Hi all- I am in the spring of my high school junior year and I am starting to consider going to school for music. I’ve played piano for 10 years but never with super rigorous curriculum. I accompany for friends and play, but because I enjoy it. I would never want to be a performance major, and I don’t have interest in a music education degree, but I’ve recently been looking into other career opportunities like a producer, a pianist for a band, etc (out of the spotlight but still involved in the industry) and they have been peaking my interest.
I’ve been looking into getting a BA in music, but I don’t know if I could meet the audition requirements at a lot of schools.
Are there good schools that don’t require auditions for BA in music?
Is it too late for me to get into a music school?
(Mainly looking in the midwest/ Minnesota).
Thank you in advance
Auditions look for potential as well. Look into Gustavus Adolphus, Xavier, U of Wi-Eau Claire, Wheaton College, Northern Illinois U, U of Northern Iowa, Ohio Northern just to name a few.
No, it is not too late. While it’s nice that your interest has been piqued by your research into other career possibilities that involve music, I’m not sure that a BA in music is the way to get into these careers. You don’t want a performance major, you don’t want music ed. There are schools that offer music production majors, but those who go into this are usually on the tech side of music recording/producing. However, if you have the ability to pay, there will be places that are happy to take you for music, and since you’re not planning to major in performance, the audition might not be that big a part of your application. You might want to do some browsing through this site: The Best Music Production Schools in the US
There are BA programs that do not require an audition.
Lots of BA programs won’t require an audition. Or may require just a basic placement audition. You can even do a BA in music without an audition at the University of Minnesota. Saint Olaf also makes it pretty easy to go down a BA path for music and I suspect it’s a better BA school than a BM school even though some do get BMs there.
That said, this depends on your goals. I actually don’t think a BA is the worst way to build critical thinking, organizational and problem solving skills while maybe trying to target part time jobs and internships and even opportunities on campus to get involved in sound mixing, production, stage management, leading arts clubs, etc. Like my older kid does a music group with a big 10 U that has an intern that has been doing sound and production all year (they do a fair amount of travel/tour). That group has a number of interns - social media, business team, etc. A lot of those students are interested in entertainment/music business but have varied majors. You kind of have to dig around for opportunities like that, but they do exist on many campuses. Especially larger ones.
But there are more specific music business and production programs available at some schools if that might be closer to your goals and the programs are affordable for you.
In terms of shopping for schools, it is often best to consider budget because it affects how you shop for schools. This is a lot easier if your family has unlimited funds. But if you’re hoping for merit money, may need to use student loans, qualify for need based aid at some schools that may really differentiate how you want to shop for programs. I do think there are plenty of places you could have great experience in the upper midwest.
I’m not familiar with the Midwest colleges, but our local state college has a recording industry program that’s very highly rated (MTSU in TN). You might want to consider something like that. Many state schools will even accept intermediate level musicians for performance degrees. There are a variety of degree options for students in your situation.
You might want to read the Double Degree Dilemma essay in the Read Me thread on this music major forum. It it about different ways to study music.
A BA in music quite often does not involve auditions for admission, though there would probably be auditions in the fall on campus for college ensembles.
You can submit a music supplement with a recording or video if you feel your piano is good enough. Ask the colleges what they accept.
A BA iin music s usually 1/4-1/3 classes in music. Your other classes may be required gen eds plus electives or, at a few colleges, freer curricula with liberal arts, science/math.
You can major in music (music history, theory, music history, ethnomusicology, music technology, composition) with some performance component, lessons, and extracurricular performance. In fact, you can major in something else and still do lessons in many schools, participate in extracurricular music and take music electives.
There are many schools with excellent BA’s and excellent extracurricular music. In some cases you would want to avoid schools that have BM programs where the best resources, teachers and opportunities go to the BM students.
Most BM programs do have auditions for admission. BM programs are generally 2/3-3/4 classes in music so it is more immersive. BM programs can be at freestanding conservatories or conservatories/schools of music on the campus of colleges and universities.
You can certainly look into production which tends toward either studio/technical or creative/compositional. The terminology varies a lot from campus to campus so make sure to read the details.
ps check out Oberlin’s Musical Studies program for one school that has both BM and BA and is very inclusive for BA students. There are others…
I don’t think it’s too late at all! I am a newbie to the music world, but I can say that my son starting looking at music majors/schools in early fall of senior year, and he’s applied and been accepted to several. His interests are not the same as yours (he is heavily performance based), but I’m giving his story because it just shows you are not too late.
I don’t know what you consider a good school, and that is a huge discussion to dive into! But I will tell you about two that my son is considering for performance, but which also have degrees that might interest you.
The Loyola New Orleans Music Industry Studies program can be a major or minor, and it exists within a broader university where you can study many other subjects. You might be able to work with an advisor to create a mix of courses. NON-music-majors can get modest scholarships for playing in ensembles.
University of Colorado Denver has a non-audition track music business and recording arts BS. That school is a College of Arts & Media, so there are not opportunities to also take, say, Philosophy or English courses. Being a city campus and an arts based program, it is a very specific environment you would need to look into. We have not visited yet.
You are confused about the University of Colorado, Denver (known as CU Denver). CAM (College of Arts and Media) is a COLLEGE within the UNIVERSITY. There are degree requirements for the majors housed in CAM, but all majors in all colleges still take “Undergraduate Core” classes (aka General Education classes). The Undergraduate Core is 34-40 semester hours of English, Math, Science, Humanities…all the usual suspects. AP credit can greatly reduce the number of classes, but no one gets a BA or a BS without taking these types of classes. Even if your student is going the BM route at a Conservatory there will likely be some “Core” requirements.
CU Denver’s College of Arts and Media has both an audition and a non-audition admissions process (as both of you know, but just for others).
I was trying to find curricula for BA, BS, BM to see how many gen eds for each degree program. I assume a BA has more: is that correct?
This looks great as does Loyola New Orleans, but I wonder if the OP would also be well- served doing a BA at a liberal arts college.
I’m sorry for the confusion…to the OP, I was wrong about Denver. There are more opportunities (and requirements).
@compmom I thought of Loyola because they offer a BA in music industry, or you can also do it as a minor. (There is also a BS, different option.)
OTOH, I do see how the OP might find these programs more business or technical oriented than desired.
It’s good to see a wide range of options 
I cannot suggest specific schools. However, I can give an opinion on your question of “is it too late for music school”.
No, it is definitely not too late. I know a few people who have decided to major in music way later than their junior year of high school. They were able to pull it off with a significantly later start than where you are now.
As examples, I know someone who only started playing piano in high school. He worked very hard through high school to get some basic skills in piano, went to a very mediocre university for one year, did VERY well, transferred to McGill (which is very strong for music), and was one of the very top students in the program. He ended up being a tenured professor of music. I know someone else who got a bachelor’s degree in computer science, worked in high tech, co-founded a high tech company, sold it for a LOT of money, and who is now back at a very well known very good college of music getting his bachelor’s degree in music. The first person (the professor of music) has had students who were already in university, were lousy at performance, had mediocre grades, but who found a niche in the music industry where they could be very successful. One for example is currently fixing musical instruments for a living. I have heard of some recording engineers who similarly got a late start.
It is definitely not too late. Not even close.
If you are likely to major in music, I would try to avoid taking on debt for your bachelor’s degree if this is possible (I would say the same thing for quite a few other potential majors).
I haven’t seen much discussion of the transfer path here, and it’s a great point. Outside of CC, I have seen lots of discussion about going to a “lesser” school and transferring into a preferred program.
Berklee actually suggests some specific schools on their website. This information is in relation to COST of Berklee, but I think the list is interesting in that there are other schools that can specifically prepare a student for the Berklee curriculum.
We have 23 international partner schools and six in the U.S. and Canada empowered to teach the first two years of Berklee College of Music curriculum. Many of these programs were started by Berklee alumni and/or employ many of our alumni as teachers. Every one of them is significantly less expensive than Berklee, both because they are often in lower cost-of-living locations and because their tuition is less. In the U.S., our partners comprise three community colleges (Miami-Dade in Florida; Cuyahoga in Cleveland, Ohio; and Fullerton in California) that are publicly subsidized. While almost every student would rather spend four full years in Boston, not every student can afford to do so, and this option works very well for hundreds of students each year. As an example, our partner school in São Paolo, Brazil, Souza Lima, has an annual tuition of approximately $11,100 per year—dramatically less than Berklee in Boston. And the cost of living in São Paolo is lower than the cost of living in Boston.
A couple of quick comments:
He ended up being a tenured professor of music.
It is tough these days to get a tenured position in music. Many schools use adjuncts and humanities and arts departments are declining at some as well. Just don’t want any young people to get the wrong idea.
I haven’t seen much discussion of the transfer path here, and it’s a great point. Outside of CC, I have seen lots of discussion about going to a “lesser” school and transferring into a preferred program.
Again, just a note of caution: some schools/conservatories need you to do the full 4 years (8 semesters of lessons, for instance) even if you have done two years of gen eds and music classes. It is worthwhile to make sure that a transfer will save time and money. (Great the Berklee has that list!)
I think that he did do a full 4 years at McGill. He was however in-province and it was years ago so at least it was affordable. His year at the other university I don’t think did much other than get him ready to attend McGill. He has said that he is very thankful for the other university to give him that opportunity. At today’s prices in the US students need to be careful about the potential cost if they are going to spend extra time in university.
I also agree that tenured positions are becoming increasingly scarce.
“It is not too late” does not in any way imply that it will be easy.