<p>I am and always have been in love with music. It's what I do and who I am. I am not a typical music student though. I just started learning how to read music this year (as a junior in hs) and am no where near being classically trained. But, I have a great ear for music and taught myself piano and started taking voice lessons. The dream is to get a recording contract and become a famous musician, but more realistically I am interested in music technology/production. Without the background of many of my future competitors, is there even a slight chance of the dream happening? If not, how reliable is a degree in production? Thinking into the future, there is only one thing I want to do, and that is music. But, I have my moments of unsureness in my abilities. Is it worth the risk of paying tons and getting a musical education, or would it be best to get out now and just preform on the side hoping something will come along? Lastly, any recomendations for schools near cities, especially NYC, that offer respected programs in the feild of modern music would be greatly appreciated! Thanks</p>
<p>The question ‘is it practical’ is quite different than ‘is there even a slight chance of that happening.’
The short answer is that it all depends on you to determine what you will do with your future, and that you really can accomplish whatever you want if you are willing to put in the time to catch up or take routes that may not be conventional. So in the life sense, follow your passion.</p>
<p>But make sure you know what that entails. If you’re in the NYC area, go visit the NYU’s Tisch Clive Davis production program. It combines contemporary music production and recording. That would give you a feel of what’s involved. Also visit the Steinhard school of music, also at NYU, to get a sense of the difference between their music technology program and the Clive Davis program.</p>
<p>Many music technology programs require auditions on an instrument, or a portfolio of written and recorded work, and the capability to read music – even in sound engineering, where you need to develop a great ear and understand the end product you’re trying to achieve.Those types of programs also entail strong math and science skills plus technical aptitude. </p>
<p>If you have an interest in those things, you might wish to take an online AP music theory course to strengthen your depth before applying to such a college.</p>
<p>Lastly, try to find a highly regarded teacher to ensure that you are not teaching yourself bad habits on piano and vocals, and use whatever mentoring opportunities available to explore your abilities. Good luck!</p>
<p>It could be argued that very little about music is practical in the sense that some would argue that the odds of being successful are so small and being an art is not ‘practical’ as let’s say being an accountant is, but I assume you are talking about being able to make a career out of it and be successful at it. </p>
<p>In terms of making it as a famous musician, if you are talking the classical world I would tell you the odds of in fact doing that are next to zero. With most of the classical music world the road to ‘success’ , especially on an instrument like Piano, is to a large extent based in a lot of years of heavy duty practicing and learning, that it is to a large extent the amount of work put in (also known as the 10,000 hour rule and so forth). I can’t think, at least in the classical world, of a ‘natural talent’ who has made it in that world…</p>
<p>Outside of clasical music, it is a different world in my view. In terms of pop music, it is different, obviously, because there are many different paths/tracks there, and it doesn’t require someone with the level of training of a classical musician (lot of self taught musicians out there…). In pop music it is about a variety of things, skill as a musician is one part of it (there are plenty of “Gods” in rock music, for example, who are known to very few people and a lot of famous rock stars who as musicians, well, let’s just say they are okay). On the other hand, it is no easier to become ‘famous’ in pop music if you measure it in terms of the likelyhood of doing so (for every Rolling Stones, for example, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of bands and performers struggling to get noticed and so forth). I would say given your late start, it would be a lot more likely to make it as a successful pop musician then as a classical pianist:).</p>
<p>I don’t know a lot about recording engineering or music industry training, but one thing you should keep in mind with that is though it seems practical (since it involves a’ real job with real skills’ i.e recording engineering, producing, etc), in terms of practicality you need to look at the reality of the industry, which quite frankly is going through a major period of flux as well, The model is changing, CD sales have plummeted, and the industry itself is contracting, and more and more production is happening with the musicians themselves. While I think there is going to be a market for recording engineers and producers and agents and such, I also think that more and more the recording is going to be done by the musicians/groups themselves, and then the ‘record companies’ end up as distribution agents or marketing, rather then actually producing the product (or more likely, there will be some combination of self producing and in house producing). It would mean instead of being an in house person, hired by a company or something, you may end up more as an independent producer or engineer, marketing yourself and making in effect yourself ‘famous’ on that end…I also think you should do some research, try and find recording trade journals, read business articles and the like, and also of course look at the web site of music profession schools, since my advice is not from a music professional, just as observations looking in. </p>
<p>The best piece of advice I can give was given to me by someone who decided not to go into music, after pursuing it and actually trying to make it. He said that the answer to your question is to look at yourself, and say “I want to do this, it is seriously the only thing I can see myself doing”, and if you can wake up each morning and that is the answer, to go for it; but if you can see yourself doing other things, that as much as you like music or music production you can see other paths, it may be wise to choose them. Only you know the answer, but with music because it tends to be so difficult a path, it needs to be at the level of passion IMO to really make the attempt.</p>
<p>All good advice … I would add that you should get feedback from a professional in the business, or feedback from at least local musicians on your talent and potential. There are a lot of people that love music, but you do need to have feedback on what your skills and potential are. You are smart to start moving on this to catch up as fast as you can. You should definitely plan out how you will use your summer between your Junior and Senior year, because it should reflect your passion and commitment for this new found career path. I would add a few more things to ask yourself, only because you are shooting for ‘famous’ and not ‘best musician in the world’: If you want to be famous in a big way, do you have an interesting look that would be great on stage? Do you have experience performing or feedback that you have natural (even if untrained) stage presence? For the music skills that you are learning now, are you rapidly acquiring knowledge such that you could catch up? If you don’t have a lot of training going into college, you aren’t likely to get scholarship money, so you should have a stash of cash to cover 4 years. Schools on this forum that have been mentioned that cover popular and contemporary music are NYU/Clive Davis (do you have the potenial and business savvy like Alicia Keyes?), USC’s new popular music program, Berklee, and several others. All of them require a live audition and each has different levels of competitiveness to get accepted.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback, to elaborate on my statement of becoming famous, i dont want to become famous to be rich. I want to be famous so my voice will be heard on tv, the radio, i pods, etc. I want people to hear what i have to offer in music and my perspective of the world. Secondly, the following is a list of any training in music i have and any skills i possess in this art…
-started voice lessons 2 months ago
-teaching myself piano for 6 months
-started taking an in-school basic piano class
-going to start private piano classes
-use and am firmiliar with fl studio production software
-been writing songs for 2 years
-beginning how to learn music (advancing pretty quickly)
-trying to start looking for local mic nights and depending on how that goes, possibly less local mic nights in Philly considering im in a reasonable proximity to the city.
Lastly, in your oppinion, how long should i practice piano and vocals in order to become the best. Keep in mind i have a job every other day after school, homework(which is a lame reason to not practice but hey, it takes up about an hour of my day), and i work out 45 minutes a day. This leaves me at 6’ o’clock-ish by the time I’m done with this. I also will be playing lacrosse in the spring and am going to try and join a club or two. When I am not working or in school, i am surrounded by music. Everything i do, i have music to accompany me. I also write some sort of lyrics or melody almost everyday. How much more time should i be putting aside for practicing and also, if you know of any good open mic nights in Philly, let me know. Thanks</p>
<p>For a serious musician, 2-6 hours practicing a day is a normal range. I think beginners and intermediate musicians practice for 30 min to 2 hours a day. There’s no shortcut to getting to be a great musician. At some of the music summer programs, people are learning music, playing music, or practicing 8-12 hours a day. If they are listening to music on an iPod, they may be transcribing it to a different key, or listening to it in order to re-arrange it for different instruments or voice, but listening on an iPod as you walk to class isn’t quite the same. I would strongly suggest that you get an opionion from someone that teaches voice and or piano at a college level. You should follow your dream and your passion, but only if you have the goods and commitment to back it up.</p>
<p>Sound advice from those before me, but I’m going to paint a fairly broad picture and try and point out some background reading to try and help you make sense of this process.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/258796-so-you-want-music-major-one-familys-experience.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/258796-so-you-want-music-major-one-familys-experience.html</a> while written from the viewpoint of a classical instrumentalist is an excellent overview of the music admissions process.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/460187-how-many-music-voice-performance-majors-find-jobs.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/460187-how-many-music-voice-performance-majors-find-jobs.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/1019718-sure-being-music-major-truly-you-your-child.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/1019718-sure-being-music-major-truly-you-your-child.html</a></p>
<p>These are food for thought threads, and it is important that you have an idea of the competition, the potential of success, the ability to assess and formulate options and a strategy that you can live with.</p>
<p>From the standpoint of musical background within the folks that interact here, you appear to be behind the curve in terms of formal training and experiences. From a songwriting/composition aspect, you may not be, but again the lack of training and professional guidance will most probably be a major disadvantage.</p>
<p>Looking through your past posts, the initial list of schools you’ve posted is all over the board. A couple are high level conservatories, rooted in the classical tradition. A few are solid music programs with audition centric admissions, a couple are non-audition BA music options. One or two are not known for their music departments. Berklee seems an obvious choice for what you seek, but the overview of your background suggests that you may not be competitive within an extremely talented audition pool.</p>
<p>Your use of contemporary/modern as a descriptive can be misleading. My guess is that you are a seeking a program that focuses on what many might call popular or commercial music. There are few programs with this focus, the major one’s being USC/Thornton, Berklee, Belmont, New School’s J&C, UDenver/Lamont, Miami/Frost, CalArts, UArts, Roosevelt/CCPA. Most of these are audition based, with extremely competitive audition pools. A couple are far less competitive.</p>
<p>The other issue is your broad scope of interests… music production, songwriting, performance tend to be separate processes in audition based admissions, and the ease of moving within and across disciplines can be hard to glean from an overview reading of a program’s website.</p>
<p>The BA non-audition option was mentioned by one of the earlier posters, and it should not be ruled out. Many fine music departments exist within the liberal arts colleges, and The Colleges That Change Lives is often a good place to start.</p>
<p>Some more general reading </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/938087-songwriting-colleges.html?highlight=songwriting[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/938087-songwriting-colleges.html?highlight=songwriting</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/752896-music-schools-embrace-contemporary-musicians-suggestions-requested.html?highlight=contemporary[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/752896-music-schools-embrace-contemporary-musicians-suggestions-requested.html?highlight=contemporary</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/729957-does-any-school-teach-contemporary-music-music-performance-major.html?highlight=contemporary[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/729957-does-any-school-teach-contemporary-music-music-performance-major.html?highlight=contemporary</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/448421-late-bloomer-contemporary-music-advice.html?highlight=contemporary[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/448421-late-bloomer-contemporary-music-advice.html?highlight=contemporary</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/1001544-looking-popular-music-related-major-relatively-big-city.html?highlight=popular[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/1001544-looking-popular-music-related-major-relatively-big-city.html?highlight=popular</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/749881-best-liberal-arts-college-music-program-composition.html?highlight=composition[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/749881-best-liberal-arts-college-music-program-composition.html?highlight=composition</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/957443-music-business-industry-management-technology-production.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/957443-music-business-industry-management-technology-production.html</a></p>
<p>Those are just a sampling. Learn how to best use this forum to your advantage. This may help:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/892168-search-tips-other-insights.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/892168-search-tips-other-insights.html</a></p>
<p>Also look for some past posts by raddad, SteveM, PamelaMaeSnap, Smithanan, henrob as background for the popular options and insights.</p>
<p>Ther may be useful info here as well:
[Musician</a> Wages.com - The Website for the Working Musician](<a href=“http://www.musicianwages.com/]Musician”>http://www.musicianwages.com/)</p>
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<p>As a junior, now is the time to seriously start an in depth examination of music options, if that is what you want to do. Be realistic, and if you do intend to focus and attempt an audition based admissions, I would seriously rethink the lacrosse and the clubs. As others have mentioned, professional assessments as to your current talents AND potential are the keys here, but spreading too thin by adding EC’s may be at cross purposes.</p>
<p>One more thought: I would suggest not starting many multiple threads, but continue to add your basic questions to one primary. It makes it a bit easier for those responding to quickly review past info.</p>
<p>There are few programs with this focus, the major one’s being USC/Thornton, Berklee, Belmont, New School’s J&C, UDenver/Lamont, Miami/Frost, CalArts, UArts, Roosevelt/CCPA. Most of these are audition based, with extremely competitive audition pools. A couple are far less competitive.</p>
<p>I wondered which of these you felt were less competitive. My D has applied to most. Thanks.</p>