Music at Oberlin College

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I play flute and trombone in my school's wind marching band and pep band. I definitely want to continue in college, but I'm not going to be a music major.</p>

<p>I really like everything I've heard about Oberlin, including the fact that it's a top-notch conservatory along with a great liberal arts school. However, I'm worried that there will be few opportunities for a strictly recreational instrumentalist among a bunch of extremely talented music and performance majors. I can't compete with kids that practice 8 hours a day.</p>

<p>Should I apply to Oberlin? I want to be in band in college AND be happy there, without feeling vastly out of my league.</p>

<p>Thanks for your time!</p>

2

<p>The people best equipped to address this are people associated with Oberlin, no?
Ask them. Otherwise you are going to get a lot of speculation, and possibly misinformation, from less than perfectly informed people.</p>

<p>What I can tell you is: D1 played an instrument, well but not conservatory level, and she took lessons there from a conservatory student who had prior teaching experience and was reportedly the best instrument teacher D1 ever had. She couldn’t have gotten lessons from conservatory faculty, but that would have been overkill based on her needs. But I think conservatory faculty lessons depended in part on the instrument and her ability level based on audition. But the instructor she got was great. For her.</p>

<p>There is informal music all over the place there, not just in conservatory, and there are formal non-conservatory and mixed music groups. But I don’t know much of anything about them, D1 didn’t have time or interest to do more with it, so that’s all I can share.</p>

3

<p>Good advice from monydad but to take it a bit further <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/oberlin-college/958741-music-non-conservatory-students.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/oberlin-college/958741-music-non-conservatory-students.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The posters mamenyu and BassDad have or have had students/recent grads at Oberlin as music majors. Both are extremely knowledgeable about all things music at Oberlin. You might want to pm either or both, or repost in the [Music</a> Major - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/]Music”>Music Major - College Confidential Forums)</p>

4

<p>Oberlin has a marching / pep band, but it has (had?) only 13 members and its website has been dormant for two years.</p>

5

<p>There is an orchestra for non-conservatory students. No auditions needed. If you can play reasonably well you will be welcome.</p>