Schools with good music performance programs?

musicprnt
Mon, 21 Apr 2014 21:22:26 +0000

Mezzo’s Mom hit the nail on the head, the world of music has changed a lot and your teacher probably reflects what was true a generation ago. One of my S’s teachers was a casual player in high school, got into a top conservatory, and right out of school got into a well known full time orchestra that pays decently and is still there decades later, plus teaches. They probably wouldn’t be able to get into the pre college program my S went to, and it is doubtful they would get into a strong conservatory program. The level is so high and the demands are so high that doing a dual major is a long stretch, and while kids do it, I often wonder if you stacked up the kid who double majors against a kid who played the same instrument in a BM program in a conservatory, in general the relative levels (and obviously, such an experiment would be next to impossible to do in the field, since measuring things like relative levels of ability going in, the work ethic of the kids, to try and factor out any variables like that, would be difficult) they achieve after 4 years. I can only speak of my S’s experience, and that is that the work load on paper may not look all that daunting, but it is, that there is always that chamber rehearsal or chamber coaching, or someone asks you to read a piece they wrote, or in practicing, and it is likely that the work load on the academic side will probably seem to intensify just as the music side is going nuts (and unwritten version of Murphy’s law, music craziness increases at the same time general craziness is).

One thing I cannot highly recommend enough is to find a teacher at a relatively well respected program and seek them out for an evaluation (or if this is someone else in your area that people recommend). This isn’t a knock on your teacher, but an outside set of ears will have a different perspective, and between what they tell you and your teacher tells you it gives a more informed view. I don’t know your teacher, but another problem is as with the teacher I mentioned above, if they aren’t that well connected to the current music world, if they don’t keep in touch with teachers or had students get into high level programs, they may not realize how crazy it is, especially on the violin.