<p>My D’s dream is to play oboe in an orchestra that makes movie soundtracks. She got a taste of this when her band traveled to Disney World and they performed the score to several Disney animated movies in a studio on the Disney property.</p>
<p>If anyone knows of a college that would be ideal for someone with these aspirations, please let me know. What music major best ties into this career path?</p>
<p>Also, if you have top picks of colleges for oboist, I would welcome those comments as well.</p>
<p>I don’t really know that much - just getting into all of this for S but we have heard from multiple sources that Los Angeles is absolutely the best place for connections in regards to film/tv work. I don’t have a classical musician so I cant remember which school it is - but there is a conservatory right in LA as well as the USC program and UCLA programs. Some of the Cal States have decent music programs too. My S has been told over and over - it is all about connections. Go where you can make those happen and work with the best teachers you can find.</p>
<p>That is a very specific tough nut to crack. You just have to be the best possible oboist you can be and try and make those NYC or Hollywood connections. D recently had a one day gig as a vocalist for film score work. She enjoyed chatting with the instrumentalists, and noticed that most of them well past 50 and very well entrenched. The same union instrumentalists tend to be hired over and over again. Gone are the days when studios had full time orchestras. Add to this, the problem is that a lot of orchestration for soundtracks is now done in Eastern Europe for a very small fraction of the US cost.</p>
<p>I don’t believe there is any permanent orchestra in the United States that does studio recordings. Musicians are hired by contractors in areas where there are studios–Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas and others. Due to the use of recordings and synthesizers, there is much less work for studio musicians today than there was 30 years ago. In the past much of this work was played by “doublers”–musicians who play more than one woodwind. They would be hired to do a day or more of work, and the work might include playing clarinet, sax, flute and some oboe. My daughter, an oboe player who can play all the woodwinds, had a lesson last year with the main oboe doubler in our area in the east coast. He does studio work and theater pit orchestras, performing and recording on all instruments. When she asked him what she should do to improve to do the kind of work that he does, he told her to get better on the clarinet. He said her oboe skills were already above musicians being hired in studios. Ever heard Lisa’s sax solo in “The Simpsons”? The guy playing Lisa’s solo is a famous doubler in Los Angeles, and he plays ALL the woodwinds. Studios do also hire musicians who play single instruments, but I don’t know of anyone like that who makes their living doing just that. I think there just isn’t that much work.</p>
<p>My daughter is doing pit orchestra work for musicals and may work her way into getting work from such contractors. But I’m afraid she’ll lose these contacts once she goes away to college. This work is usually obtained by way of who-you-know, and usually in her experience through the saxophone network. </p>
<p>Many of the best studio musicians never went to college, or they studied at a local public university.</p>
<p>Other posts have hit the nail on the head, it is much different today then it was generations past,there are no longer the movie studio orchestras and when soundtracks are recorded, it is like other gig work as far as I can tell, and usually getting them involves networking and knowing people (when they aren’t done by Eastern European musicians). It also is kind of generational, I read a book this guy did about the French Horn (called “A Devil to Play”, really fun and funny book) and he said that when they need a horn, there is one guy who gets the job, who in turn inherited it from his old teacher. </p>
<p>Based on that, being multi capable (like playing multiple woodwinds) probably will help you. Many violinists also play viola as a simple example, but given that they don’t hire more then 1 or so of each woodwind, for example, being able to play multiple instruments I would guess should help increase chances:).</p>
<p>Given that so much film work goes on in California, it would seem to be an advantage to go to school in that area, especially if the music program has any kind of ties to the movie industry (USC, maybe???). It sounds to me like how gigs in pit orchestras and such happen here in NYC, people often get fill in roles and eventually full time gigs via networking and contacts.</p>
<p>USC, UCLA, Cal Arts, Colburn and Chapman might be where you want to look for film connections (however tenuous they might be). I would ask the specific teacher at these schools about the viability of film work later in ones career . It’s a tough time in LA for the film industry in general and just “knowing” people in the film industry hardly counts. (H works in the film industry, we have an academy award winning sound guy who lives behind us and our best friend has one of the top recording studios in LA.—all are really hurting for work themselves.) Your connections probably need to be specific to your D’s instrument. I do not know a lot about instrumentalist connections but I do know that all of D’s film gigs in LA have been through her teacher’s generous recommendations. Of course none of these jobs is full time and the aggregate income from these jobs barely pays her yearly phone bill.</p>
<p>Oboe teachers: Frank Rosenwein at CIM, principal oboist with the Cleveland Orchestra. You can’t go wrong with a top teacher who holds the first chair in a major orchestra.</p>
<p>As others have mentioned, a) LA is the place to be for recording; b) connections are so important, so being in LA for college is a good idea; c) there isn’t that much work out there; d) probably the best LA schools for possible connections are USC, UCLA, and maybe Colburn (Colburn, of course, is much tougher to get into, but does have a full ride for all admitted students); e) immaculate sight-reading is a must; f) if you do well on your first gig, chances are good that you may get asked at some point for another gig, but if you screw up in any conceivable way (i.e. are 1 minute late, don’t smile right, make excuses, make errors, don’t get along with people), then your future chances are very slim.</p>
<p>For what it is worth, the students that I know that had this dream in high school, have given it up.</p>
<p>You also asked what music major best ties into this: probably performance, but at a school that will allow and facilitate your development on multiple woodwinds (and I don’t know what the LA schools are like in this regard–you may need to check with the possible studio oboe teachers to see how they feel about playing other woodwinds).</p>
<p>If your D likes the idea of learning multiple woodwinds to pursue this type of career, Indiana has a BM in performance on multiple woodwinds and they have very good oboe instruction. She would have to apply on her primary instrument, then add the others after her first semester. For more info, [Bachelor</a> of Music in Performance, Woodwind Instruments (Multiple) : Jacobs School of Music Bulletin](<a href=“Indiana University Bloomington”>Indiana University Bloomington)</p>
<p>I have to agree with musica that the availability of work in this area is shrinking. I recently asked who was doing the beautiful clarineting on the TV show “Monk” and was told it was computer -synthesized soundtrack from snippets of file recordings. I think we can expect more of this in the future. A computer can play a lot more instruments than any human. Also, this type of work demands a great deal of flexibility in one’s schedule, with sessions being added and cancelled at the last moment all the time, from what I have observed.</p>