<p>As I'm beginning to narrow down my college search, music seems to be one of the bes options right now. The problem is, I don't know if I should audition on flute or voice.</p>
<p>I've been studying flute since 4th grade (I'm a rising senior) and privately since 6th. I've taken time off from private lessons, but got back into it this year. I've been featured on NPR, play in all county and area all state bands and am hoping to get into the NY all state band in the fall. </p>
<p>I also take voice lessons. I've been singing my entire life, but just started taking lessons last year. I enjoy singing in vocal groups more than doing solos, but I also don't have as much experience with solo singing. </p>
<p>I'm looking at Liberal Arts schools with good music programs - St. Olaf, Wooster, Macalester, Gettysburg</p>
<p>My question, should I audition for scholarships/entrance on flute, voice, or both? Some schools don't allow both, and I will ultimately have to make a choice, but I need to start thinking about how much time I should focus on both. </p>
<p>Thanks in advance for any help. It's scary to think I'm going to be applying in the fall!</p>
<p>If you want liberal arts with a strong music department, add Oberlin to your list. It is very strong in both areas.</p>
<p>Also, you might want to consider University of Cincinnati? You probably think this is an odd recommendation. I have mentioned it because voice and flute are in the same school: Cincinnati Conservatory, and you can take both with some AP placements. Cincinnati Conservatory is also one of the best schools of music in the US, certainly ranked up there with Peabody and New England Conservatory. If you have great grades and scores, you will also quality for a nice scholarship. In addition, if you plan it right, you can start qualifing for in-state tuition beginning in your second year, which makes Cincinnati MUCH less expensive then the schools that you mentioned.</p>
<p>The only drawback is that Cincinnati isn't well known for demanding liberal arts offerings.Thus, I think that the liberal arts side will be a bit weaker than that of Oberlin or the other schools that you mentioned.</p>
<p>Sounds as if you prefer choral singing---St Olaf would be a good bet. CCM is a great school for voice, but you are going to be up against a lot of strong
big voices with a lot of solo singing experience.</p>
<p>I'm not really sure which I prefer better, but I'm really looking for strong liberal arts schools so that if I decide not to go into music, I'll still be able to receive a good education</p>
<p>I guess you want to get away because you didn't mention Ithaca College. Sarah Lawrence has the kind of flexibility to allow you to do voice, flute and Liberal Arts. About which to audition for: get a group together and perform flute and voice solos. (Think Mozart Ha! ha!) See which frees you and which freezes you. My S plays piano & violin. He is relaxed during violin performances and tense during paino performances (but he got 100 on NYSSMA piano -- go figure).</p>
<p>If he were to audition he would choose piano. However, he chose a different route. He chose to go to a liberal arts school for a music major. We restricted our search to only those schools that did not require an audition because not only could he not compete with those candidates, he ddn't want the atmosphere of students who were already more proficient than he (the farthest he got were many years of all county orchestras and all county string orchestras) and more committed to performance careers than he is, he wants opportunities to play. He is very happy with his college choice, and most of his acceptances mentiobned supplemental tapes and musical materials he sent.</p>
<p>By the way, Stony Brook has an excellent music program. i've known people from both the voice and flute concentrations and my daughter studied with excellent flute graduate students when she was in high school. I don't believe Stony Brook requires any auditions for its major. You also make good connections with NYC musicians which can be a help for grad school or performance opportunities.</p>
<p>What level is your flute playing? Can you play things like Debussy's Syrinx and entire sonatas/concertos by the likes of Bach, Poulenc and Prokofiev up to performance tempo and with a fairly high level of polish? That is the level of your competition at conservatories like Oberlin and CCM. Oberlin in particular has one of the best flute departments in the country with Michel Debost, Kathleen Chastain and Michael Lynn on faculty. They are right up there with the likes of Juilliard and Curtis for difficulty of admission as a flute performance major. The sheer numbers of flute students applying to music schools make even those with second tier departments a very difficult admit. If you breeze through those all-state auditions and take first chair in orchestra or wind ensemble, then you may well have a shot at the better flute schools. If you are unsure about even making it into all-state band, it is going to be an uphill battle at best.</p>
<p>Unfortunately the same is true for voice students, particularly if you happen to be a soprano. Vocal auditions and the pre-screening tapes required to even get an audition at many major music schools are mostly about solo singing, so you are going to need to put together a very polished audition by October for the pre-screenings and by January at the latest for auditions. Before you can do that, you have to pick out some schools and come up with a set of pieces that meets the audition requirements at each. That does not leave you much time, especially if you are still spending time with the flute.</p>
<p>If you are not absolutely sure that you must be a performance major, the conventional advice is to do something else. Since you are still not even sure about particular schools and majors, let alone which individual teacher's studios you want, I would suggest you look into a good BA music program with a possible double major in another subject, rather than an auditioned BM performance program. It may well be possible to do a BA with a performance emphasis, and then enter grad school as a performance major if you .</p>
<p>Oberlin offers a BA in music with a number of different emphases, but it is likely that you would be studying flute with an advanced student rather than a faculty member, particularly in the first couple of years. At that point, if you cannot audition at the Conservatory level, you either have to switch to a History/Theory emphasis or declare a different major entirely.</p>
<p>Re: flute and voice (especially if you are a soprano). Many schools do taped pre-screenings for these two instruments as there are SO many flutes and sopranos. Check the requirements of the schools carefully. If a school does this, it means you submit a tape and they decide IF they are going to permit you to schedule a live audition.</p>