Getting admitted to a music conservatory

compmom
Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:18:09 +0000

"My wife is aiming more for an MD but is okay with a BM for the time being. If my daughter makes good progress, perhaps my wife will be more inclined towards the music goal. "

The two sentences above are about what you wife wants, not your daughter.

I think this is part of the problem with your daughter’s young age. Most students who are making decisions like this are 18, or almost 18, and most of us parents try to stay out of it as much as we can, since our kids are generally (though not all!) mature enough to figure things out (with the exception of financial limitations, which parents need to articulate). Your daughter may be mature in many ways, but clearly she is not setting her own path: her mother is.

I would also warn you, gently as possible, that sometimes a lot can change for kids who are so accomplished, so young. When your daughter starts asserting herself about what she wants, there will be an adjustment to make. Some of us have experienced kids who were clearly headed in a certain direction, and talented, and treated like peers by much older artists, who abruptly changed course during or after high school. Sometimes this is temporary, and an effort to have autonomy while pursuing music or whatever, and sometimes the change is more permanent.

A majority of students change majors during college, in fact. If a parent is deciding on medicine as a career for a child, when the child is, say, under 16, that parent needs to understand this certainty may be premature, and may even limit healthy exploration.

With music it is a little different: the student must practice for years in order to get to the best training and opportunities, and that practice needs to start young, obviously. Even so, study of music (or dance, theater, art, writing, science…) needs to be seen by parents as beneficial in many ways regardless of what happens in the end: the discipline, enjoyment, camaraderie, hard work, lifelong skill and knowledge, appreciation for music and musicians, and so on are valuable no matter what.

Parents need to help the talented child build a foundation, but when the time comes to move on to conservatory or college, the child really needs to be the one deciding on that path, because it is his or her commitment to honor and work for, not the parent’s.

So your daughter is in a position where she may be too young to make this kind of independent commitment, whether music or medicine, because her path has been so accelerated, and I would think the situation is a little fraught with peril somehow. Just my opinion and, in some ways, experience.

It is helpful to read about young musicians who are not making a lot of money but are happy doing music. People in their 20’s who do not yet have kids or mortgages really don’t need that much money, and often their careers twist and turn and develop by the time they do need more.

I love stradmom’s candle metaphor.