Vocal Programs Allowing Multiple Genres

College Majors Music Major
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<p>Mezzo’s Mama-sorry if I was wrong. But my son’s friend had said something about him being classically trained. I know that Bono also had training as an opera singer.</p>

22

<p>Hi everyone, </p>

<p>After many long discussion with my parents and more research, I’ve decided that i want to go for a double major/degree in economics and music performance. I’m not too picky about whether the music program is a BM or a BA, but I definitely want it to be performance focused. My parents are fully backing me in this - my mom actually keeps finding articles about why studying music is beneficial in other fields and showing them to me - which is a huge relief.</p>

<p>I’ve also started looking at potential summer programs and have been debating between focusing my efforts on classical voice programs or looking harder for jazz programs. I’ve kind of made a pros and cons list of classical vs. jazz, and I was hoping that I could share that with you and get some feedback.</p>

<p>Pros of Classical:

  • all my piano training and most of my vocal training has been from a classical background
  • for most of high school I’ve been singing in an advanced women’s chamber choir
  • most of my potential audition rep is arias/art songs/traditional musical theatre
  • on first impression I have a very classical voice - high soprano, strong vibrato (which I’ve been working on controlling for choir), darkish tone</p>

<p>Pros of Jazz

  • I love the freedom of arranging pieces and using different vocal techniques to express different emotions
  • I love being able to share ideas with musicians who play different instruments and the spontaneity of improvisation
  • I saw that (at least for Peabody) it’s a plus if you can accompany yourself on piano, which I definitely can do
  • I can use my chest voice! (which is very strong and tends to surprise people)
  • Jazz is more relatable to an audience, which is really important for me as a performer – I don’t like performing something and getting an “oh that’s pretty” reaction
  • Jazz tends to lend itself to world music more than western classical music does, at least in my experience
  • It’s not a problem that I can’t roll my r’s</p>

<p>Other things to consider: I have extensive acting and dance experience as well – the main reason I’m not doing as much musical theatre anymore is because my school’s musical theatre program values acting and dance far over singing. I also don’t really have a strong connection to either classical music or jazz culturally – my family isn’t really musical and up until a couple years ago, all I knew about non-pop music was what I’d had to learn about music history in my piano classes.</p>

<p>Whatever I end up doing, I’m definitely not going to totally abandon classical voice, musical theatre, or jazz: one of the most exciting parts of singing for me is being technically versatile enough to sing multiple styles and not sound out of place in any of them. I guess my biggest concern right now is whether a jazz voice program would appreciate my classical background.</p>

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<p>Hi Simi,</p>

<p>A BM is performance focused, where you are training to be a professional musician. A BA is more academic. In terms of time commitment, a BA is easier if you want to add economics.</p>

<p>Your question about whether your classical training would be appreciated is a good question. Personally I think classical training builds good technique and promotes healthy habits if you are working with a good private voice teacher. This can only help you no matter what genre you sing.</p>

<p>If you decide to go with jazz make sure you go beyond musical theater and start listening to other kinds of jazz. For example, if you are going to apply to Peabody, try listening to some Jay Clayton.</p>

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<p>simisings – You are the perfect student for The New School in NYC, where you can take advantage of Mannes’ renowned opera/classical program, as well as The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. As I just mentioned in another thread, this school is exploding with creative energy and progressive thinking. There are also integration plans that will blow you away – I don’t know what is public yet, but once I hit 5 posts, I think, we can communicate directly and I can fill you in or direct you to someone. (I’ve been using, and loving, CC for quite a while, but changed my screen name when I went from a Drama D to a Voice D. :-)</p>