<p>I agree with compmom in what she wrote, based on my own observations with my son I don’t think working on things like theory and solfege at home would work as well as in a program, a lot of the value of these programs is in how they are taught as what they they are thinking. </p>
<p>Want an example of what I am talking about? My son has perfect pitch, which despite claims to the contrary, actually can be and is detrimental at times to studying music (works great learning by ear, I’ll grant you…but that is not a major part of traditional music study). In solfege, where you are learning to identify intervals, to figure out what a diminished 7th off some base tone is, someone with perfect pitch can kind of cheat…when the whole purpose of solfege is to learn about relative pitch which is critical in music (least from what I understand of it, I am not a musician). If my son tried doing solfege from a disk or some home study program, he could use his perfect pitch sense to work out the problem…at his saturday program, when they figure out a kid has perfect pitch, they give them problems that are difficult to resolve using PP, and also make them do it quickly enough that PP+ working it out logically won’t work… </p>
<p>The other thing is while piano teachers and voice teachers obviously have had training in theory and voice, it doesn’t mean they will be effective at teaching it, and quite frankly, taking time away from your main voice lessons to do that seems to me to be working against what you need to do. There are exceptions, my son took piano when he was pretty young for a while and his piano teacher taught him a lot of theory, but the man was a retired music professor who had been chair of the department of music at a local university, so he had taught theory and so forth for a long time. I can’t speak of the program you are talking about, but I would guess that the people teaching solfege and theory and such are people who routinely do it, and I can’t see how what they teach wouldn’t be as good or better then what you would get from a teacher whose primary focus is not teaching those things…I also reiterate in agreeing with compmom that being around other musical kids can make a big, big difference, it can give you the idea of what it is like to be in the world and it can inspire you to do better and better.</p>
<p>In the program my son is in he is solidly somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of his ability and he is surrounded by kids who remind him that as strong as he has gotten, they are more advanced, have things they can do incredibly well he isn’t as good at, and it gives him concrete examples of why he needs to work hard and really helps drive him to do what he does. A teacher can tell you you need to work hard, but especially if you have done very well already, if people are telling you how good you are (including, perhaps, your own teachers), it can be hard to really know what is out there until you see it and experience it as colleagues with other music students. People often talk about how great the kids are on programs like “From the Top”, or how great some kid is who is all state, etc, but when you get exposed to it you realize that even if you measure up to kids like that, there are plenty of them out there even better who you don’t see…whereas in a music program you very well could be exposed to kids at that level. </p>
<p>Obviously, none of us can talk to your specific situation, since we know neither yourself or the program in question, we are talking from our own experience. Neither of us is saying that if you don’t do a program or a summer festival or whatever that you won’t be able to pursue music, anyone who says that is misguided, what I am saying and what I believe compmom is saying is that a Saturday pre college program can help you in a lot of ways you wouldn’t have without going there; obviously, having a first rate teacher is critically important, but there are elements outside that that can make your path more clear, help towards that goal. It isn’t even about learning theory or doing solfege, it is kind of a complete package of being immersed in music that I believe helps the student a)figure out if they really want to go into music and b)see what it really takes, get inspiration, whatever. </p>
<p>By all means, one thing I would recommend is to try and find out what others who went there have said about the program, especially music students who have gone on to study music and even better, enter the field of music. Did it help them? Was the program worth it, or just another program collecting tuition? Saying ‘the program is based on Juilliard’s pre college program’ doesn’t mean much in of itself, it could be a relatively low level program that happens to use the format of Julliard’s program, or use the same books or whatever…like summer festivals, these kind of programs can be everything from a community music program (nothing wrong with that) level, to somewhere way up there on the level of Juilliard. To give you an idea, my son took theory as part of a music program he was in before he went to his current program, and they proudly proclaimed it used the ABRSM curricula and was ‘as good as any pre college program’…while my son in fact learned in the program, he said that there was no comparison, that he learned more in 4 weeks in this program then he did in a year at his old one and that much of his learning there he kind of picked up on his own through reading and asking the teacher questions…</p>
<p>And I understand about the extra cost, those programs are not cheap, as I well know. However, if it helps you focus on what you do or don’t want to do, it could end up saving you money and time down the road. If you go and decide music isn’t for you, you are saving yourself from making that decision later on, after you go to college; and if it helps you find you really love it, and spurs you to work harder, you might end up in a much better program and have the basis to do better then you would have. In the end, it is about what the perceived value of the program is versus the real cost in time and money. And obviously, make the decision based on perceived value to yourself, if you choose not to do it you probably would do well if you love music.</p>