<p>Son is an incoming freshman in the Popular Music Performance program at the Thornton School. He auditioned as a singer/songwriter and had to submit recordings of his music which resulted in an invitation to their audition weekend (Late January I think). Substantially all Thornton auditions are on the same weekend whether classical, jazz or popular music. He received more comments about the quality of his songwriting and arranging than his singing or skill on piano and guitar (he played both in the audition). So, I would say it is important to be good at your instrument, but if your composing is exceptional, they will take you on that too. BTW Lamont Dozier was part of the panel he auditioned with :).</p>
<p>The Dean of Thornton, Robert Cutietta, held a very useful talk and question/answer session the day of the auditions (at least the first day which we attended). One of the questions was musical ability vs academics. USC incoming ACT/SAT scores are pretty high and he indicated that first the music faculty judged your musical ability and if they felt you fit in the school musically they sit down with the admissions people and work through who would be admitted. If you are the top violinist, pianist, etc from auditions, then you need pretty good but not great grades/test scores. If you are down the list a ways really top grades/test scores would be helpful. He said it happens all the time that talented musicians that they would take on musical talent alone aren’t admitted because of their academics. The Dean was a very impressive guy in the way he communicated so well and logically about the admissions process, Thornton’s expectations and direction and also how Thornton students balanced music and the rest of being a part of USC. </p>
<p>I have a somewhat different perspective since Popular Music Performance path is new and different than classical and jazz is closer to classical based on son’s preparation for audition for jazz piano at Northwestern (He canceled the audition after acceptance into Thornton). I think clear evidence of your passion about music and then impressing them with your ability are the things that I think were helpful for my son. </p>
<p>Son has recently registered so I have been getting familiar with the course catalog and there are classes that are open to people not in Thornton and classes geared to only specific majors and everything in between, but there is a pretty limited set of classes for those outside of Thornton I think. I’m pretty sure lessons are available to the student body as a whole. 1 hour/week for a semester is ~$650 which ends up being a little over $40/hour which isn’t too bad given the talent of the instructors. They are also available at half that for half an hour/week. I expect that the best instructors are assigned to the Thornton students first. Virtually all of the music classes are in Thornton I think unless the slant is sociological, historical etc although Thornton has some of those too. </p>
<p>Thornton also has a Music Industry program that is pretty impressive. We visited for a scholarship interview on a Friday and sat in on a class that was going to go a large concert venue Saturday AM and participate in the set up for a large rock concert Saturday night. Instructor was knowledgeable and motivating to listen to. Also on same day sat in on a group of jazz students who were trying to play one of the students composition. They were a pretty normal set of kids struggling to play a new song and to be honest I didn’t walk out going wow, how could they be so amazing. The song was one that maybe you had to be a little more musically adventurous than I am to appreciate, but was one of those more likely to play to 20 people on a Sunday afternoon than 1000 on a Friday night. Interesting, but not much mass appeal.</p>
<p>I would encourage you to go on Youtube and look up Thornton School and watch some of the videos they have of professors talking about their approach to their students/program. Two I recommend are one where the lead conductor of the Orchestra talks about the risks/rewards of pursuing a degree/career in music and one where the jazz piano instructor talks about how he teaches improvisation. They will give you some idea of how Thornton views things and also the type and quality of instructor although I suspect those two are among the best. Son is a talented musician, but more of a songwriter than composer and more of an improvisational pianist than classically trained pianist so he wasn’t planning on a major in music until the Popular Music Performance Program at USC was announced because he didn’t feel he fit most other programs. We have a limited view accordingly, but we did visit several top Universities and were very impressed with Thornton.</p>
<p>Also, for USC and I suspect many others, you will want to make sure you are maximizing your grades and ACT/SAT scores. </p>
<p>Good Luck</p>