<p>Bartokrules - Thank you for your warm welcome!</p>
<p>coloraturadad- PMing you</p>
<p>Thanks StacJip. I have looked at the camps, but wasnāt sure we could afford it. And I no doubt waited too late to see if scholarship money was available.</p>
<p>It is not too late for the Berklee Guitar Sessions. Take a look into that week on the Summer Programs part of the website.</p>
<p>My S, a rising Junior will be attending the Berklee Percussion Festival. We are taking him down to Boston tomorrow. He is a classic absent minded teenager, so I am a bit nervous. His attendance was my idea so I could let my ābirdā fly. He is very excited and not at all apprehensive (yea!).</p>
<p>Hello everyone! I am new here. My D will be a senior this year. She would like to major in voice performance/music ed. I think what she really envisions herself doing is teaching applied voice at the college level (my husband is a university band director, so she has a lot of experience watching people teach at the college level). Since she would need to get her masterās and doctorate, my husband and I both believe she should go somewhere thatās quite affordable for her undergrad. We live in Michigan, and everyone is telling her to go to University of Michigan, but she thinks everyone there is rather snobby (thatās how she felt after visiting once), but Iām really not sure if any of the other state schools in MI have good quality vocal performance programs. I am also a band director, so although I know alot about good instrumental programs, I really donāt know enough about vocal programs. My husband and I met at Florida State University and loved it - but that is quite far away from MI - and out of state! We live close to Lawrence University, but I think Iāve read that itās rather expensive. Any advice would be very helpful!</p>
<p>Sax lady, We found Lawrence offered great merit aid and it would have ending up being one of the cheapest schools for us even though we are from out of state. Enjoy this journey that this year will hold for you and welcome.</p>
<p>My son is a music major at UM and we live in MI. Indiana U has excellent vocal performance and Music ed. and has academic scholarships that students can qualify for automatically if they are strong academically. With the scholarships he qualified for it would have been cheaper for him to attend IU than UM! Western Michigan has a good reputation for vocal performance, but maybe more musical theater than classical. My son loves UM, is majoring in cello performance.</p>
<p>Hi, we live in Michigan, but my son will attend CCM at U of Cincinnati this fall. His academic and music scholarships combined make for lower tuition than in-state back home. I donāt know about the vocal program there, however. A note about Indiana U. I thought I read in the fine print this past fall that Jacobs students were no longer part of that automatic academic scholarship program, and that all music student scholarships would now originate solely from Jacobs. Hopefully someone more familiar with the school can clarify.</p>
<p>Hi Saxlady, </p>
<p>Where does your husband teach? My S will be attending Lawrence University in the Fall and I teach at a school which shares a consortium with Lawrence and we were able to apply for tuition exchange, which has made Lawrence very affordable (you can see one list of participating schools here: [Tuition</a> Exchange](<a href=āhttp://www.tuitionexchange.org/schools.cfm]Tuitionā>http://www.tuitionexchange.org/schools.cfm)). He qualified for some very generous merit scholarships also. </p>
<p>Iād also put in a plug for Elmhurst College, where I work. We have a very strong vocal music program with good connections to the Chicago music community, we give lots of merit aid and weāre in the Chicago suburbs (not that far away).</p>
<p>Academic scholarships for music students at Indiana University are now administered through the music school. I believe they are still automatic, as D did not have to fill out additional applications for either her academic or music scholarships.</p>
<p>Sax lady, what a nice testament to your husbandās teaching career that your D finds it an appealing path!</p>
<p>Thank you all so much for the advice! My husband teaches at Northern Michigan University, which is only 4 hours north of Appleton, WI, where Lawrence is. Itās good to know that they have great merit awards - the only problem is that my D is a sopranoā¦and they are a dime a dozenā¦so I wonder how much of a scholarship she will be able to get from anywhere. She does have a high GPA, so Iām hoping for some academic scholarships. As for the Tuition Exchange, it looks like most of the schools on the list are private schools, so NMU is not one of them listed.</p>
<p>Tumpetguysmom - youāll have to let me know how your S likes Lawrence! It would be nice for her to be closer to home. Ironic that a school in Wisconsin is closer than any of the schools in lower Michigan, but thatās how it is when you live in the U.P. (Upper Peninsula)!</p>
<p>Jazzpianomom1 - we visited CCM, and she loved it, but I didnāt think we could afford it - glad to know about your experience. However, she looked at it when she was considering Music Theatre. Now that sheās decided against it and wants to do vocal performance, I donāt know.</p>
<p>And Cellomom2 - Iāve heard UM is very expensive!! I wonder how Michigan State is for vocalā¦anyone know?</p>
<p>Hi Saxlady,</p>
<p>I donāt know if I would say UM is very expensive, maybe compared to other schools for in-state? It is way less expensive than most out of state schools though financial aid can change that and I would say UM does not seem very generous with merit scholarships.
Michigan State has a strong music department, but I donāt know any specifics about the vocal department.
Good luck with your search, it is an interesting process!</p>
<p>Greetings everyone, I am new to this website and trying to find my way around. My S is a rising senior who has just recently decided he wants to major in music, either performance or performance plus music production. He is a violinist. I have a couple of questions about teachers. First, how do you gather information about the prospective teachers? For example, one school we are considering is Carnegie Mellon. There are at least two violin teachers who might be a good fit. How does one go about getting the real scoop on teachers? Also, my sonās current music teacher has suggested that it is very poor form to play for more than one teacher at any given school. If that is true, how do you choose before meeting them?</p>
<p>Hi Loopermom,</p>
<p>I was surprised to read that your sonās teacher thinks it is poor form to play for more than one teacher at a school. My son played for 2 teachers at several schools and it did not seem to be a problem or concern. You may want to ask around a little more about this, but I have not heard this before. Through the audition/admission process your S will be looking to be accepted into a teacherās studio and into a music school. Hopefully he will get into a first choice school with a first choice teacher, but he may end up with various choices such as a teacher he likes better at a school that is not as high on his list or the opposite. We probably focused too much on just one teacher at some schools on my Sās list and if he didnāt get in with that one teacher then the others didnāt consider him because he had not marked them as a choice on his form at the audition. If I had it to do over I would definitely make more of an effort to meet as many teachers as possible at each school. I think this also gives you information about the depth of the program. We found most teachers to be so busy I donāt think they are really paying attention to who is going in and out of other teachers studios! Plus most teachers only take 2-4 new students per year and may not be able to take every student they like and would probably be happy to have that student at their school with another teacher, they are also looking to build the department as a whole. Good luck and be sure to look back through old posts there is a lot of good information on this site.</p>
<p>It really depends on the school and the teachers. At some schools, and I speak from experience, you will find teachers who will be offended by students who appear to be teacher-shopping within the school. In general, it is not a problem. The specific way the department scores there audition may be a factor. How do you get the scoop on individuals? Word of mouth is probably the best way-- most people will be reticent to go on record, even in an anonymous forum, about specific teachers.</p>
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<p>This was my concern also when our family first started out on this journey. Obviously, your teacher will share any info they have, and you can probably network with other local teachers and parents or HS music teachers for information.</p>
<p>As I often do, I agree with glassharmonica. People on this forum (or other similar ones) are unlikely to give public criticism of specific teachers. But when I first joined, some of the experience folks sent me PMs with names of teachers they had liked, and that was immensely helpful.</p>
<p>Summer programs can help your child meet a number of teachers, and of course, those sample lessons are crucial in determining whether thereās a connection there. For my D3, those were really the key thing: occasionally there would be conflicting advice from people she trusted and respected (e.g. ādonāt study with X, I hear s/he messes up peopleās techniqueā vs "definitely study with X, s/he would be fantastic for your technique) and in the end, she relied on her own instincts about teacher match.</p>
<p>Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and experiences. It sounds like we can take the risk to play with more than one teacher. Your responses made me aware of how very little I know about the auditions. Cellomom, are you saying that you are asked at the audition to state which teachers are of interest to you? Glassharmonica, could you explain what you meant by āThe specific way the department scores there audition may be a factor?ā Stradmom, is there a place in this forum where I can inquire about recommendations of teachers? I know that it is very subjective information, but I think it could be useful if it contains some specifics.</p>
<p>Oops, I mean āscores their auditionā! [insert embarrassed emoticon]</p>
<p>Also-- the reasons we tend not to discuss individual teachers in public are many, but chiefly it boils down to the issue of the classical music world being very small. If you get to know other parents over backchannel (āPMā) conversations, they will likely share information.</p>
<p>I agree with what stradmom says below about conflicting information. In my daughterās case she found it very useful to take lessons with teachers. She was looking for a specific kind of teacher who would help with technique but also address musical issues; some teachers seemed to be focused only on musical ideas-- she felt that they would be better for her later along, perhaps in grad school. A few teachers she played for seemed to address technique in a way that she felt was not useful for her or would be potentially harmful on a physical level (she is small with small hands so the one-size-fits-all approach isnāt always practical for her.) Taking lessons or āplaying forā (which seems to be code for a lesson/evaluation where you arenāt asked to pay) was extremely helpful for her in deciding what studio would be best.</p>
<p>Yes, at all of my sonās auditions he was given some sort of form to indicate his teacher preference. There was usually a way to rank teachers as well as a box to check if he would like to be considered by the school and assigned a teacher at their discretion.
I agree with stradmom and glassharmonica that the lessons were very helpful. There were teachers that were highly recommended that my son did not click well with and others that were not recommended that he liked a lot. He was usually able to tell during the lesson time if they seemed to teach solid technique. Many teachers will also allow you to sit in on their studio classes and that can give you a lot of information about the quality of their students and the relationship between the teacher and their students. I seem to recall that there is some information about specific teachers in past posts relating to cello teachers specifically, I donāt know if the same applies for violin. If you know other students who have attended summer festivals you may ask if they came across any teachers they particularly liked. Many college teachers attend various summer festivals. We wanted to visit NEC and couldnāt seem to find anyone who knew anything about the teachers there so I just started e-mailing 2 at a time until I got a few responses and was able to set up 2 lessons while we were in the area.</p>