Singersmom07

nyboundsoprano, just a footnote to your Rice review, Stephen King usually takes one undergrad per year, at most. What you heard in his studio were almost entirely grad students. The rest is spot on.

violoncello

Wow! A very thorough and insightful review! Your description of Eastman literally made laugh-out-loud That was my undergrad experience there to a T.

nyboundsoprano

Singersmom, yes I heard that about his studio. Although, that particular day an undergrad baritone and an undergrad soprano were 2 of the 5 or-so singers to sing in the studio class (to be honest I couldn't perceive much of a difference between them and the grads)

operaluvr

Yay Rice! That's EXACTLY why I chose it over a lot of other schools

mom22girls

It's been a while since anyone's posted in this thread. Any one been visiting lately and care to share?

ohiobassmom

We have 4 in January and I'll be glad to report back

patientpoppa

We did these in the Fall for S (flute)

Oberlin
Eastman
Crane
CMU
Hartt
CIM

Going in the Spring to
NEC
BU
BOCO
University of Michigan
Possibly Bard

If anyone wants an honest review of the completed visits, just PM

ohiobassmom

Bumping because 'tis the season for music school auditions

ohiobassmom

Audition #1 - Bowling Green College of Musical Arts (in our case, jazz, but comp, ed and classical performance prospects were all there)

Everyone checked in between noon and 1PM, got a packet with audition room and time, schedule, info specific to major (list of classes, req's, etc).

All activities took place in the Moore Musical Arts Building, which was good since it was snowing, about 15 degrees and very windy out.

Parents and kids went to a presentation about the music college, then kids left to take a written theory test. Parents stayed for a Q&A with head of college, profs and a few upperclassmen. Informative.

Auditions were scheduled from 3 on, so kids had plenty of time to find a practice room and get warmed up. Some practice rooms were set aside, kids were invited to use any empty classroom they came across. I don't think anyone had trouble finding a space with a piano or whatever they needed.

Parents were invited to hang out in the Green Room where there was coffee, sweet stuff and chairs. Music Ed prospects had another meeting in there but we aren't so didn't attend.

Whole shebang was done by 4:30 for us.

RoKr93

Just got back from IU Jacobs for Recording Arts.

My sister graduated from IU (not the music school) so I know the campus pretty well. Simply put, it's a gorgeous campus and the perfect college town, though this weekend it was covered in snow and about 10 degrees, so it was pretty miserable. Still, it sure does look pretty from inside a warm building!

Lady who greeted us for check-in was very sweet and extremely enthusiastic. We had a Recording Arts info session later that day, and all the Recording Arts faculty spoke apart from Konrad Strauss, who is on sabbatical this semester. Some current students (all juniors if I recall correctly) also spoke a bit and played us some of their work. Two of the students' work sounded absolutely fantastic. The third was a bit meh, but oh well. One thing I noticed was that the students all seemed very comfortable with the faculty and every Recording Arts student we met absolutely raved about how good they were. One said something along the lines of, "there are professors you can be friendly with and refer to by their first name, and there are professors who will get on you hard and push you to be your best. These guys are both."

The next morning there was a tour of the Recording Arts facilities conducted by another current student. He was a little quiet at first but quickly warmed up and was pretty friendly and a good guide. Recording facilities at IU are absolutely top-notch. There are two post-production rooms and two full studios complete with isolation booths, a VERY full mic cabinet, etc...the works! The newer of the two studios is simply beautiful and the impression I got was it's used more for recording sessions the music school actually needs. The other one is a little old and battered but it has a massive selection of microphones and is still very nice. That studio is where students complete most of their assignments. Apparently each student reserves 8 hours per week in the studio at specific time slots. And of course Jacobs has a plethora of concert halls ranging from huge to not-so-huge (including the massive Musical Arts Center, which is a sight to behold, especially from the eagle-eye view of the mixing room where we were!) all outfitted with mixing and recording gear.

My interview was scheduled for immediately after the tour. All the faculty were present. Long story short it was much shorter than expected and I ended up feeling like I got grilled a little bit. I made a comment about how I enjoyed the challenge of figuring things out for myself in the context of recording and one of them immediately said, "well if you like figuring things out yourself why do you want to go to college for it?" and followed that up with "we have some challenging classes, do you think you would be able to handle them?" It's important to note he certainly didn't say this in a rude or aggressive manner- these things can come across wrongly through text I'm sure- but I still don't think I responded as well as I should or could have. Oh well.

Overall though I was impressed. The program appears to be very well put together and supported by the entire music school. I was concerned that Recording Arts might fall to the wayside in such a strong instrumental performance school, but that doesn't seem to be an issue. My only concern is that there seems to be a very, very strong focus on solely recording rather than other types of electronic music manipulation or composition (and of course no acoustics/engineering whatsoever). Predictably so, of course, but even more so than I expected.

Now all I can do is wait ~5 weeks...goodness. I don't know if I'll be able to stand it, especially after my probably less-than-stellar interview.

I know that there probably aren't many recording students on here but hopefully this will be of help to somebody!

ohiobassmom

Thanks for the report!

CCM has a brand new major for Fall '12 that might interest you:

"The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) is now accepting applications for an innovative new bachelor of music degree in Commercial Music Production (CMP) that will be offered beginning fall semester 2012. This unique program combines core training in music theory, composition, arranging and musicianship with recording studio techniques, commercial music, songwriting, film scoring and media technologies."

New Undergraduate Major Offered in Commercial Music Production

glassharmonica

RoKr93, my sympathies-- you must have felt very much on the spot! It seems that the auditor almost intentionally twisted your words, which were undoubtedly only intended to show that you are a self-starter and enthusiastic about learning. But I'm sure whatever you said demonstrated your grace under pressure. Most professors will appreciate a student who does not want to sit around being spoon-fed.

RoKr93

Thank you very much for the suggestion. However, I ruled out BM programs because I wanted to double major in computer science (I'm looking into audio/music for digital media as a career).

My #1 choice as of now is UMichigan, and I interview there in February. Hopefully I can take the lessons I learned from this interview and use them to make my next one better!

ohiobassmom

Best of luck!

Compdad

The purpose of college is to teach you how to think within your area. It is not to provide you with answers. That allows you figure things out yourself. If you have that kind of ambush question again just say that I will learn the foundation in college to allow me to determine the issue and propose the solution. Good luck.