fiddlefrog

Allmusic, as I said in my first reply to you, there are some good-quality music schools in excellent universities for which the minimum standard for admission isn't too high. These are great safeties, because they are safe bets for admission, they have challenging and stimulating academic environments, and there are very good teachers available. NYU, Vanderbilt, and UNC-Chapel Hill are probably the best in this category. There are excellent musicians at all three, and all are quite prestigious, but the minimum standard for a musician to be accepted is not terribly high.

symphonymom

What does you son play? There are a lot of excellent universities with stars on the faculty...UCLA with Jens Lindemann for example.

-Allmusic-

My son plays classical piano, and both classical and jazz percussion. He is leaning towards majoring in jazz percussion, but will want to continue lessons privately on classical piano, and he is already at quite a high level. This means he needs a setting with strong classical and jazz departments, which precludes a few.

Any more thoughts are most appreciated. Thanks.

violinmom

University of North Texas has probably the best jazz program in the country, and an excellent piano faculty as well. If your son is awarded even a nominal scholarship, he is eligible for in-state tuition -- which makes UNT a fantastic bargain for the quality of the music program... total cost of attendance (including room and board) under $10k a year.

symphonymom

Allmusic...I'm not familiar with jazz piano programs or teachers. The way my son researched schools was to go to music competitions and camps and ask lots of questions about teachers. Very quickly a few names of the prominent teachers of his instrument emerged...and with them, some schools. He is also seeking a university or dual music conservatory/college program. For his instrument, there are about a dozen. Now he is in the second phase of his research...he's contacting students at most of these schools (some he met at camp...others are friends of friends he met at camp) and he's asking them about the various programs. Finally, he'll go and see for himself...this next year.
For your son, you'll need to make sure that he can study both classical and jazz piano at the school...I would think that there may be two sets of teachers involved...and he might have to be accepted into both studios.
If you have a conservatory near you, you might start by asking them...or by emailing their jazz piano faculty. I'll bet a few programs emerge very quickly. Good luck...I wish I was more help!

violinmom

AllMusic... so much of your decision should be based on your financial situation. This is the reality of life and music. It's wonderful if money is not a consideration. So your child can attend camps, competitions and fly here and there for auditions. I am sure that helps. But the bottom line is.. the audition. After being on this site for maybe 8 months or so, I am amazed at how many posts are about the top schools... Curtis, Julliard, Eastman, etc. And I do applaud the parents and students who post here who do have students at these schools. But when you hear that only 4 freshmen violinists were admitted to 'x', it is a wake-up call. The point of this post is to steer the above-average but talented kid (who may NOT be a 4.0 and 1600 SAT) to the school who would LOVE to have him or her. There are so many around the country crying out for talented kids, and willling to pay dearly for them. Julliard and Eastman are goals for grad school, if you make a name for yourself somewhere else. Just my rant for tonite.

-Allmusic-

There are a lot of very musically talented kids nationwide, no doubt about that. Jazz is even more quixotic, in some ways than classical, in terms of determinations of talent, because there are so many stylistic differences. And with jazz, more than with solo classical, the director and the rest of the ensemble seems to be even more critical than the individual teacher, at least that is what I hear from my son.

spelmom

If your son is a strong student and is leaning toward a major in jazz performance , since you live in the Northeast, I would look carefully at the colleges and universities in major cities such as New York and Boston. No matter what school he attends say, in the Boston area, he would have the opportunity to hook up with talented students in the various music programs there and play with them at jam sessions there and in the local clubs. In fact, Tufts has a joint program with NEC that you could check out. It would probably also be easier for him to find private instruction he would be satisfied with. The opportunity to play outside of school seems to be as important to jazz students as the opportunities within their schools. They want to be in a strong local pool of talent both to play and to network, so location was very important in narrowing our search. For personal reasons as well, there were some locations that I did not think my son would thrive in--North Texas, for example-- so we stuck to major cities and pared it down from there.

Have your son participate in the NFAA program this fall and audition for the Grammy Ensemble. It will help you evaluate his standing relative to other jazz players nationwide. My son botched his NFAA audition, but I was able to evaluate his standing based on how other players he knew fared and he did make finalist in the Grammy competition. We also attended the IAJE conference in New York last January where we saw many student and college ensembles perform, as well as the NAFAA winners and was able to get a clear assessement of where he stood. That conference will be in NYC again this January.

Hope this helps some.

-Allmusic-

Spelmom, my son wouldn't be interested in going to Texas either, although I have heard North Texas has a very fine jazz program. He is very familiar with the NEC jazz program already.

Thanks for the info about he NFAA program. I looked at their website for a minute, and it appears that the kids have to be in their senior year to audition. Mine is only a rising junior, so it gives him so time to prepare. I didn't see info (in my quick perusal) on the Grammy Ensemble, so thanks for any more info you may have about that.

Appreciate your help. This is uncharted territory for a novice musical mom.

bsnbilly

To participate in the ARTS competition, you must be 17, 18, or a senior in high school. In other words, a 17 year-old junior, a 16 year-old senior, and an 18 year-old college freshman are all eligible. There's nothing to lose by entering it (except around $100 entry fee), and the finalists get to experience one of the best weeks of their lives in Florida, all expenses-paid.

spelmom

Allmusic,

Check those NFAA rules carefully as I also thought entrants had to be seniors in high school, although they can compete as college freshmen if they are still 18 by the deadline date. The Grammy Ensemble is open to all high school aged kids and information can be obtained at www.grammy.com under Foundation. Kids selected receive an all expense paid week long trip to California the week before the Grammy awards where they are mentored and prepared to play a series of gigs including the pre-telecast show. They also attend the Awards show. Finalists and their schools receive notification and a free subscription for a music software program (which one escapes me right now.) This program is sponsored in part by Berklee, New School and MSM. The ensemble is led by Justin DiCioccio at MSM and seniors selected are automatic admits to MSM. One kid also got a full scholarship to MSM Its worth a shot.

Other ways to guage his progress as compared to other kids his age is to attend camps that draw from all over such as the Jaime Aebersold camp in Kentucky, the Stanford Jazz Workshop and ,loser to you, the Litchfield Jazz Camp. He might also want to apply for the Brubeck Summer Jazz Colony and even the Monterey Next Generation Jazz Orchestra. The camps take musicians of all ages and abilities, but they do have excellent faculties and would provide great feedback on his talent level. For example at Aebersold, the top combo is led by David Baker, who heads the jazz program at Indiana. Brubeck and Next Generation are strictly high school student programs. Brubeck attracks applicants nationally and would be an excellent indicator, should your son make it, that he would be competitive at the conservatories. Monterey, though now open to applicants nationwide, tends to draw heavily from California where there is a very deep and talented applicant pool. However, students from other places have made it the last couple years (one from Massachusetts this year, I believe) and the rewards are great. They play a ten day national/international tour as well as the Monterey Jazz Festival. The Vail Jazz Workshop is also supposed to be excellent; his music teacher would have to nominate him and you have to have economic need.

Much of this information I did not learn until it was too late to be of use to my son, so I am happy to pass it on.

-Allmusic-

Spelmom, I PMed you. Thanks!

nocozo

Our son is a junior in high school and loves the tuba and plays in marching band-he can do many other brass instruments but wants private lessons on the tuba so he will be ready senior year to do auditions for colleges to get into music schools. We would like him to do music education because one day he would like to become a band director. He looked at the U of Cincinnati today and said it was a pretty nice campus and is suppose to be one of the best music schools in the country but it is supposedly very performance oriented and the music ed students are looked down upon -the same thing with Indiana Univ-good school but same feeling.What is your opinion on this-does it make a difference if these schools feel that way-I would think it is like that in every school where the performance students look down upon the education students???
So, we are also looking into Miami univ of Ohio, Oberlin, Case Western, Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Ohio Univ.
Any thoughts about these programs and how hard they are to get into?? Like percentage of students that get in??

jazzzmomm

Allmusic, sounds like Northwestern might be a good choice for your son. Hate to sound like a broken record,but I have reported before that I have a son who is a graduate of NU, and have known some musicians there. The Northwestern students we know are all exceptionally sharp. The environment on the campus is intellectual and focussed.

Wesleyan is actually a good place for incidental music. We know many kids who have gone to school there. One is now a professional musician.

Have you checked out Bard College as well? It's such a lively place and full of musical opportunities. I guess NEC/Tufts doesn't appeal?

I agree that lining up a "safety" for a musician that also offers great academics is tough.

BassDad

On an instrument like tuba, the overall percentages do not mean very much. You have to find out how many openings (if any) a school will have for tuba players in the year he auditions.

All of the schools you mention have well-respected music programs, but I can't tell you anything about the relative merits of the tuba instructors at each school. Not many schools have more than one tuba teacher, so you had better be pretty sure that he will be happy with the one that is there.

The split between performance and education majors varies from school to school. It can matter a lot if the school itself treats music ed majors as second-class citizens. I would be less concerned if the attitude is only prevalent among a few performance majors.