Piano In College

shennie
Sat, 09 Jul 2005 13:45:00 +0000

I would suggest you look through threads here and on the parents’ page with postings about music schools. There is a lot of good information there, but you will have to search through some stuff to find it. You need to decide what direction you want to go with your music. If you want to major in piano performance, Bachelor of Music, you will be looking for different things than if you want to do a music major, Bachelor of Arts. Most schools with top notch piano faculty have BM programs. Access to the top faculty is usually limited to piano majors. For example, Rice has an excellent music school that is very difficult to get into. If you are have not been accepted to its Shepard School, you will be able to take some music classes there, but you will not be able to study piano with any of the faculty. The best you can hope for is to study with a graduate student. It is possible to do a double degree in piano performance and something in another school, but will be difficult and time consuming. You need to be very committed to complete a double degree program.

Given your interests, you will most likely want to pursue a BA in music. You can study piano and major in something else as well. If you decide to go this path, you want to look for schools that afford you access to strong piano teachers, but may not necessarily offer degrees in performance. A third option is to not worry about majoring in music at all, but pursue piano study on your own without getting credit for it. This may allow you the most flexibility and time to pursue tennis as well. If you choose this option, you would want to attend a school in a large city where there are many piano teachers to choose from. This option would mean that you would be paying for your lessons independently.

Finally, if you decide you really want to pursue piano professionally, you need to understand that you are going to have to audition to get into any of the major music programs. All schools offerning the BM will require an audition to be accepted. BA programs don’t usually require this.
Ultimately, you need to figure out what exactly you want to do with piano before you can choose schools that offer the best options for you.