<p>Question for current student - how are the practice rooms at Vassar? My son is a pianist and it seems to be the one thing he cares about when he visits schools. Are they available to non-majors? Some of the schools we've visited have them in the basement and are windowless, some have windows. Some have Steinways, some have Kawais.</p>
<p>I don’t know about the practice room situation but here is what I heard from my freshman daughter.</p>
<p>All the dorms have the steinway pianos in their parlors. There is always someone (student) playing the piano she feels like she is living in an Arts channel.
I saw steinways everywhere throughout the campus. Not just the dorms.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure they have super nice music practice rooms. I hope someone can give you info on that.</p>
<p>I am not a current student but legend has it that that Steinway girls went to Vassar and it is true that there is a grand (not baby, usually a ‘B’ or long ‘A’) Steinway in every dorm lobby. Skinner Music hall is a beautiful neo gothic building with five floors of practice rooms, each outfitted with a Steinway and an embrasure window. When I went in the '80s anyone could wander in and use a practice room at any time just by showing a student id. The faculty is excellent; Richard Wilson is a world renowned composer and Todd Crow is a concert pianist known for interpretations of Bartok. You have to audition for lessons from the faculty but I was able to qualify in my sophomore year as a second-rate plunker and got academic credit.</p>
<p>My son is a Junior and a music major. He has a dedicated practice room and it is locked and only for his use. I do not know the rules governing the practice rooms, but I am sure you could get answers from someone in the music department. My son is in the Vassar Jazz Ensemble, which is why he qualifies for the practice room and I BELIEVE (do not actually know) that unless you are in a school orchestra or music ensemble you do NOT have unrestricted access to a practice room. That being said, yes the Music Building, Skinner, is beautiful and filled to the brim with Steinways and practice rooms.</p>
<p>I just checked with S2 who is a music (double) major at Vassar and he says that non- music majors use the practice rooms all the time and that he does not have his own practice room. All the practice rooms have windows that actually open so you can hear the practicing when you are outside. Belle Skinner(who went to Vassar) gave lots of money to a village in France to help rebuild it after the war and I think the style of Skinner is taken from a building in that area of France. It really is a wonderful music building!</p>
<p>Speaking of double majors, Vassar is a great place to do a double major. Since there are very few distribution requirements (only like 2 or 3), it is easy to double major in music and something else. If your son is at all considering it, take a look at the actual courses and distribution requirements at the other schools and see which classes he will actually have to take. S1 chose Vassar after being accepted to a conservatory at a university because he thought he would have more opportunities to play at Vassar and he could double major.</p>
<p>I hope you get to visit - when we listened to the the orchestra rehearsal during our visit - S1 knew within two minutes that Vassar was for him.</p>
<p>From [Introduction</a> - Music - Vassar College](<a href=“http://music.vassar.edu/introduction/]Introduction”>http://music.vassar.edu/introduction/)</p>
<p>“The Music Department resides in the Belle Skinner Hall of Music, a beautiful neo-Gothic building that opened in 1932. At the heart of the building are the Mary Anna Fox Martel Recital Hall and one of the finest college music libraries in the country. There are also several classrooms, including Thekla Hall (a small recital hall), an Electronic Music Studio, and twenty-one practice rooms, nearly all furnished with grand pianos. Vassar maintains a large collection of instruments, including over 65 Steinway grand pianos, seven pipe organs, six harpsichords, the Darlington Collection of early keyboard instruments, and a miscellany of non-Western instruments.”</p>
<p>Man, I wish I was 18 years old again…</p>
<p>LurkerDad, I felt exactly the same way when I dropped her off!! I was soooo jealous!!</p>