<p>I've been accepted into both UCLA and UCB.</p>
<p>At UCB I am going in undeclared (as all transfer students do) while at UCLA I've been accepted into the Music History major.</p>
<p>I know UCLA has a better music program, but the undergraduate advisor I emailed said that I cannot change to the UCLA music department (music history is under the musicology program) which means that I would have to audition in the winter to be considered for admission in the fall of 2011.</p>
<p>UCLA has a School of Music (sounds more serious) as opposed to UCB which has a department of music. However, UCB is the top public school in the nation.</p>
<p>I eventually want to get a masters in conducting, but I dont know if going to a School of Music will give me that edge. For example if I wanted to get my masters in conducting at the SF Conservatory, I dont know if they would look down on the fact that I got my music degree from a department of music rather than a School of Music.</p>
<p>Anyone have any suggestions or ideas on what I should do?</p>
<p>First of all, don’t get hung up on the nomenclature - there are music departments with very strong reputations and schools of music without. The important question is whether you will be able to take the classes you will need, to gain the experience working with ensembles, and to develop your musicianship and keyboard skills sufficiently to pass the audition for what is usually a very small number of spots in a graduate level conducting program. Have you taken the time to speak with the conducting teacher at either school? Your relationship with your applied teacher(s) will be much more important that the name on the outside of the building.</p>
<p>Both schools appear to have the necessary classes and resources. UCLA will probably provide ensembles with stronger players but, depending on your conducting skills, that can be a double-edged sword. Both programs are of the BA, not the BM variety, meaning that you would typically spend 30% to 50% of your time in music classes and the rest satisfying the same distribution or breadth requirements as any other BA student in another major.</p>
<p>Taking what they have presumably told you about which of your classes in your current school will qualify for transfer credit, you should plot out a curriculum plan for your remaining years at both schools. In order to apply for grad schools, you are going to need a finished videotape of yourself conducting an ensemble by around November of your senior year. That means that you would ideally have had at least one introductory conducting class in junior year with an opportunity to conduct an ensemble certainly no later than early in the first semester of senior year. Putting together the curriculum plans will show you whether it will be possible to schedule those classes in that timeframe, considering all of the pre-requisites and co-requisites as well as all of the non-musical classes that you will need to graduate.</p>
<p>Grad schools also usually require you to demonstrate specialized keyboard skills like playing from an open score, realizing a figured bass line on sight and harmonizing a melody on sight. Depending on where you are right now with these skills, you may need work in those areas as well.</p>
<p>For UCLA, check to see that you will in fact be able to take the conducting classes and other performance classes offered by the school of music. The school of music at UCLA is quite small, and very competitive for admission. Admission as a transfer student is not at all guaranteed. So, you probably need to count on staying in musicology–will you be able to add the performance classes as electives? Maybe not. Majors will always have first priority. Your applied teacher will most likely be a graduate student, not faculty, though that may be fine for you. From my research, only performance majors get faculty for lessons. Does musicology even include lessons? Is that important to you?</p>
<p>Berkeley, on the other hand, does not require an audition into its music major, so presumably you should be able to get in with your background. You can take both choral and instrumental conducting. If you are interested in double majoring, Berkeley supports that as well, since music is part of the College of Letters and Science. At UCLA, a double major would be much more difficult to achieve, because you would be applying to a different school for that.</p>
<p>You also mention a goal of a master’s at SF Conservatory. Being in Berkeley could allow you to make some connections there, maybe even take lessons or workshops. Applied lessons faculty at Berkeley are mostly if not all adjunct faculty–there may be some who also teach at SF Conservatory…or not. In any case, there’s a good chance they know each other–the music world is quite small.</p>
<p>Your prospects at Berkeley seem pretty doable and straightforward, UCLA not so much. From what little I know of your situation, for me, Berkeley would be hard to beat. Don’t know if you are familiar with the area, but Berkeley and its easy transportation into the City (SF of course–locals will always say “the City”) is a wonderful place to spend a few years (or forever), especially for an artist of any kind…aahh, you’ve got me missing my years on faculty at UCB…</p>
<p>Congratulations on your acceptances. That is quite an achievement in this application year. Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks, BassDad.</p>
<p>So what you are basically saying is that my skills will speak for themselves, right?</p>
<p>I had one more question though, if I were to be a music education major (only possible at UCLA), would that allow me to gain a fair amount of knowledge about every instrument or can I take classes that would allow me to become familiar with any instrument? I think that knowing a little of how every instrument functions is essential in being an adequate conductor.</p>
<p>DH is a conductor, also a music teacher, who has a music education degree, though his is a BM with a strong performance component (piano). He did find his program to be a great preparation for conducting.</p>
<p>Not sure you’ll be getting what you need with UCLA’s music ed, but maybe so. I suggest you PM UC2008. He (she?) is a music ed major at UCLA who I believe is trying to transfer, based upon the posts I’ve read. He or she should be able to give you lots of first-hand information.</p>
<p>There is something wrong with me today, I didnt even notice your post sopranomom. My apologies.</p>
<p>When I emailed the advisor for UCLA, he told me that the only courses that would transfer (if I got into the school of music) would be the obligatory music theory courses. He said that I would also be able to audition for some of the music ensembles (not that many for piano) but that that was it; everything else was for the music majors. When I talked to my piano teacher he said that I wasn’t good enough to be a performance major which is why I picked music education. That and music education seems like it would give me the opportunity to get familiar with different musical instruments.</p>
<p>I’m starting to lean toward UCB because they said that I would be able to double major in both psych and music. UCLA just seemed like it had better musical opportunities (the LA Phil and Thornton is in the area). </p>
<p>Anyway, thanks for your post sopranomom. It helped put things into perspective.</p>
<p>FWIW, my H would say that his piano teacher told him that he “wasn’t good enough for a performance major.” Hence music ed. BTW, if you later decide to actually go into music ed, ie, teaching K-12, you’ll need a 5th year or a masters, so you could go Music Ed for a masters. USC has a great program for that. Good luck to you, you will love Berkeley. You’ve got Oakland Symphony, Berkeley Symphony, SF Symphony and numerous other smaller organizations–maybe more classical music per capita than in L.A.</p>
<p>Before your skills can speak on your behalf, you must first develop them to a sufficient level and find opportunities to practice them. Conducting programs at the graduate level are usually very small, with room for perhaps one or two students per year at many schools. The better programs require applicants to submit pre-screening videos that are used to determine who will be invited to a live audition. You will need to demonstrate in the first few minutes of your video that you have an overall vision and that you can communicate that vision to both your ensemble and your audience. If you can accomplish that, then maybe you will have a chance to display your skills to someone in a position to help you take the next step.</p>
<p>Music ed majors get instruction in pedagogy on many different instruments over the course of their college careers. The emphasis is on being able to provide introductory lessons to beginners for a year or two on just about any instrument you might find in a public school program. This is different in purpose and focus from the orchestration classes that are more aimed at composers and conductors and teach what each instrument is capable of doing in the hands of a fairly talented practitioner. There will certainly be some overlap, but in one case you will have a different instrument and method book placed in your hands every few weeks and in the other you will be learning mostly from text books and lectures.</p>