<p>The more I lurk this thread, the more Wesleyan keeps popping out: it has the best LAC Film Dept. It would be pretty easy to put together some kind of Music/Film mash-up even if it means just double-majoring. And, as mentioned, the Music Dept. isn’t too shabby either; it has lots of breadth (FWIW, world music would include, jazz, taught by some pretty incomparable faculty.) Just seems like the OP is on the tipping point of becoming interested in a lot of different things and an LAC would be perfect for doing that.</p>
<p>As for a safety, I’d take a look at Occidental in California. It resembles Wesleyan but is not quite as difficult to get into.</p>
<p>The downside to the Oberlin BA in Music, and it is potentially a very large one, is that you probably will not know if you are accepted into the major until the start of your second or third semester there. Before you can declare as a music major, you have to do well in an introductory level music class and audition into a faculty member’s studio at least at the secondary lesson (i.e. half hour lesson per week) level. Depending on how many faculty members there are in your particular specialty and how many new students they plan on accepting in a particular semester, that can be relatively easy or it can be rather difficult.</p>
<p>Of course, with the Conservatory, the auditions take place beforehand so that you know where you stand before you are even given the option of matriculating. Those auditions are for primary (full hour per week) lessons and the bar is usually a good bit higher.</p>
<p>Lencias, when I mentioned patience, I was not talking about ability. Some students get impatient when things are (perceived as) too easy, not too hard. Others have trouble with studies requiring a lot of depth and detail, and sort of cover up by being “impatient” with them.</p>
<p>Music studies at our daughter’s school (an Ivy) are incredibly difficult, by the way: half the students dropped out of music history mid-year. I wonder if you would like that level of difficulty, or not. In exams, students had to identify many pieces of music from all historical periods, based on very short segments of the works. They also had to write many papers with very detailed, well-researched analysis of pieces. The whole curriculum is quite rigorous and demanding.</p>
<p>What I get from your posts is that freedom to do what you want to do is important to you, rather than being “shoehorned” or “enforced” into doing things that are required by a curriculum. If this is true, then it might guide your choices. I think that’s why I keep mentioning schools like Hampshire, Bennington, Sarah Lawrence, where creativity is highly valued. These schools are also rigorous, but there is a lot of autonomy in your academic path.</p>
<p>Don’t know if anyone mentioned the University of Chicago yet, but we have a great composition dept incorporated into our music dept. You can get a BA in music with a specialization in composition at Chicago and the composition faculty is extremely strong. </p>
<p>Chicago isn’t a liberal arts college, but the music dept is extremely small and outstanding so perhaps it would have a similar feel…</p>
<p>Cosmos - our OP is looking for a non-academic music composition program in an academic setting. This is why he’s stumping those of us who know a lot about the different composition departments. Chicago would not be the place for someone who wants to write commercial music.</p>
<p>Just saw the movie, The Reader. The score is by Nico Muhly who graduated only a few years ago from the double degree Juilliard/Columbia program. I never would have guessed from the music of his I’d heard before (extremely eclectic) that he would write such a traditional film score. He obviously learned his craft, however, and put it to good use. (He conducted the orchestra, as well.)</p>
<p>I think Spirit Manager’s post illustrates the point that a traditional, classical music education is preparation for any compositional path (perhaps a parallel would be ballet as preparation for any dance), including films and games. Another reason people here are stumped as to how to help is that Lencias’ posts reject more traditional study. </p>
<p>There must be someone out there who knows a program that would be good for film scoring, but Lencias, you will need to understand that the curriculum may also include a lot of theory and history and composition exercises that do not immediately relate to what you want to do.</p>
<p>I happen to know that composition students at North Carolina School of the Arts recently composed for the films of the film students there. I think each student composer may even have written something for each of the films. So, perhaps, Lencias, ou should start by finding schools with good film departments, and work from there.</p>
<p>But no matter what college or conservatory you look at, a good school will not be so narrowly vocational that it focuses only on film/game scoring, but will (hopefully) offer a music curriculum that is broad and deep.</p>
<p>You could major in something else, and take one course on film scoring, perhaps, but often there are prerequisites and you may find that you lack tools that you need to create music you are truly happy with, unless you take more classes in theory and musicianship.</p>
<p>Compmom - I think I can honestly say you’re probably one of the most helpful people around :D</p>
<p>Spirit - I’ll need to check out some of his stuff sometime… but Columbia-Juilliard, wow, that has got to be one of the most killer combos possible. </p>
<p>Compmom - JC, where does your daughter go again? Yale and Princeton are on my list right now… And you’ve pushed up Sarah Lawrence on my list</p>
<p>And regarding the note about patience - well, to be honest… I’m not gonna lie, I think it’s a bit of “fear”/“doubt” mixed in somewhere. I mean composition/theoretical studies aren’t like playing an instrument where you KNOW you’re good if you can play at a certain level - I’ve never really had a standard to compare myself to. I adopted a dreadful ear somewhere down the line, so I’m terrible at telling intervals. I mean, I’m just kinda paranoid that if I go somewhere to “shoehorn”-ish, I might end up doing fine at like, say Theory I and Theory II, but then finding myself over my head at Theory III. I hate and suck at partwriting. Yet I somehow ended up with an A in AP Theory. </p>
<p>Spirit/Cosmos - And non-academic music in a non-academic environment (heh, is there such a college? XP) is just fine… like I said earlier:
"I mean, it’s not that I can’t handle high academics, just that after going to the high school that I’ve gone to for the last few years, it’d be nice to have a break, but that’s not mandatory. Besides, apparently kids coming from my school find UVA and Ivy League workloads to not be that bad, so I’m pretty sure I can handle it. "</p>
<p>While it starts off on an unrelated topic, it does run in a couple of tangents. There’s an interesting discussion of the importance of theory and history within the curriculum. An interesting read, and it does have its moments.</p>
<p>Lencias, you’re in good hands with compmom and SpiritManager. I’m out of my depth here.</p>
<p>I’ve just found you guys, and my son is in a sort of similar situation (well, he’s looking at a comp program, with an interest in eventually going into film scoring) - I will steer him to this site. </p>
<p>Just some thoughts from what I’ve seen out of my son’s search. Most conservatories and/or serious music programs in comp are going to have a focus that strongly includes classical comp. It’s one of the building blocks of contemporary music - that includes contemporary classical and pop/rock. OP mentioned John Williams. Well, he’s classically trained at both Julliard and UCLA. That’s a foundation to build on. </p>
<p>Princeton & Yale? Will eat this kid alive. I’m an Ivy graduate, and they don’t do easy. </p>
<p>To give some ideas where my boy is looking: MSM, Columbia, NYU, Julliard, Curtis, Temple, BU, NEC, Berklee (not sure on this one, personally), Stevens. If he doesn’t get into a conservatory, he’s looking at either double majoring in Comp and Math or majoring in Comp and minoring in Math. Hence Stevens as an add-on possibility.</p>
<p>Lencias, given what type of music you like to write, there is another avenue you may wish to consider that is composition-related but not the same as composition itself, that welcomes contemporary approaches, and still gives a strong core of theory/aural/keyboard basic skills etc. that support the capacity to compose.
The University of Michigan’s School of Music Theatre and Dance’s Performing Arts Technology Department is small and flexible – entrance by audition or portfolio, admits about 15 students per year out of about 60 (I believe we were told). Your statistics are academically high enough to clear academic approval (which you have to do before you’re invited to submit portfolio.) You can pursue a BMus in Music Technology while still learning computer composition, etc. Alternately, you can pursue what they call Curriculum B, a BFA in music, where you actually work with things like Final Cut Pro (scoring), MAX MSP, still take the music base but no performance requirement, more composition, etc. There is also a more “multimedia” stream that has fewer music requirements or alternately a bsc in music engineering. In each of the streams, you are required to take some computer programming, multimedia, film and pa courses, eg. you can take courses in video game production, moving images and sound, etc.
For your portfolio, they request an electronic arrangement of any bach fugue, an original score and its performance, a recorded acoustic performance on your instrument, a “soundscape”, and in some cases a multi-tracked recording (better if you wrote it.) If that sounds like the type of thing you excel at, you might enjoy the program. From my view, working in multimedia, there are a lot of transferable skills to be had in the program and I like their general approach. My S. was a bit like you in that he wanted to be creating and manipulating music but not necessarily be performance stream and wanted to integrate his work with his skills in other mediums. As a result, he’s been accepted to pursue a dual degree in both PAT at the music school and Film at LSA (which has an AWESOME screenwriting program in upper years). For the first two years, he’ll be nailing his music prereqs. (And we’ll see after that whether the dual degree thing has him at his wits end or not : )
Good luck in your search.
If you decide to apply, apply early for the best chance at scholarships and admittance if you make general application to the U. as well. Your stats are a touch borderline for out-of-state (but I think your school is well-regarded at UM, in which case, you’re solid) for general acceptance. SOM’s baseline is slighly lower only because demonstrated talent is such a big factor.</p>
<p>I really only know the ones with that in the midwest, so this is all I can give you: Saint Olaf, Oberlin, and DePauw are good music / liberal arts schools.</p>
<p>Lencias: The majority of people going into film scoring have studied composition classically at least somewhat for film/game scoring is simply a subfield of music composition. Many universities will freely allow you to pursue film scoring studies within a standard composition degree and in some cases the school will even make it a requirement to take at least one film scoring course. Pigeon-holing does happen on occasion, but this can be avoided by switching teachers if you feel that it would be more advantageous or transferring schools if the entire faculty has a ‘school’ mindset - but there is always something to learn and ways to grow in composition, especially if you study with a teacher that challenges your personal aesthetic. </p>
<p>Some degrees you may wish to pursue are Theory/Composition, Media Writing and Production (Popular/Film/Commercial Composing), and Film/Game Scoring. If video games are the way you want to go I would definitely look into Music Engineering with applied lessons in composition, for in many situations the degree is paired with a computer programming double/minor - video game companies highly admire composers who are also sound programmers.</p>
<pre><code>But in response to what you said about not wanting to take more than Theory II… I have never heard of a music program at a university or conservatory that does not have these minimum standards for ALL undergrad music majors:
Written Theory I - IV
Aural Theory I - IV (ear training)
Class/Group/Basic Piano I - IV (unless found proficient)
Music History I & II (Early through WWII)
Applied Lessons (both instrumental and comp for comp-majs)
</code></pre>
<p>And most of these courses are considered lower-lever, meaning that they are what you will take during freshman-sophomore years.</p>
<p>Ditto the prereqs noted above for each of the U of Mich PAT curriculum…except applied lessons (except the computer composition courses serve as applied).</p>
<p>I’m bringing this thread forward because someone just sent me a PM asking about this, as well as general universities where one could study composition, but perhaps not major in it.
To the Dads - can you find some of those other older threads about good schools with solid music courses one can take - even while majoring in something else?</p>