<p>Hi everyone,
I am looking for a school with an outstanding percussion department. My son loves orchestral and drumline percussion. It is hard to find a school good in both. He follows the DCI corps - Cavaliers and Madison Scouts. Anyone have any advice?</p>
<p>What about University of Michigan, University of Miami, Northwestern, USC? Is it orchestral percussion he's interested in or, more likely, band?</p>
<p>It's really both band and orchestra he's interested in. I guess I am looking for good teachers as well as reputation of the music department.</p>
<p>My son is a senior classical percussionist and he is very interested in Indiana as they have a great percussion faculty (Steve Houghton, Kevin Bobo, John Tafoya and they have a marching band. DCI was held at the IU stadium this year.
Another good music school with a very large percussion dept. is University of North Texas. Very big in drum line and chair of Percussion dept. is Mark Ford. Your son may have heard of some of these people. Good Luck. We are heading to NYC tomorrow for son's auditions at Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music this weekend. He auditions at IU in Feb.</p>
<p>Hey, good luck to our son Pukadad!</p>
<p>Thank all of you for your help. I keep hearing about Indiana U. Butler U in Indianapolis is supposed to be good. Good luck Pukadad at the audition. Maybe you could tell me how it went.</p>
<p>Just returned last night from NY and son's auditions at Juilliard and Manhattan. He felt Juilliard went "ok" but not great. On the other hand, felt really good about the audition at Manhattan. One of his favorite marimba players, She-e Wu was on the panel which was very cool. She is an "artist in residence" there. He really liked the interaction between himself and the judges. They were trying to see how he took their instruction to change how he had played parts of the piece. There was none of that at Juilliard. The admissions/financial aid session on Friday was the best we've ever attended. For us, the vibe at Manhattan has been great every time we've been there. Julliard will inform of decision by first week of February and Manhattan said they will inform by last week of March. Off to Indiana next weekend and then the wait...</p>
<p>Interesting. As of last fall, She-e Wu is the head of percussion at Northwestern. I wonder how much time she spends in Manhattan.</p>
<p>Pukadad,
How did the audition go at IU? I am going there next weekend to look around with my junior son. I have been hearing about several other schools rating high in percussion departments, including Butler U, Ball State, U of Oklahoma, U of Texas (Arlington), U of Central Florida, U of Arizona and Youngstown State U. I am very confused. Not to mention Northwestern and Eastman which are also on my list.</p>
<p>The audition weekend at IU was amazing. They really have their act together. It started on Friday at noon with a percussion luncheon that the four percussion professors (Steve Houghton, John Tafoya, Kevin Bobo, and Michael Spiro) hosted. They each spoke about the program and then fielded questions. They we went to the room next door and for the next 30-40 minutes several undergrads performed a myriad of percussion pieces. It was a great way to see kids perform in the environment. This was unique to any of the other schools we have visited (SMU, Juilliard, MSM) and very fun and informative. I overheard them say there were 140 applicants for percussion and I am assuming that included Masters and Phd candidates but I'm not sure. They have 10 slots for incoming Freshman so I assume they will probably offer 20 kids admission.
My son's audition was the next day at 9 a.m. and lasted 10 minutes. He played parts of 3 of the 6 pieces he had prepared. They four profs. were there and very friendly. After the audition, he and about 50 other prospective students took a basic musicianship test that took about 30 minutes. About 50 questions of which 10 were aural. My wife and I attended an hour long information session in the MAC auditorium where the dean of the school, the admissions director, and a theory professor spoke and took questions. A panel of 4 undergrad students then spoke and took a few questions until time ran out.</p>
<p>After this was over my son then went back and had a 5-6 minute interview with the four professors who had heard his audition. They asked him how he thought his audition went, what instrument he felt he was the strongest/weakest on, why he wanted to come to IU, did he want to play drumset and Michael Spiro was very interested in if he liked playing in the steel drum band at his high school and would he want to do that at IU. This is Spiros first year at IU and is really ramping up the world music scene there. I can't emphasize enough how accessible, friendly, honest ("you are going to work really hard here, it's not a place if you aren't really committed to improving") all four of the professors were. The other thing is you could tell they really like each other and they all have their specialty. This interview after the audition really made the entire process a great one. My son came away with a very good sense of what they thought of his audition (they did not promise him admission) and by the things he said they told him, felt very positive that he would be accepted there. I am cautioning him (and his mom and I) not to count the chickens quite yet but it does sound promising.
My son and my wife and I came away with a very strong sense that this is where my son should be. He is not comfortable with many of the other schools approach to picking either classical OR jazz and then not being able to study the one you didn't pick. The philosophy of the percussion faculty at IU is that you will learn classical, drumset, jazz, and world music during your four years at IU. Another important difference between IU and UNT is that IU you will ONLY have your lessons with one of the 4 percussion faculty. A new bonus at IU this coming fall is that a music major can pick up a minor in jazz, composition, conducting, and a couple of others I can't think of right now. The head of admissions stated that merit scholarships ranged from $3000-full tuition. One of the great bonuses of IU is that your child can also receive automatic academic scholarships as well based on SAT and GPA (ie-> 1310 SAT + GPA>3.8 = $9,000/yr). They last percussion auditions are Mar. 6-7 and they told my son he would hear from them by the middle of March.
I must mention the town of Bloomington. I don't think you can appreciate the beauty of the campus right now as all the leaves are off the trees but your imagination will fill in the gaps as it still is quite stunning. I will also declare my bias as I grew up from 6th grade through college in Bloomington but haven't lived there since I graduated in 1980. We met another family from Texas and the mother was shocked with the beauty of the campus and the charm of the town. Unless you have to live in a big city, I think you will find the IU campus in Bloomington as one of the best in the country.
I'm sure I'm forgetting something but feel free to PM me with any other questions you may have.</p>
<p>My S just auditioned at IU this past weekend so we are sitting on pins and needles right now. We loved the faculty and the whole organization of the audition day. John Tafoya, Steve Houghton and Kevin Bobo couldn’t have been more helpful throughout the process. We were even treated to an awesome concert by the senior percussionists. It was such a contrast to the previous weekend at Northwestern. I would concur with everything that Pukadad said above. The only bad thing is that they can’t take everybody.</p>