<p>All of the music programs I have looked at offer a general music major. A Bachelor of Arts with an emphasis in Music. What would be the purpose of this degree if it is not specialized? One who would do this would almost have to go to graduate school. Could anybody find a job with just this degree? If you do go to graduate school to specialize in an area, would just a bachelor of music degree be sufficient enough (besides the audition stuff) to continue your study? Most music majors go to grad school anyway.</p>
<p>jaywalk, some background in understanding the degree difference is here <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/561184-help-understanding-ba-vs-bfa-vs-bm.html?highlight=understanding[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/561184-help-understanding-ba-vs-bfa-vs-bm.html?highlight=understanding</a> and also in BassDad’s post here <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/258796-so-you-want-music-major-one-familys-experience.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/258796-so-you-want-music-major-one-familys-experience.html</a></p>
<p>As for getting a job (or a masters per your other thread) there’s some insights here <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/460187-how-many-music-voice-performance-majors-find-jobs.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/460187-how-many-music-voice-performance-majors-find-jobs.html</a> Right now, it appears getting a job in many fields is a tough row to hoe.</p>
<p>If nothing else, a BA in music is a liberal arts based four degree and will position you for the same type of employment opportunities many liberal arts degree holders will seek. The BA can also position you for grad school, either within a music specialty, or an unrelated discipline although that aspect can be contingent upon the masters discipline and your specific undergrad distribution. For example, grad work in a science field may be far more difficult if one holds a BA degree without the requisite applied background.</p>
<p>A BA in music, like a BA in any non-science subject, should enable you, in addition to learning about something you are interested in, to learn to think critically and write well. (Not to say that science students don’t think critically or write well, but the emphasis there is more on research and problem solving.) Most BA’s in music do not go to graduate school. Grad programs are very small in music, and only about 10 of them offer programs from which one might realistically hope to get a job. I heard from a Stanford professor that about 15 students a year are really competitive for such top programs - perhaps that is a low-ball estimate, but it isn’t many more than that. There are hundreds more students a year who get a BA. Some go to law school, some go into music management, some go to MM programs in performance, some work at Starbucks. But if you love music, studying it can be very rewarding, and is no “worse” a choice than any other 4 year academic program.</p>
<p>I’m wondering if a BA in Music, when combined with an Honors/Independent Study track, would sufficiently beef up a student’s resume who decides along the way that they’d like to continue the study of music at the graduate level. Especially if the BA program is from a quality school. Still not a BM, but I would think it would help. Might be a viable option for a student who has other academic interests and would like a more well-rounded undergraduate degree … without spending five years pursuing a BM/BA. I’m sure it would probably require some additional coursework at the MM level. Connecticut College has an option like that. Maybe a lot of them do … I hadn’t been looking for such things until last night.</p>
<p>A BA in music can certainly be sufficient in itself to prepare for a MA/PhD in music history, ethno, or theory. That’s the usual trajectory. Learning a language (especially German and/or French) is a good idea; writing a senior thesis is a good idea, too.
If you mean going on for an MM, there are certainly students who go from BA programs to MM programs; the theory requirements are pretty much equivalent to BMus requirements in most programs, and most BA programs offer performance as part of the programs, so it would be a matter of the audition for the MM. At UCLA, it is possible to major in performance (as opposed to music history) in a BA program, and those students may well plan to go on for MM/DMA tracks.</p>
<p>It’s perfectly possible to obtain a very well-rounded education as an undergrad in a performance-based BM program. All of these things just need to be resaearched carefully.</p>
<p>One difference between a BA to MM trajectory vs. BA/BMus to either a PhD or MM trajectory is that at Oberlin, for example, you can major in something entirely different from music while also studying theory, history, and performance in the Conservatory, and you have 5 years to do it. In fact, in the double degree program there, you can’t major in music in the college. (If you want to do performance and music history, you do that as a double major in the Conservatory; you could also major in music in the college and take lessons in the conservatory, but that would be a BA only and it might be harder to get the teacher you want if you aren’t in the conservatory.) So if your student has a strong interest in an academic subject outside of music (biology, English, Classics, etc.), it allows for the time to pursue both. Absent a strong interest in both, though, it would not be surprising for the student to opt for one or the other at some point. Merit and need-based aid applies for all 5 years for students who do this. On the other hand, it could be costlier in terms of tuition and time than you/your student desires…it’s really a question of interest, goals, and fit, as are all of these decisions.</p>
<p>I’ve been digging into this deeper, with the patient help of the head of the music department at Connecticut College. It looks like, in four years, with the help of some additional semester hours above the minimum thrown in along the way, it’s possible to do the following, while satisfying the LA curriculum requirements:</p>
<p>BA in Music
Plus:
o Applied concentration (trumpet performance)
o with Honors
o 3 semesters of Composition
o 2 years of German
BA in Classical Studies</p>
<p>When I compute the total music semester hours as a percentage of the minimum required semester hours to graduate, I come up with 62.5%. [You have to cheat a bit to accomplish this by taking some additional semester hours along the way.]</p>
<p>When I compute the minimum required music units for a BM at Lawrence U., for example, as a percentage of total units required to graduate, I get 66.67%.</p>
<p>So, percentage-wise, it’s pretty close.</p>
<p>Plus, he’d end up with a 2nd major, in just 4 years, which provides a “Plan B,” in case he changes his mind along the way about a professional music career. With Plan B, he’d still have the music degree, as well, which legitimizes him as a musician, somewhat, for teaching, performing on the side, etc., regardless of his primary career.</p>
<p>And Conn Coll is just an hour from home … which he seems big on, not me so much.</p>
<p>It’s not for everyone – and may not even be for us – I’m just thinking out loud here, trying to fully understand an alternative approach such as this.</p>
<p>Of course, there are no doubt many differences between the nature of a music education between the two schools. I’m using these two as an illustration. Conn Coll is certainly a quality LAC, aside from music considerations.</p>
<p>I would not be surprised to learn that the same type of BA program in music with a performance emphasis and with another major is possible at many LAC’s and certainly at larger universities. The differences between those programs and a 5-year BMus/BA program are probably in the (1) depth of the theory and performance courses, including access to lessons with high quality teachers that are part of the tuition costs, (2) opportunities to perform in a variety of ensembles and with a large number of talented musicians, and (3) the extra time to explore and take some of the pressure off of a difficult project of doing a double degree. Most LAC’s have very small music departments; an LAC with a conservatory will offer far more courses and opportunities to perform. Universities often have sizable music programs, because they have graduate students; and they may have sizable orchestras too, because they draw from a large number of students. All in all, these are individual decisions. And where a student prefers to live is an important consideration.</p>
<p>Some people use the bachelors in music who want to go into non performing sides of the business, like music management, recording/producing and the like. It probably isn’t as prevalent as it once was, since today there are specialized majors for things like record production and the like, but people probably still doing it.</p>
<p>when D who was originally a performance major (flute) decided music history/musicology was her true calling, she switched from the BMusc to the BA in Music upon the advice of her dept…after her soph year.This released her from further studio reqs and performance group reqs…she had fufilled enough in those first two years, and freed up space to add the music history and language reqs she now needed(added two years of German in prep for grad school).Her goal was graduate school,where she is now writing her dissertation …5th year of PhD. It also left her enough space in the schedule to do a Women’s Studies minor which tied in nicely with her women and music interests.</p>
<p>Sounds great … I wish her the best.</p>
<p>Regarding language for such a path, I always see French, Italian, and/or German recommended, but last night on Vassar’s web site I noticed:</p>
<p>“Recommendations: A reading knowledge of at least one of the following foreign languages: German, French, Italian. German is strongly recommended.”</p>
<p>for graduate school, you generally need 2 languages, one of which must be German. There is a lot of German scholarship, not surprisingly, in music history. French is also very useful. Less so Italian, for research purposes. German is also essential for graduate work in Classics and Art History, also because of scholarship in German. (Of course, if you are going to write about Shostakovich, you’d need Russian; Bartok, Hungarian, etc.)
Because German is a difficult language for scholarly reading, it’s good to get a head start and not rely on graduate courses in “German for reading.”</p>
<p>D’s Grad School program requires the two languages for the PhD…she got the head start on German as an undergrad on the advice of her undergrad music dept.Had Italian from High School and took French as the other Grad level language. She has used the French already to read an untranslated biography of her dissertation subject ,uses all the languages in her research and will need the German this spring when she will be in Switzerland on a fellowship using an archive.The German seems to be quite necessary.</p>