Hello Sportsball! I’m currently a music major in performance going on my fourth year. Although I’m not a private school person myself, I did come from a public stem heavy. I want to just write on some specifics I know about music school and help inform your son on what could be helpful for the future!
Here are some generals on what your son’s interests entail:
Music therapy: requires mostly a degree in music therapy itself to practice music therapy(may be more science-centric degree)
music education: prepares you to teach at schools in general: the program is not designed to push you towards super intense solo instrument performance focus, but teach you in 3-4 years how to handle multiple instruments and how to teach k-12 scenarios. (this is the super waterdown quick shot description).
Teaching certificate: allows you to teach at schools-- you can’t teach at a school unless you get this: which usually requires one year to complete.
Public schools have a hard time getting funding sometimes and depending on your district: the music program at public schools ranges from great to under-invested.
Something about sports though: depending on how hand heavy your son’s musical focus is. I would just want to straight up avoid contact sports. I had multiple scares with my fingers broken, and I’m still doing violin performances. Just having the do mandatory sports: I would freak out over how time-consuming it is(cuz physical health can be helpful), but no lie, injuries are the scariest things on the road to musicianship.
Instrument totally matters: some instruments just need more time. I agree with whomever mentioned it in the thread.
But as a violinist: I had an average time block of 6-10pm every school day to just practice-- For the most of my highschool years. Practice goes through like, scales, etudes, one piece of choice, another piece of choice.
And I just signed up for everything musical possible at my high school. If your son is heading towards music education: high school directors in music can be a great resource for your son to learn more about the field and to also just learn from exposure.
I didn’t do pre-college (and def not a requirement)-- did a bit of youth orchestra for experience at the highest level the organization can go. Also for youth orchestra a year or two is enough-- its not something you have to stay in forever. And its an opportunity to be in a large ensemble and play a lot of different rep. I self-studied most of the theory content to be able to do decently in college. For those who don’t have the class slot left for AP music theory: piano theory books or theory music books at the local music sheet shops got basic theory workbooks.
I’m not an education major but my high school orchestra director inspired me the most-- to keep doing music. And sometimes: it’s the public school music teachers that fight the hardest to keep their classrooms together and alive.
If your son has a music program at his private school: have him consider joining anything at his current school. My suggestion is to also see if he can select the least stressful sports if he stays at his private school. Most of my perspective is answering your question about what it takes to be a music major: but just want to let your son knows that as long as he shows commitment, passion, and also enough know of what he wants with his musical journey; it will get him into a lot more places than not.
As for time: it’s still quality over quantity: the funny thing is as a music major in college, me and my peers have to book practice rooms and sometimes and some weeks. We walk in for two hours and drill what we have to drill and go on to our part time jobs or to our next lecture.
And I knew plenty of my hs peers who boast a long practice time and activities but it didn’t necessarily get them into the colleges that they wanted for music.
Best of luck to your son! And hopefully some of this helps him-- wishing him a successful rest of his hs career!