<p>I’ve just read this thread with amusement because, after several people told Alice that they could not expect this board to do her research for her… the board did exactly that.</p>
<p>saxguy,</p>
<p>I work professionally as a musician, part time. When I audition for work, the subject of where I went to school doesn’t even come up. They just want to hear me sing and/or play. Occasionally I will be asked who my teachers were, but that tends to be more a matter of curiosity than anything else. If they are thinking of hiring me, they may also ask where I have worked before so that they can find out whether I am reliable and whether or not I work well with others.</p>
<p>The school might or might not help you make a few connections in the first few years after you graduate, but even then it is much more frequently the influence exerted by your teacher than the reputation of your school that gets your foot in the door. The real value of the school is to provide peers who make you work hard to keep up with them and ensembles of the appropriate level and type.</p>
<p>For employment purposes related to music performance, school reputation means much less than it does in many other areas: for most playing gigs (whether with an orchestra, in a recording studio, a Saturday weddings ensem etc.), all that matters is how well one plays. </p>
<p>When a panel auditioning candidates for an orchestral position hires a flautist, the flautist’s pedigree or academic credentials are entirely irrelevant (and yes, I mean 100% disregarded)–if the flautist can play, then it doesn’t matter that he/she graduated or didn’t graduate from Podunk U, and if the flautist can’t play, then similarly it doesn’t matter if they graduated from Hifalutin Conservatory. </p>
<p>If one looks at the Met auditions, those singers that rank highly come from an amazing variety of schools and backgrounds. The Curtis and Juilliard grads do not get any sort of a leg up in the auditions.</p>
<p>Hence, Bassdad’s advice about teacher quality vs. school quality is on the mark (at least for a person who is in the Juilliard league–for those that are not considering performing for a living in the future, then the school’s reputation becomes more important–e.g. if you teach privately, parents of potential students are always impressed that you are a Juilliard grad and they do not usually get to hear you play).</p>
<p>Of course, Juilliard is also the only music school that 90% or more of those parents have ever heard of (at least here in the US), so they would be equally unimpressed by Curtis and Podunk U.</p>
<p>Sorry for being rude earlier in the thread, but it seemed pretty inconsiderate for the OP to berate people trying to answer her question. However, I wanted to jump on the name-vs.-no name school thing.</p>
<p>In my experience (in performance), the name of the school is helpful for resume rounds for auditions that aren’t open to everyone; almost every other situation is how you play and how you get along with people. </p>
<p>Furthermore, saying “you won’t find a weak player at a school like Juilliard” is something that’s extraordinarily relative. I have known some singularly incompetent musicians who have graduated from Juilliard and other big-name institutions. Absolutely, they’re the exception, but to say that you categorically will not find a weak player at a place like that is a stretch.</p>
<p>Bassdad,</p>
<p>Oh yeah, I have no doubt in mind that any performance-related job would be very different from what I mean. Whether you’re a hobo off the street or went to a top dog music school probably wouldn’t matter if the hobo played better. I get that. I was talking more about other jobs that are more available related to music (like a music teacher or director). I realize it’s not nearly as important as other credentials, but it must carry some weight for teaching.</p>
<p>If I haven’t mentioned yet, none of my posts are in regard to performance. If that is what Aliceflute wants to do, I wouldn’t even bother posting on here because like you all have said, the performance of the player is the only thing that matters. So while you want to go to a good school still as a performance major, it’s not as necessary as wanting to become a music teacher that stands out from the crowd. That’s all I meant by all of that.</p>
<p>tuba269,</p>
<p>I didn’t get the impression that the OP was berating at all. Since the person she was aiming her words wasn’t really answering the question. But perhaps that was just how I saw it at the time. And I suppose I was making a big assumption, since I personally don’t know anyone from Juilliard or similar schools. I would find it really shocking to find a weak player there though. Even if it is relative, I don’t think I could call any of them weak. But I did make an assumption and it probably was a stretch, so I take back my comment on that.</p>
<p>From the posts, it seems like Alice is talking performance, not music ed. With performance, where you go to school doesn’t matter that much in terms of getting jobs (I am sure like any rules, there are exceptions to this), but for the most part it is how you play. There have been threads on here about great teachers and great schools and how to decide where to go, and it doesn’t mean that a program like Juiliard or NEC doesn’t offer advantages. For one thing, the average level of student at places like Juilliard or NEC is very high, in part because of their name, there are a lot of high level students who go to places like Juilliard and so forth, ironically, because they think the schools name means something (this is especially true of kids from Asia, where a schools name means a lot more then it does in the US). Plus Juilliard’s orchestra program is fantastic, and being in NYC there simply are a lot of avenues for doing music that may not exist elsewhere. </p>
<p>Yeah, having Juilliard on a resume could help in some cases, like if you are a local music teacher trying to get students, having Juilliard on the resume will mean something because parents have heard of it, as someone else said and it might help if trying for a job in a public school someplace, there is some truth to that (funny story, when my S was pretty young, he wanted to get piano lessons,we talked to a local music school, the head heard him play violin, and then was like “oh, we have a Juilliard trained teacher on staff” and then started blabbing about competititions, etc…meanwhile, the teacher in question is completely minor league compared to what top level teachers are). The thing to keep in mind is that more then a few kids get into Juilliard and then kind of die, they graduate, but never do anything or distinguish themselves. I believe something like 50% or more of the kids who graduate from places like Juilliard are not in music within 10 years of graduating (not a knock on Juilliard, more about the realities of making it in music). It is like going to an Ivy league school, it has limited impact out there, it can help on a first job, and for certain jobs, like investment banking, you pretty much have to be Ivy league or at that level to even hope to get an interview…but that represents a pretty small piece of the influence game, as it does in music. Likewise, a top music school can offer some networking opportunities and contacts…</p>
<p>But if we are talking performance, the key is finding a situation that works. If someone shows great potential, has incredible musicianship and instincts, but it less polished, they probably would have a hard time getting into the top conservatories, but might find a great teacher at a ‘lesser’ program who is willing to take the chance on a diamond in the rough, or the program at the ‘great school’ may not be so great, whereas at school B could be better, especially for the student.</p>
<p>If Aliceflute wants a job as a music teacher, then she would have needed to let us know that in order to get useful responses. Teaching licenses (almost always required for teaching in public schools, and usually a strong positive for those applying to teach at private schools) are handled at the state level and different states can have slightly different requirements. Therefore, when schools hire music teachers, they tend to look for graduates of some of the better-known programs within their state because those programs are specifically designed around the local requirements for obtaining the teaching license. Those programs are generally pretty easy to find out about through music teachers in the elementary and high schools and through the websites of the local music educators associations. In many cases, they will be different schools from the ones that are best known for their performance programs.</p>
<p>Jobs that relate to music but that do not involve teaching or performance often require specialized skills (grant writing, fund raising, event management, stage management, and public relations among others). In such cases, the employer is probably going to be much more interested in the applicant’s experience and success with prior employers, internships and volunteer positions than in the reputation of their school. You may run into a hiring manager who gives some consideration to alumni of the school that he or she attended, or to alumni of schools that have produced outstanding employees for them in the past.</p>
<p>One area where the reputation of the school can be an important factor is when applying to graduate schools for musicology/music history.</p>
<p>A complete mistake on my part, I overlooked that she did indeed say was interested in performance. I still think the question could be answered for performance or any other music field, but for the sake of not being ignorant and pretending like I didn’t make that mistake, I admit I missed that.</p>
<p>cross-posted with saxguy: my post now irrelevant!</p>
<p>In the words of the inimitable Charlie Brown, “Oh good grief”… I always was a sucker for sock puppets.</p>
<p>This may be a little off from the OP’s origional post question, but the door has been opened…</p>
<p>about this time last year, my son asked me “if I go to XXX (top LAC in our part of the country) will I make more than if I go to the state University”. It was a question I had to ponder a little bit. </p>
<p>The conclusion that I came to was that he would have a better chance of getting into a good graduate school, but not much more than that. My reasoning was that if he ends up teaching, teaching salaries are pretty much fixed to predetermined pay schedules and the college that someone went to may make a difference between whether they get the job or not, but it will not change their pay. If he ends up performing, it doesn’t matter what school he went to, it just matters how well he plays. Now the top regional LAC may give him some advantage in getting a teaching job, assuming that the interviewer understands that college is a top college with great students, but if the interviewer has never heard of it, or doesn’t fully recognize the schools reputation, then going to the state university may actually be an advantage. Most people are going to pretty much assume that any state university is going to offer a sound education with standards that have to be met, but if they do not recognize the name of a school (the top regional LAC) or it’s fine reputation, they may tend to blow it off as just another private college that kids who couldn’t get into their state university go to. And of course it is more likely that the interviewer will be an alumnus of the large state university than some small LAC, so there are some odds advantages of going to the large university.</p>
<p>Now, that said, I do have a question about performance jobs and music resumes. Someone mentioned that for some jobs they will select people to audition from resumes. So if someone went to a state university that was not known for music, but the studio professor at state university happened to be the most famous musician in the world (for that particular instrument), then would that have the same kind of standing to the guy choosing who gets an audition as a graduate from a famous music school? In otherwords, is it the name of the school that is more important, or the name of the primary teacher/mentor? (I know that the correct answer is “how well you play” but I am talking about the pre-audition stage)</p>
<p>That depends on what the employer is looking for in the resumes. In many cases, when selecting whom to audition from resumes, they are looking for people with a history of prior employment rather than a recent grad, so the name of the school will be less important than what was done after graduation. In other cases, they may be looking for very specific skills (say someone who can double on other instruments or someone comfortable playing across several musical genres), excluding those without those skills regardless of pedigree. Might there be some cases in which the reputation of the school matters? Sure, there are a lot of potential employers out there and sometimes you don’t know what they are looking for.</p>
<p>If the state U teacher is that famous, a phone call from them to the potential employer would probably be enough to get one of their students invited to an audition. The music world is pretty small and a lot goes on behind the scenes by word of mouth. A personal recommendation from a well-connected individual can open a lot of doors.</p>
<p>I am not a musician, so I can’t talk about this directly, but I talk to a number of working musicians, and I have to agree with BassDad, that what is important on a resume where they take them is going to be experience, about what and who they have played with and so forth. I don’t doubt that for some jobs/gigs someone might be reading a resume on a young musician not far out of conservatory, and will say “oh, they went to Curtis, cool” or whatever…but from what I know, that is pretty limited. More importantly, BassDad hit the nail on the head, those kind of jobs usually don’t rely on blind resume requests and such, usually they are the result of networks, someone has a job opening, they talk to people, or met someone, and jobs end up happening that way, or at least auditions for jobs. Like a lot of jobs these days, they happen by networking and such…doesn’t mean that having Juilliard or Curtis might not help in some cases, but as with standard CV’s where you went to school starts mattering less and less; once you are established and show work background and skills, it matters very little to most hiring people.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for taking the time to comment. Perhaps this is a bit better, I’ve compiled a list of (I think it’s) 19 schools and will be posting a new thread on them, since this one is pretty cluttered up. Thanks!</p>