generally be informed by the financial need of the family. From free to full pay. The list price of a school doesn’t give you much of a guide to the actual cost to your family. However, there are certain conservatories which are known to be less generous with aid - either because they don’t have the deep pockets to offer the aid, or because 99% of the accepted students will attend regardless of the cost. There is a lot of information on the Music Major Forum which can help guide you towards options which may well be very affordable for your family - in or out of California. Most merit will be dependent on his musical talent, but some schools will add academic merit awards if warranted.
And, yes, he should most definitely apply to his dream schools. You won’t know until all the auditions are done, the acceptances are in, and the financial aid packages weighed against each other - what the school will cost.
Here is a listing I found for Arts programs http://www.positionu4college.com/colleges-with-arts-merit-scholarships/
I would be careful about applying to the dream school without an extremely clear understanding that without sufficient aid, it isn’t happening. These boards are full of examples of that going bad.
@Eeyore123 almost every school which offers a BM in Music also offers merit scholarships. It’s quite different, however, for a BA in music.
Good merit at freestanding conservatories will vary but may be in the $15k range. I would look at the music degrees at each and every state school because they are all different. But there are some good state school options.
I don’t know your financial situation, but don’t be so quick to say you won’t qualify for any need-based aid. I also thought we wouldn’t qualify for much and was pleasantly surprised. Now whether the school will meet that need is a different story, but it’s worth going through the process of filling out the FAFSA (and CSS if appropriate) to see where you land.
With our S, we made sure he had financial safeties on his list - state schools we knew we could pay ticket price for. He understood our budget and knew if he did not get the scholarship/aid to meet that budget at any particualr school, that school was off the table, dream school or not. We are going through the process with our D this year, and it’s the same story.
Good luck with the process. It’s an exciting time. It can be stressful, but there are a lot of precious moments you will enjoy going through this with your son. 
UCLA, Cal State Northridge, Cal State Long Beach, Cal Poly Pomona have great music programs with relatively low cost, especially the Cal States. USC gives very good merit aid to music students if they have good stats. Have him study for the SAT or ACT and keep his GPA up, and start touring local CA state schools – there are lots of great options!
For California schools there’s also University of the Pacific, Chapman and Redlands - which all have conservatories and offer merit aid. USC merit money is almost all academic based, not music merit - and the OP’s stats are low for that. Thornton at USC gives quite small music merit awards. Arizona State would also be worth looking at - it has a good School of Music and is usually affordable for California residents.
Lewis and Clark is another possibility.
We are from CA and were in the same boat as you guys- our FAFSA contribution was like $47K (whatever!!). But, our daughter got a big talent scholarship from the School of Music at Arizona State. Paired with her academic scholarship, her OOS tuition is covered. We are pretty much only paying for room and board. She is musical theatre, but her roommate that plays the sax got about the same as her. Lots of schools have online calculators for their guaranteed academic scholarships. You plug in the GPA & test scores and you can see how much you would get. That makes it easy to either rule out schools or consider them. The thing about the CSUs and the UCs is that they give little to no aid. So, they may not be the cheapest option.
Thank you MTMommma, I appreciate your experience with this. We will look into that!
Thank you SpiritManager, I appreciate your help in who is more generous with merit aid. Also, for the tip about ASU.
I just heard the same exact scenario regarding ASU. Scholarships for academics and music that left the family paying only for room and board. This was for a student transferring mid-year. Good luck!