<p>My S has gone through a similar progression - as a high school sophomore, he was only interested in rock guitar (and kept up with french horn is the school band because I made him), did the Paul Green School of Rock for two years, then started his own band. Berklee was the only place he wanted to apply to a year ago. Then he started writing songs for his band, and was good at that, and decided he wanted to do the songwriting program at Belmont. Then he took a music technology class, and I got him Finale for Christmas and he started playing around with writing some small classical pieces. His music tech teacher raved about the piece he did for his class project, so he decided to write a bigger piece for his senior graduation project. He just finished his project a few weeks ago - a three-part suite for string orchestra - and got top marks for it. That led him to decide that he wants to study composition and eventually go into film scoring. He is now writing music like crazy and is the happiest he has ever been. He is even looking at some composition programs that are strictly classical. He figures he can still find a rock band to play with and write for once he gets to college, or just do gigs as a singer/guitarist. </p>
<p>We have visited a few schools that seem to have really good music business-type programs that offer both more appeal for contemporary/rock musicians and probably better career opportunities Belmont’s Commercial Music program in particular is one I would recommend to any parent whose child seems dead-set against doing jazz or classical performance or composition in college.</p>