<p>Can someone please help me out with rankings of the top university music departments?</p>
<p>Here's a link to a discussion in the Parents Forum about Music programs.</p>
<p>No such rankings exist. US News used to rank music grad schools, but their lists were absurd, and they finally stopped.
It really depends on what areas of music you're looking for-- performance, composition, education, history/musicology/theory-- and even the subfields of those big categories.
To get you started, I'll give you my own crude impromptu listing of excellent/prestigious schools in each discipline. I'll stick with universities rather than conservatories, since that's what you asked about.
Performance: Indiana University, University of Michigan, U. of Southern California, U. of Illinois, Yale, Rice, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Florida State, SUNY Stony Brook, Rutgers, Boston U, New York U, U of Texas, U of Maryland, U of North Texas, Michigan State, Arizona State, Southern Methodist, U of Wisconsin</p>
<p>Composition: Michigan, Indiana, Yale, Rice, UChicago, Stanford, Harvard, UC-Berkeley, Columbia, Princeton, Northwestern, UPenn</p>
<p>Education: Michigan, Arizona State, Indiana, Vanderbilt, U of Houston</p>
<p>History/Musicology/Theory: Yale, Chicago, Harvard, Princeton, Indiana, UPenn, Case Western</p>
<p>This is all based on my limited knowledge. Hope it helps. Note that the lists are unranked.</p>
<p>University of Southern California should definitely be up there for composition as well. Frank Ticheli teachers there. Niiiiice.</p>
<p>And I definitely wasn't aware that Princeton's music department was any good. Maybe I will end up looking into that as a possible major, then.</p>
<p>Fiddlefrog, maybe I am missing something,but how about: Juliard, Peabody Conservatory at Hopkins, Cincinnati Conservatory, New England Conservatory et al. Perhaps these are not universities per se,but certainly qualify among the best music programs around.</p>
<p>Of course they are. That's why I specifically limited myself to university music schools/departments, as distinct from conservatories. CCM probably should have been on the list, since it is on the university campus.</p>
<p>If you're going into performance, ignore the "prestige" of the school. Instead, find a teacher you'd like to work with and go wherever he teaches. I won't discount the value of good orchestras, good chamber music programs, etc., but a good private teacher is the single most important thing in your musical education, in my opinion.</p>
<p>My D is looking at 2 schools of music within universities primarily because of the professors of her instrument at the schools. She would never have looked at the schools otherwise. Other schools are on her list are there because of a combination of her opinion on the professor and the school of music and a good general impression of the university itself. Somebody in another thread expressed concerns about going to a school just because of a professor because that professor could potentially change schools. I would imagine that there are not that many positions available to easily change schools. I still think you really need to look closely at all aspects of a school of music. The guide book by Carol Everett was a good starting point as well as recommendations from her local teachers and people she met at other music events. Visits, private lessons, listening to performances have all been suggested by folks on cc. We are in the process of trying to do it all before auditons next Jan/Feb. I think it would be hard to rate the different schools of music.</p>
<p>Flamingo,</p>
<p>For what intended major or minor? As others have pointed out, the answer to your question depends heavily upon what it is you want to study. There are places that are pretty good across the board, but they still may not be among the best in a particular area. </p>
<p>I second the notion of finding a great teacher, but there may be several great teachers for you out there. Don't stop looking when you find the first one, because you may not be admitted to that particular school.</p>
<p>If you become a music minor, you may get closed out of some teacher's studios. Many schools give first dibs on instructors to the performance and music ed majors. The most popular teacher's studios fill up quickly, especially at schools with a lot of majors in your intended department.</p>
<p>smsmom,</p>
<p>The mobility of music instructors at colleges varies quite a bit. If someone has a major symphony job sewn up plus a teaching position at a nearby college with the strongest program around, then they are likely to stay for a while. If they have relatively few ties, they could be off at any time. If your daughter is lucky enough to be accepted into the studio of a top-notch teacher, she might well consider transferring to follow them if the need arises.</p>
<p>That said, there are many dimensions involved with choosing a school of music. I think the teacher happens to be the single most important one, but there are a lot of other issues to consider. </p>
<p>I started with guide books too, and quickly realized that most of the books were collections of articles that the colleges had written about themselves. The ones where the editor does more than cut and paste such articles are often out of date or uneven - OK where the editor has recent first-hand experience and not so good otherwise. It is obviously impossible for one person to have recent first-hand experience about each of twenty different instruments at each of a couple of hundred schools. The guides can be a starting point and some offer reasonable advice about applications and auditions, but take what they say with a large grain of salt and expect to have to do most of the work on your own.</p>
<p>I have spent the past couple of years researching and visiting music schools with my daughter. If your daughter happens to play double bass, there is a lot that I can share with you. If she plays another instrument, there is a wealth of collective experience among the CC regulars. If you provide a few more details (e.g. what instrument, performance vs music ed major, level of playing, conservatory vs university vs liberal arts college, etc...) I think you will get several useful replies.</p>
<p>I'm thinking about double majoring: possibly along the lines of music education/therapy(? not quite sure which one yet) and psychology. Because I want to complete two different programs I was wondering how to make the best decision and settle on a good school for both...</p>
<p>Flamingo2000,</p>
<p>There are a few ways to approach this. If you come down on the side of music therapy before selecting where you will apply, then that narrows the field quite a bit. A quick search on collegeboard.com came up with only 63 schools that offer a music therapy major. If you were to start there and whittle it down based on any other criteria you may have (selectivity, location, size, etc...) you could probably come up with a reasonable list pretty quickly.</p>
<p>There are quite a few more schools that would offer both music ed and psych majors. If you decide to go this way, you might consider researching the music side of things first, based on the music ed programs, the teachers for your major instrument or voice and whether you are talking about classical, jazzz, pop/rock, etc. Once you had that list, then you could explore which of the schools also give you the opportunity to add the psychology major.</p>
<p>You could also try to postpone making the decision between music ed and music therapy until after you apply. You will probably have to make this decision before the end of your first year of college to have any chance of completing two degrees in the usual five year program. The number of schools offering all three majors is probably pretty small.</p>
<p>Once you have your initial list (say 20-40 schools) you can then start looking at web sites, asking more specific questions here on CC, talking with parents, GC's etc to get their input, perhaps visiting any that are close. Eventually you come up with a short list of places you want to visit and/or apply to. </p>
<p>Remember that you may need to audition for some of the music programs. The audition requirements are nearly always posted on the college web site. You will need to come up with a set of pieces that meet the audition requirements at each of the places you want to apply.</p>
<p>My high school-aged son is interested in (non-electronic) music composition. What are the very best undergrad programs in composition (and theory)? Is it advisable to go for composition to a school that has a music school (more performance opportunities, etc)? This would distinguish, say, Harvard, Princeton, and Chicago (and even Yale, which has no undergrad music school) from IU and Michigan and Rice. My sense is that at present the very best composition programs are at IU, Rice, Michigan, Princeton, Yale, Berkeley, Julliard. Please correct me if I am wrong in your estimation, and give me a sense of conservatories vs. universities, and universites w/music schools vs universities w/out... Thanks.</p>
<p>I would add Curtis Institute of Music to the list.</p>
<p>The choice of a teacher for composition is a very personal decision that will depend on a lot of individual circumstances. Choosing the right teacher is more important than choosing the right school and I would recommend you research individual faculty members at schools of interest.</p>
<p>Conservatories are great for the student who wants to do music 24/7 and enjoys being around others like himself. A University setting may be more appropriate for someone with a broader set of interests. If you have not already seen them, there is a good set of articles on the Peabody web site (<a href="http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/787%5B/url%5D">http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/787</a>) that you should read.</p>
<p>Some universities have fully or semi-independent music schools and some have more integrated departments. This is mostly a matter of internal administration and not a reliable indicator of the quality of education provided. You may wish to avoid schools with particularly small departments unless they happen to have a really good composition teacher. The college years provide a young composer with the best chance he or she is likely to have for some time to have their works performed. I think that giving them a chance to see how performers and audiences relate to their compositions is an element that is sometimes lacking in the education of composers. Try to find out whether the school groups often perform works by the student composers.</p>
<p>For composition, I would also add Peabody and MIT. I think your son should come up with a list of modern living composers that he likes and find out if and where they teach. That will give you a starting place at least.</p>
<p>I would appreciate information about Butler University Jordan College of Music in Indianapolis. I have interests in cello performance and in composition.</p>
<p>entrance requirements are totally different in programs like MIT and Conservatories like Peabody.</p>
<p>For top level universities your grades and test scores need to be near perfect no matter how well you play</p>
<p>For top conservatories your grades and test scores maybe irrelevant or barely so. But your ability on your instrument must be outstanding.</p>
<p>So your talking apples and oranges in Peabody and MIT.</p>
<p>does anybody have any suggestions for teachers or schools for piano performance undergrad? i'm currently looking at indiana and u of mich, but i'm not sure about u of mich.</p>
<p>Nagle is excellent (at Mich</p>
<p>I'm looking for some decent, competitive graduate voice programs. Please give me some suggestions. I would like a school that offered plenty of performance opportunities with a well-rounded program and plenty of scholarship. I know its a tuffy but if you can give me a hand I would really appreciate it. If you happen to know any programs that have auditions to begin in spring, that's a plus.</p>