<p>So I've read many other threads but I'm still not sure about somethings and what would be best for me. I am a junior in high school and play bassoon. I am debating between composition, performance, and music ed(although this is my if all else fails plan). I have been leaning more toward the university aide but I am feel I don't know enough about the conservatory side. I am very involved in my marching band though and I am considering math major/minor as well. I just need any help people can give as I will soon be running out of time!!</p>
<p>I recommend applying to universities if you like Math.
I don’t think marching band participation has much effect on SOM or conservatory apps. It is probably a good general EC to list, though.</p>
<p>If your indecision continues, then I too would recommend a university program. A university will offer you many more options. </p>
<p>Also, it is usually much easier to transfer from performance or composition to music ed if you are at a university that offers both. Few conservatories offer music ed. Conservatories usually don’t offer math courses and even if the conservatory has dual enrollment with a university that does, often the logistics make it very difficult to take advantage of the university’s offerings.</p>
<p>The usual advantage of a conservatory is that it offers a very focused, intense, high-calibre experience in music performance. There are university music schools/department that also offer similarly high-calibre intense experiences in music performance. Apply to some of those. A few universities with conservatory-level music programs: Northwestern, Rice, U Mich, USC, McGill (there are certainly many others, but these come to mind).</p>
<p>You probably know that conservatories normally don’t have a marching band. </p>
<p>Often students find it difficult to make decisions until after they have spent a year or so in a program. For many students, university math is a big shock.</p>
<p>Regarding music ed as a fall back. Please don’t. If you do not want to and love to teach kids, don’t go into music ed just for a back up. It is not fair to the kids. DD had a bitter performance person conducting HS class. She was cold and discouraging to any wanting to go into performance. Although she did know what she was doing, it was not a great experience.</p>
<p>It sounds like James Madison might be a good fit for you. It advertises itself as a “conservatory within a university.” It has an excellent marching band. Its brand new performing arts center is fabulous. It has a highly regarded music education program as well and claims that its music ed grads have a 100% job placement rate. My S’s high school band director is a JMU grad and he is amazing. My S decided not to apply there because he wants to study composition and guitar with a more contemporary focus, and JMU’s program is classical. But we attended its open house and were extremely impressed.</p>
<p>Baldwin Wallace in Ohio has a marching band program, liberal arts college and a conservatory.</p>
<p>Just for clarification Singersmom07, I have put a lot of thought into Music Ed and I have been a TA(without the title) for my band director pretty much all of my high school career. Teaching isn’t something I’d hate to do for the rest of my life.</p>
<p>Do the music ed thing, just dont tell anyone that the “ed” part is a “backup”. The reality is that few music majors (regardless of degree) ever make a living from performing music, and the truth is, if you are good enough to be professional, at most auditions they probably wont care if you even have a degree.</p>
<p>There are lots of music ed graduates who can perform at the level of music performance graduates, some of them earn livings from performance, but music performance graduates typically would have to go back to college to qualify for a teaching certificate for public schools.</p>
<p>As far as the difference in the curriculm of education and performance majors, it is not all that different. At the universities that we have looked at, the curriculums are 85% or so the same. The education degrees require about 15 credit hours in music/teacher ed (including classes in virtually all instruments) and plus one semester student teaching. If you are a performance major, you won’t take those “ed” classes, but you will take that many credit hours of “applied music” (private or group music lessons) in your primary instrument. </p>
<p>By the time that my son gets to the point in college where it is time to start taking the education classes, he will have already had many years experience on his primary instrument. I would seriously doubt that another semester or two of practices on that instrument would really make him that much better on it. However, the classes that teach all the other instruments for the education degree would certainly make him a better overall musician.</p>
<p>At one of the colleges that we have considered, if a non-performance major happens to be as good enough to be a performance major, upon graduation, the college will issue the graduate a “performance certificate” which basically just says that the student is good enough on his primary instrument to be a professional musician.</p>
<p>Another college that we looked into offers a 5 year program - BA in Music with a minor in whatever you choose combined with a Masters of Education degree.</p>
<p>One of the other colleges that we considered actually gives music ed students two seperate degrees. One is a BM, the other is a BEd. You get both degrees in the same amount of time as just getting the BM.</p>
<p>As you can see, there are lots of options. When it is time to choose your college, find one with the best option for your particular situation. Like if there was a non-music subject that you would want to study in addition to music, the college that offers the BA+minor combined with the MEd would be a great option- and if you wanted to teach, with that degree you may be qualified to teach music and/or your minor subject. However, if the ONLY thing you wanted to study was music performance, then a conservatory would likely be your best choice.</p>
<p>While I have nothing against conservatories, they really don’t give the student a rounded education. The BM degree at any school is VERY music intensive. Even at a non-conservatory college BM majors spend much more time involved with music than a chemistry major would spend involved with chemistry. A music major that I know spends about 8 hours a day involved with music (classes/private lessons/master lessons/ensembles/practice) at his college, on top of two non-music classes that he takes. I find it hard to believe that a couple of extra hours a day of being involved with music would make one much better. At least at a regular college you have the opportunity to participate in non-music classes if you choose to.</p>
<p>Regarding music ed vs music performance degrees, it’s important to check how the school assigns the studio teachers. At some schools, the studio professors teach only performance majors, while music education students get TA’s or “lesser” teachers. Sometimes it depends upon the instrument–students studying certain instruments will get the same access to studio teachers regardless of performance or ed degrees, yet with other instruments the teachers are not the same. We found big differences from place to place.</p>
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<p>I would not be so sure of this. A lot can happen in a year, even with students who have been playing for a while.</p>
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<p>That depends on how the time was spent. If this couple of hours per day were to take a string player or a pianist from two hours daily practice to four hours, it could make an enormous difference. If they are already putting in five solid hours, then going to seven would probably not do all that much. Those numbers would be somewhat lower for a singer and for most wind players.</p>
<p>There is also another option open to those trying to decide between a performance major and a music ed major. It is possible at some schools to obtain a BM in performance and then get a graduate degree in music ed with another year or so of study. See [Overview</a> - Oberlin College](<a href=“http://new.oberlin.edu/conservatory/departments/music-education/index.dot]Overview”>http://new.oberlin.edu/conservatory/departments/music-education/index.dot) for one example.</p>
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<p>I would think that is just about ideal, and quite do-able.</p>
<p>As to my point that a couple of hours a day additional practice time when one is already practicing for hours a day, or a couple of extra semesters of practice, I was making the assumption that the student is not in any way “behind” other music students. Just from reading the various threads on this forum, it seems that many, if not most, music students have many years of music experiance before they enroll in college as music majors. There is something called the “law of dimishing returns” which essentially states that at some point, additional anything will start to accomplish less and less. Now if that music student didn’t start playing a musical instrument until the first day of college, then certainly an extra semester or two or an extra couple hours a day may be highly beneficial. But if a music major already had 10-15 years of lessons before he entered college, I would seriously doubt that another year would make that much difference. Someone with 4 years of music study may be significantly better than someone with 3 years, but it doesn’t seem to me that someone with 19 years of lessons would be that much better than someone with 18 years of lessons.</p>
<p>I briefly looked at Oberlin’s Masters in Music Teaching program and it’s really wonderful. They really want to accept people that are incredibly talented on their instrument and love teaching in order to avoid accepting people doing it as a backup. The teachers are also really enthusiastic about the program. I met with some of the faculty and they were so excited to share the program with me.</p>
<p>As an engineer, I am painfully aware of the law of diminishing returns. Note that I said that going from two to four hours of practice would show more results than going from five to seven. </p>
<p>Someone with 18 years of lessons under their belt could improve dramatically after a year spent with a new and much better teacher. Diminishing returns can take a while to reappear once something important in the process has been changed, as often happens when a student progresses from high school to college or from undergraduate to graduate work. If an extra year were not going to be beneficial at that point, then there would be a lot fewer performance majors in graduate school.</p>
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<p>Wow. I’m obviously not a musician either so I really don’t know about such. I guess there are a lot more levels of ability than I thought. </p>
<p>I’ve noticed on youtube videos that some of the child prodigy types seem to play the music correctly, but somehow they don’t seem to play with a full understanding of the music. I’ve also seen some world famous (top of their field) musicians and getting all types of “kudos” on the youtube comments, for music that 2nd and 3rd year music students seem to handle fairly well. It’s confusing.</p>
<p>It’s not about how hard the music is to play, although that can be impressive for a while. In the long run, it is very much about communication: having something to say and making every phrase convey the intended message regardless of difficulty. Some of those young prodigies have little more to say than, “Watch me do something you can’t” and that is reflected in their repertoire. It takes an artist with a more mature understanding of the world and a fuller experience of human emotions to put subtle, nuanced meaning into whatever they play or sing, even the simple pieces.</p>
<p>Personally, I think the best compliment a musician can receive is not, “How can you possibly play something that difficult?” rather, “How do you make that look so easy that anyone could do it?”</p>
<p>Personally, and as is the case with many in the field I know, it is way more impressive to hear a simpler piece that truly touches your soul, no matter the “grade”, than something “bigger” but otherwise sterile (a tot performing a major concerto for instance). Music is not (or at least should not be) about ranking based on difficulty. It’s about emotion, connecting with other humans…not one-upping one another based on just how fast you can play XYZ, and what age you happen to be while hacking away at it. At least, that’s my idealistic version.</p>
<p>Anyway, I wish your son well, imagep! The program truly differs significantly between schools. </p>
<p>Something I just wanted to put out there –
I am attending a state school for many reasons, fortunately with a pretty strong music department. I WAS a Mus.Ed major until I decided my heart wasn’t really, truly in it. I don’t mind teaching, but I didn’t wish to waste my time/money with something I wasn’t 100% invested in, and the public school system, at least around here, is sort of frightening.</p>
<p>I’ve since switched to a BA in music. This will allow me easier access to several jobs in the music industry than a BM undergrad degree might (which is a good thing seeing as I’ll likely need to take one of these jobs as I work up the performing side of my career). I am still able to take all the classes a BM would need to – theory, sight-singing, music history, etc… I get an hour of quality instruction on my instrument once a week and plenty of ensemble (orchestra, quartet, etc) goodness. The BA is a largely customizable degree, and one can choose to put elective credits toward lessons and such as well.</p>
<p>I also feel that, with the handful of non-music classes I am required to take (a few of which are not quite as time-consuming as some Gen Ed classes a Mus.Ed would need to enroll in) I am getting a nice rounded undergrad education. I think this balance will serve me well as a musician down the road.</p>
<p>Not saying that a BA is an “easier” route. I choose to put in a lot of work toward music, comparable to the BM students…I usually fit in 4-6 hours a day of playing/practice, do recitals; I still intend to go to grad school in either performance and/or composition. I just feel a BA, as a piece of paper, will serve me, personally and mentally, better than a BM.</p>
<p>Another option to consider for anyone waffling. 
Many, many paths out there.</p>
<p>In looking at other threads and such there aren’t a lot of things about universities and composition programs. A lot of them end up being about grad school. For undergrad I know the typical UofM, Rice, NWestern, who are really just good at everything but are there any else? Maybe also so schools that are good but not top of the line?</p>
<p>We’ve posted often about composition programs in universities - I’m surprised you say there isn’t much info. I suggest you do some more searches and read through all the composition threads. There are many many many opportunities to study music composition out there at universities and liberal arts colleges, outside of the big well-known music schools. Where are you located, how much can you afford, what kind of composition are you interested in (classical, commercial, film) and what style of composition within that field are you interested in, what kind of school do you want (big, small, rural, urban etc.), what kind of peers are you looking for, what level of academics, how good are your grades/scores, and how much experience do you have as a composer? Every one of the answers to these questions will help narrow your search from literally hundreds of programs.</p>
<p>Hmm…maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places. A lot of the thread I’ve read are conservatory/grad school aimed, but I will keep looking. I’m in Michigan, and can afford up 30,000 give or take some. I haven’t decided between classical and film and I’m not sure where concert band music and things like that fit in. I’ve always liked the big school feel as well.</p>
<p>I couldn’t figure out how the dads post the links live, when there are multiple links. But here are the title names of a collection of some of the past general composition threads, with plenty of insights and suggestions. If you do a search of this forum by those names you will get the threads.</p>
<p>Realistic College List for Music Composition?
Best Schools for Music Composition
Composition major - is this an okay list of schools?
Best Liberal Arts College Music Program? (Composition)
double in composition/piano performance
Composition Major</p>
<p>And, to make your searches more useful look for this thread in the forum: Search Tips (and other insights)</p>