<p>I'm looking into a few different commercial music programs. I applied/auditioned for Berklee for voice, and got accepted, but didn't get any scholarship money. Unfortunately, that was the only school on my mind (don't know why....) so I'm going to wait a year to re-audition while also looking at other schools. I found Belmont University in Nashville and 3 of my professors have recommended Belmont as a great alternative with an awesome commercial music program. I originally wanted to do commercial vocal performance (do they offer that at Belmont or just classical vocal performance?) but I'm thinking that majoring in songwriting might be more helpful when it comes to jobs and careers after I graduate and internships too. Majoring in performance would be nice, but I'm not sure what I can really do with that major. I can sing backup and stuff, but I can't really do much as opposed to songwriting (jingles, songs for other singers,etc.). I guess my real question is, is it worth taking out the loans for the Belmont music program? I think I'm going to enter undecided next Fall (2014) so I can decide if I want to try for the songwriting program or vocal performance program. I used a pricing calculator for Belmont and it said that according to my family's income (<60,000/year) tuition and room and board would cost around $27,000 a year. That's not too bad, but the most I can get from Pell Grants is $5500 and then the rest would be scholarship (hopefully from the school) and loans (from the government or school). Is it worth it?</p>
<p>Quick answer, no. Do not take out loans. Spend a year getting voice lessons, trying to write your own stuff and gigging, and then re-audition. You will be amazed what a year can do for your passion and style. My guess is right now you are just another vocalist with a good voice and not enough ear training and music theory to take it to the next level of making your style your own or complementing a band authentically. </p>
<p>If you play an instrument like guitar or piano as well, brush up on that as well. Unless you are rich and have money to spare, taking out a loan for music school sets you up for a post-grad life of loan re-payment on a backup singer salary.</p>
<p>It used to be that those Pell grants would pay for all your tuition. My brother attended Northwestern, paid entirely by Pell grants (and our father was a university professor!). Today, that is unheard of.</p>
<p>Do not take out any loans. Make sure one of your schools is an in-state school with low or no tuition.</p>
<p>I’m pretty decent in my music theory and ear training. I played flute for 7 years. I just didn’t have any fun with that. I’m decent in ear training too. I’m really trying to invest a lot. I don’t just want to be a stupid pop musician with 4 chords in every song. I want to learn more and expand and be unique. still not worth it?</p>
<p>but those music schools suck. I want to actually learn something…:/</p>
<p>“I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.”</p>
<p>Consider at least going to Berklee’s 5 week so you can see how you compare to other musicians from around the US and internationally. </p>
<p>Music school does not make sense if you have to take out huge loans. Don’t fool yourself.</p>
<p>Yeah, I was considering the 5 week program, but I’m trying to save up money right now. The 5 week program costs almost $5000. I would probably have to pay it all myself and I don’t have that much unfortunately…</p>
<p>But yet you would take out 4-years of loans for $200,000?</p>
<p>My point of the 5 week is to save you a large chunk of that $200,000. You will either get better, maybe even good enough to compete for a partial scholarship, or you could realize what you need to work on and spend one or two years building your skills and experience to re-audition for scholarships.</p>
<p>As a vocalist, you may benefit greatly, since your voice is likely still maturing.</p>
<p>I can’t speak specifically to commercial music (though Belmont’s reputation seems strong), but I agree about the debt. Commercial music/pop music is very different than the classical world and the program may not be as critical as it can be in classical music. I commend you for not wanting to write “4 chord and an attitude” kind of music, and as anyone with a lick of music theory experience will tell you, ‘commercial music’ is still music and a lot of what you hear there has the same underlying roots, not surprisingly (like, more then a few rock and pop songs follow the pasacaglia form, and the musical interludes in “I will survive” are quite Bach-ian, at least according to my S:). Likewise, singing in the non classical world is very, very different from what is required in the classical world, very different. Among other things, you can have a lot more paths to success. </p>
<p>It isn’t that a school like Berklee or Belmont or whatever won’t give you advantages, they will, but given the reality if music it isn’t like if you don’t go to a school like that, you don’t have a chance, that isn’t true. I would recommend finding a program that you feel is strong and that you can afford without going into serious debt, and if you find that, take advantage of all it offers, the ear training, theory, composition, etc, vocal lessons, whatever…you do that, and you should have the background to attempt to do what you wish, be different and creative. </p>
<p>My take anyway, not claiming to be a big expert in that world, but that is how I see it;)</p>
<p>@Muzikgirl,</p>
<p>The Commercial Music Major is not a one-size fits all proposition. There are multiple tracks:</p>
<p>Performance
Music Business
Songwriting
Composing & arranging
Music Technology</p>
<p>The voice program offers classical training as well as concentration in modern styles. The other tracks are nice because you get a dual emphasis in those other things, not just singing. Whichever track you choose, you will still receive a lot of training in your primary instrument (including voice). </p>
<p>And based on what we saw, Belmont is a lot more affordable than Berklee. A 50% scholarship at Berklee will pretty much bring you down to the cost of Belmont. </p>
<p>Here’s a link to the commercial music major page:</p>
<p>[Belmont</a> University | Nashville, TN Major in Commercial Music - Belmont University](<a href=“http://www.belmont.edu/music/degrees/music_undergraduate/commercial_music.html]Belmont”>http://www.belmont.edu/music/degrees/music_undergraduate/commercial_music.html)</p>
<p>To paraphrase Philip Glass and to musicprnt’s point - classical (including modern) composers invent while popular musicians construct from what has been invented.</p>
<p>Muzikgirl – a couple of distinctions need to be made here.</p>
<p>First off, it might turn out to be unlikely that you can actually finance $27k a year – no one will give a student $108k with no assets or income, so your family would have to cosign, but might not have the borrowing power because it’s possible their debt-load ratio wouldn’t support the payback at 10 years on $108K. So, you need first to discuss with them whether they have sufficient savings, capacity to cosign/payback and willingness to invest that kind of money for your college education.</p>
<p>Secondly, many students DO in fact contribute to their own educational costs by working during the summer AND taking the maximum available federal student loans, which cannot exceed $30,000 over 4 years. Few students, unless their parents pay it all, escape this phenomenon. I suspect when other posters are telling you not to go into debt to go to music school, they perhaps mean EXCESSIVE debt, which would be anything over the $30k after 4 years. That is about the equivalent of a car loan and will take you 10 years to pay back. Of course, no debt is better…but if you really want to go to college, you do have to be willing to have some skin in the game and make the sacrifices subsequently that repaying those loans will require.</p>
<p>So, Belmont would be an awesome choice IF THEY AWARDED YOU A LOT OF MERIT/NEED MONEY…which is entirely possible. You would likely get quite a bit of need based aid, based on your family’s income, at just about any school that meets need. So that means that schools such as OBERLIN and USC and NORTHWESTERN would all be good candidates for applications if you were taking a gap year anyway (depending on the program you want…only USC Thornton technically has a contemporary program). CAST YOUR NET WIDE TO GET THE BEST POSSIBLE FINANCIAL PACKAGE YOU CAN!</p>
<p>Lastly, there is a very very economical alternative available in Toronto, Ontario, called Humber College, which has an outstanding contemporary music program. And by economical, I mean that the International Fees are $12,800 - a fraction of Berklee OR Belmont, and comparable to in-state tuition in most states.</p>
<p>Here’s a link if you’re interested in learning more about the program:
[Bachelor</a> of Music - Humber College - Toronto, Ontario, Canada](<a href=“http://www.humber.ca/program/bachelor-music]Bachelor”>http://www.humber.ca/program/bachelor-music)</p>
<p>Best wishes, and good decision on taking a gap year! Life is a marathon, not a sprint ;)</p>
<p>It is true that 30,000 doesn’t sound like a lot of debt, but given the nature of music, how hard and long it takes to get to where you have a living wage in many cases, I would argue that minimizing debt is important. There is a bit of a difference coming out trying to make it in music and coming out with a business degree or a comp sci degree, even with the bad job prospects out there many young people face in the current climate, music always seems to be like that…it always is about tradeoffs.</p>
<p>Thanks 
I’m actually working 2 jobs this summer and I might even not go to school for a year to just work and save up whatever I can. I also found Musician’s Institute and although it doesn’t offer liberal arts (you have to go somewhere else to take them) I can take them here at my comm college and have them transferred over in a year. I’ve heard some bad things about MI, but my professor who graduate from Berklee knows people who teach there and he said it’s an excellent school for musicians. Humber seems pretty decent too! Didn’t know there were so many more options out there. I researched so much and only found Belmont and MI. Thank you :)</p>
<p>I take that sort of offensively. I don’t think that pop/rock/contemporary music is all old and has already been done, I just think that there are many contemporary musicians who are extremely influenced by classical music or have been trained classically. Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin were both trained classically.</p>
<p>"To paraphrase Philip Glass and to musicprnt’s point - classical (including modern) composers invent while popular musicians construct from what has been invented. "</p>
<p>I don’t know what Phillip Glass’s original statement was, but that statement is a bit obnoxious if he said it like that (and I suspect the original intent was not that; Glass is not a complete arrogant buffoon like Charles Wourinam). </p>
<p>First of all, the idea that composers in classical music ‘invent’ is kind of problematic, and always have been. There have been revolutions in music, some good, and some bad, but then a lot of what goes on after is derivative of what others have done, it is the nature of it. For all the talk of the uniqueness of 12 tone music/tone rows, the basic concept is derivative of what others had done. Likewise, strongly atonal music, using chord and tonal sequences, is not really unique, given that others paved the way in using those. </p>
<p>And at times, popular music has been a lot more inventive then classical composers of any generation were. Jazz, though it has origins in classical music, the blues and ragtime, was very unique, both tonally and rhythmically, from classical music, and its basis of improvisation means that Jazz is constantly innovating with every performance.</p>
<p>Sure, there is a lot of trite popular music, but there is also a lot of classical music that is either trite or frankly, a cheap copy of what others do. Having been to a lot of premieres of new pieces, they either seem to be copies of Phillip Glass or they are all hung up in the Schonbergian 12 tone system, all pleased with themselves for creating that ‘killer’ tone row, and very little of it could be considered innovative or revolutionary, but rather a new take on an old form. </p>
<p>Pop music has its own innovators, the ability to write hooks that grab someone and makes them remember a piece is an art unto itself; a seemingly schlocky hair metal band can write lyrics that are incredible <em>shrug</em>…and quite frankly, while I wish more people in pop music had grounding in classical music (though surprisingly a lot do, the guy who wrote “a whiter shade of Pale” used Bach because he loved it), I think that Pop music has learned a lot more from classical music then sadly what classical should be learning from pop music but isn’t. It is funny, musicologists will celebrate people like Bartok, Copeland and Kodaly for using folk music as the basis of their own compositions, yet on the other hand will sneer at "folk music’ as an art form.</p>
<p>Frost School of Music has a singer/songwriter contemporary program as well. That school is very expensive also, but I’m jsut mentioning it because it seems, in your research, there are schools that you did not find. </p>
<p>Where do you live? There may be a community college near you that has music theory, etc, so that you can start accumulating some transferrable credits.</p>
<p>I did not mean to offend. My point was that classical training is useful for pop musicians. Anyway, here is the full quote:</p>
<p>“When you talk about concert musicians, you’re talking about people who actually invent language. They create values, a value being a unit of meaning that is new and different. Pop musicians package language. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with packaging language, some of that can be very good music. I realized long ago that people were going to make money off my ideas in a way that I’m not capable or interested in doing. It doesn’t bother me; the two kinds of music are just different. One thing these English and German groups have done, though, they’ve taken the language of our music and made it much more accessible. It’s been helpful. If people had only heard Fleetwood Mac this music would sound like music from outer space.”</p>
<p>Source: Interview by Robert Palmer of Philip Glass contained in the notes to Einstein on the Beach. </p>
<p>Just a note: Philip Glass was not talking about jazz and he has composed music for many mainstream movies.</p>