<p>If you or your S/D isn't interested in or studying in Popular Music/Commercial Music programs such as USC Thornton, Belmont, Berklee, UArts, Miami Frost, Denver Lamont, move along! ;-) This post is for all you students (and parents of students) living in the world of modern music. </p>
<p>The schools/programs I mentioned are the best of the best, very competitive. Since there is no such thing as a "safety" school that one has to audition for, and because the number of schools offering this program is so limited, how did you (or your child) handle the "What If?" challenge of what to do if not accepted into one of these programs?</p>
<p>Go for a traditional music program? </p>
<p>Go in a completely different direction? </p>
<p>Other than these schools/programs, how many other and what type of schools did you apply to (just to be sure you had somewhere to go come fall semester)?</p>
<p>Curious to hear both from people who got in - and people who did not get in. </p>
<p>K8sdad, many of my son’s friends in USC’s popular music program also applied to jazz programs (my son actually started Thornton as a studio/jazz guitar major, but switched very quickly to popular music), but there are also many who also applied to musical theater programs, to just a couple popular music programs (Berklee, USC, Belmont) AND some academic or undeclared majors at other schools… and just prayed it would work out. </p>
<p>There are also kids in some of the popular music courses at Thornton from other majors, although sometimes they are in a different “section” than the majors.</p>
<p>Remember, as my son LOVES to remind me, the huge majority of successful contemporary/pop performers today do NOT have degrees in music (it’s much different than, say, classical), if they have degrees at all - life experiences and other academic studies are important, too. Perhaps more important. Artists need something to say.</p>
<p>Have you already done some sample lessons at any of the schools to find out if she is in the right ballpark?</p>
<p>One way to take the pressure off is by applying to Berklee EA. You’ll have an early answer (we did by Christmas) and can celebrate if accepted or regroup otherwise. There will still be time to add one or two additional schools. For example, Columbia College Chicago.</p>
<p>For an even earlier evaluation of skills she could sign up for a Berklee summer program. They have a vocal summit that is a long weekend.</p>
<p>Son is in Thornton and basically was deciding between that and our state’s college of biological sciences in which case he would have formed bands as a non music major and planned on a health care career unless he was “discovered”. It took being accepted to USC to somewhat validate his talent as a serious musician. Is now a junior and after first semester freshman year committed to music 110%.</p>
<p>Son wasn’t planning on a music major because he in his words he “wasn’t what music schools were looking for”. We heard about Thornton’s popular music program and decided to see if he could get an audition and then once he did see if they thought he was good enough. We are from a small town in the upper midwest so no real perspective on how he would stack up and the program was very new. I think this was a good approach for us in that our expectations weren’t high and it wasn’t a get in or be miserable perspective. </p>
<p>I think the schools have a pretty good idea of what they are looking for which may have a lot to do with who they admit, not just talent. If you aren’t admitted to one school it might be that you would not be happy or successful at that school but fit another school better. It is also possible that people who have some talent aren’t prepared for a rigorous music curriculum. Son has indicated that many of the singers struggle with the music curriculum because they have been gifted with a great voice but don’t have a real strong music background other than standing up front and singing. All instrumentalists with any real experience have their own notation and other things that they have which grounds them a little better. The popular music programs have the a core music curriculum with music theory, aural skills, etc. </p>
<p>I can’t talk to the value of the other programs but my son has had amazing experiences at USC (Has had a song of his recorded by Alan Parsons, played as part of an opening act for Steve Miller, taken lessons from grammy winning vocalists, pianists and drummers, played his own songs for Lamont Dozier, Randy Newman and Steve Miller among others, and a lot of other ridiculous experiences). And probably more importantly is surrounded by talented other young musicians to collaborate with and develop his music. btw, the quality of the usc kids as people has impressed me very much. They aren’t just good musicians but also smart, interesting and good people.</p>
<p>If son had not gotten into one of the top schools we would probably have discouraged a music major because it is a tough industry and there are other ways to pursue it if you want to without the cost of limiting yourself to that one path. And he would have had some knowledgabe folks say that his talent was not in the top tier.</p>
<p>Grammy camp and Berklee summer programs are ways for high school students to get some perspective on the talent in their peer groups and also get exposure to some of the folks at USC and Berklee.</p>
<p>For my daughter, who is now a Contemporary Writing and Production major at Berklee, she started out by attending Berklee’s 5-week summer program before her senior year in high school. While there, she realized that she was pretty good as a vocalist (out of hundreds) and also had a knack for music theory. Since she was also a strong pianist, that gave her add’l skills to write, arrange, and compose for other instruments and voice once she got to Berklee. Her road was not a straight shot … she applied to traditional strong colleges in high school, and only Berklee for music. When Berklee didn’t offer her a scholarship as a senior, she took that as a sign and decided to study pre-med instead. Music kept calling, so she re-auditioned and Berklee offered her a nice scholarship, which sealed the deal for a music life for her. </p>
<p>As others have said above, music is a tough field, and contemporary music is even tougher. You/your student need to have validation at a few steps along the way to make it worth all the hard work, and that validation builds the confidence to keep going down this path.</p>
<p>Like SnowflakeVT’s D, my D has been accepted to Berklee with no scholarship. Plan B is in action right now. Not sure what the outcome will be but D has applied to a few in state schools to try to gain acceptance as a music major. The sequence of events, first being accepted before Christmas and then the next e-mail regarding the lack of scholarship, has knocked her for a bit of a loop. I am hoping the next few auditions will be successful for her and that she gains admission to another school or two. </p>
<p>If none of these schools pan out, another plan will need to be launched. The path to becoming a musician, adult, self sufficient human is a treacherous one! Lots of hard lessons to learn along the way for our kids.</p>
<p>My son had a plan b and a plan c, neither of which he ended up needing. His plan b was to study recording arts at the local community college where he’d already taken recording and computer music courses and then reapply/transfer after two year associates degree. In his case, the local cc has a solid ra program. Plan c was to attend a Canadian university where there was a composition prof who liked his work and pre-agreed to work with the communication department to facilitate a combined degree (ba) in film and music and work with him directly in music tech/contemporary performance/electro-acoustic comp.
He was accepted at his first choice, university of michigans performing arts tech program, which is a hybrid of music tech, composition, recording eng and performance at the school of music. While it doesn’t call itself a contemporary music program per se and does require classical background to a degree, a majority of students in the program tend to be contemporary in flavor. (I include this info since you didn’t mention the program, not as a plan b, because it’s highly selective with a high academic bar as well.)</p>
<p>For student without super high academic stats but a lot of talent, I’ve heard good things about Humber College’s contemporary music program in Toronto. Not a plan b per se, but another application option. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Ps - you also didn’t mention nyu tech Clive Davis program or iu’s Jacobs recording arts, which are right up there with USC, Miami and umich in terms of cross applicants – as we learned on the interview circuit just letting you know in case you weren’t familiar with those two programs – perhaps you’re not looking for the tech depth? Even so, Clive Davis has an equal emphasis for the performer/producer avenue.</p>
<p>Ppss - actually, I neglected to mention the plan d – mcson had applied to umich lsa as well, where had he not been accepted to the school of music, he could have attempted to audition in for sophomore year, as he had been accepted ea with scholarship, so that’s likely what he would have actually done. If a kid loves a particular school and wants some degree of access to the faculty, and is “close” in terms of development, that’s a strategy that can work. One of his classmates did exactly that, transferring after developing his portfolio further via the handful of cases available to non-majors.</p>
<p>S applied to 3 schools. Only one for Commercial Music - Belmont. If he wasn’t accepted there, he was going to go to Plan B which was a totally different major at a similar size/type school which offered him a very nice merit scholarship and likely acceptance into the honors program. Music would have been a minor at that school since they did not have a commercial program. </p>
<p>K8sdad, I hear ya! My son is a contemporary musician who only wants Berklee, Thorton, or Miami. He auditioned at all 3 so we will wait and see. I was panicked for a while there knowing that we didn’t have an official plan B although we did discuss the option of his band going on tour and maybe taking a gap year. He is very confident and never appeared worried. Fortunately, he was accepted to Berklee EA and is very happy with that. You can imagine how I feel…a sense of relief that mom can now breath And yes, you are right, there are no safety schools!!!</p>
<p>Just a question of curiosity from someone from the classical world: what do those in the know think of McNally Smith? I thought it odd that it’s a for-profit institution and it seems to be significantly overshadowed by Berklee and the likes but I’d like to hear from anyone who actually knows their stuff on this topic.</p>
<p>Perhaps it’s something like “Musicians Institute” in LA? They are also for-profit. It’s hard to compare non-profit music conservatories with these institutions. While there may indeed be some excellent musicians studying at for-profits, the “bottom” of the barrel is far lower, as they tend not to turn anyone away (even if they hold “auditions”).</p>
<p>Hi folks. A quick thanks to both jazzshreddermom and raddad for their USC posts. Almost all of the information I found about the Popular Music program came from reading your separate posts here on CC. There is so little to go on out there! How many kids apply, how many get past prescreen, etc etc. So thanks for the insight.</p>
<p>My son is just 16, graduating HS after jr year. He’s accepted ED to Berklee, auditioned 1/14 at Belmont and 1/22 at Thornton (he was rescheduled from tomorrow b/c he’s in Memphis at the IBC Youth Showcase, and so only one USC panelist was from Pop Music. I guess tomorrow is the big Pop Music audition day. I hope it doesn’t hurt him).</p>
<p>Anyway, he does not have a Plan B. I’ve told both my musician sons that if they can even consider doing something else, then they should do that thing instead, because they won’t make it in music. I don’t know if it’s human nature exactly, but I think most people, especially boys (and I have 4), follow the path of least resistance. The performance of commercial music for a REAL living is hard, right? Lots of cutthroat competition, rejection and tough times. Many, many talented people go home. It is only those who can’t imagine doing any other thing who have a chance. </p>
<p>Thanks again to JSMom and raddad. Now we wait. I wish I knew how many were invited to LA.</p>
<p>1xx4xy, we heard that last year approximately 500 prescreens were received and 150 or so were invited to audition for about 25-30 spots (I’m sure they accept a few more, knowing their “yield.”) I believe the audition number has been around the same since the program began 3 years ago, but the submissions keep increasing. So just auditioning means a lot! Do you know which pop panelist was at your son’s audition?</p>
<p>If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me.</p>
<p>Many choices in life are really hard but I believe you should follow your passion, especially when you are young. I fully support my musician daughter and I am glad she will graduate with skills. There are many opportunities in music, and thanks to the internet, the game is different these days. If the kid is really talented, then it will show by the fact they are invited to audition at the top schools. USC Thornton provides terrific support and access to the Trojan network, not to mention being in LA. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get into the pop music program, especially as it becomes more well known. Berklee takes about 30% so maybe that is more of a safety than USC. Applying EA is a good plan. UCLA Herb Alpert School of music does take some off wait list, but only takes a handful of students as well.</p>
<p>I just recently happend on to the fact that a state college in my hometown has a commercial music program. It’s probably not the fanciest or most well known of programs, but so what. Last summer I attended a battle of the bands type event, this group of kids from our local college performed (pop/rock) and I thought that they were awsome. Not just “good”, but truely professional quality, they flat out blew away all of the garage bands, hands down, no questions. </p>
<p>At the time I had no idea, but this group was essentially the “commercial music” studio of the college. It’s possible that if nothing else works out, one could start exploring the local non-music colleges and find a quality commercial music program. I had no idea that they offered any type of music degree at this college. The ironic part is that I GRADUATED from this college (nearly 25 years ago).</p>
<p>I looked up the curriculum for the local program, since it is at a branch campus of the same state university he attends, it’s easy to make a direct comparison. It is a BA degree, not quite as indebth as the BM program that my son is in (just 12 credit hours of theory and aural skills instead of 16 credit hours), but the focus is definately more on commercial music, with classes like “the history of rock music”, “jazz history”, “jazz improv”, “songwriting”, “music technology” and “music business classes”, and an “intermship in commercial music”.</p>
<p>The students at that college may have found more than just an education, they may have actually formed a viable professional music group - who knows? All of the members of “Hootie and the Blowfish” were classically trained music students from my son’s college, they just got together, discovered that they worked well as a team, and went on to become rich and famous. Same with “Midnite Star” 20 years earlier (although it was a different college that they went to).</p>
<p>I am following this thread with great interest as my son is junior with plans to be a rock vocalist. I wanted to share a link I found to the Music and Entertainment Industry Educators Association: </p>
<p>Don’t mean to be snooty, but the MEIEA list is missing USC and Berklee which are probably the most prestigious of the popular music schools. I have lived by about five of the schools on the list and they are not considered the best music schools in their local area much less in a broader context and I suspect that is the case of several of the others. Several of the ones I know are lower end academic schools with almost no music status in their local area. There are very high quality schools on the list like Belmont, Miami, NYU and Indiana, but also some lower options.</p>
just letting you know in case you weren’t familiar with those two programs – perhaps you’re not looking for the tech depth? Even so, Clive Davis has an equal emphasis for the performer/producer avenue.</p>
And yes, you are right, there are no safety schools!!!</p>