The (un)importance of place in choosing a school

College Majors Music Majors
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<p>In conservatories where some major teachers employ assistants, it must be emphasized that these teaching assistants are NOT the same as TA’s for your Biology 101 class. In a musical setting the situation is akin to what musicprnt has described, and such an arrangment can be found at even the most prestigious schools, and produces satisfactory artistic results. My wife studied with Robert Mann at Juilliard, and many of her lessons were with his son, as a preparation for the lessons with Mr. Mann. She hasn’t asked for her money back. </p>

<p>At Bard, there are no teaching assistants whatsoever. (This is one of the advantages to attending a school without competing DMA, MM, and Advanced Study students). With two instruments – violin and piano – there are some faculty who do not give regular private lessons, but the students are aware of this well before making a commitment to attend. And on these two instruments the faculty listed in fact teach all (Peter Serkin) or some (Arnold Steinhardt, Soovin Kim) of the students on that instrument, as a supplement to the weekly instruction with the main teacher. </p>

<p>I am unaware of any benchwarmers on our list of faculty. But beauty is also in eye of the beholder I suppose. </p>

<p>This kind of system – a roster system – is not uncommon, even at highly selective conservatories. (Nor is it ubiquitous). Cellists at Curtis study with David Soyer or Peter Wiley, but also take lessons from Carter Brey. He does not, to my knowledge, teach his own exclusive set of students. (correct me if if I’m wrong with this particular example–many other examples from this roster system of teachers exist).</p>

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<p>And something I would add in regards to the original topic–I only said that students should not reflexively denounce a particular location right off the bat (urban OR rural), as serious musicians must take other factors into account beyond the look and feel of the campus. It may very well be that the best environment for a particular student to thrive will be Rochester or Cleveland, not Los Angeles or New York, and limiting oneself at the beginning of the process is not, in my view, terribly wise. Later on, when there are other chips down on the table, location can certainly factor in. But at the beginning of the process, immediately discounting either the “ghetto” or “cowtown” could lead to a lopsided series of choices for that particular instrument. </p>

<p>I also stand by the need for musicians to feel connected to nature. But that could just as easily come from going to school in NYC but spending summers at Banff.</p>

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<p>There are also TAs of the conventional sort (though my understanding is that TA = Teaching Assistant, there has been a distinction made here between TA’s in academic type settings and the TA’s who work with master teachers in what N8Ma calls a “roster system”) teaching some of the courses at many conservatories - the theory, literature, and other sorts of courses; many are adjuncts. Conservatories that are part of universities or colleges more often have regular faculty (sometimes composers rather than academic theorists) teaching some or all of such courses.
Then there are master teachers who teach in a master class type of format, rather than one-to-one.
And some teach part of the time via the internet.
So, a variety of styles, which applicants should inform themselves about and consider in making their choices.</p>

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<p>Of the original ten schools we looked at, none had TAs teaching performance majors’ lessons. Yes, TAs often teach history, theory etc., but I thought we were talking about studio lessons. If TAs teach performance majors at Colburn or Juilliard, I stand corrected, but at other “top name” conservatories, bantered around here all the time, this isn’t the case. </p>

<p>Another question to ask, in the long list of questions…!</p>

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<p>Thanks to all of you that confirmed that I was not some liar as I was accused of being, making up things just to give auditioning kids anxiety.</p>

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<p>“Of the original ten schools we looked at, none had TAs teaching performance majors’ lessons.”
Our experience was similar–
On our initial list we only encountered one school that used TA’s and THAT alone was enough to remove that school from the list.</p>

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<p>What some call a T.A. - others call a Teacher. Case in point along the lines of N8Ma’s post re Robert and Nicholas Mann - by the way, BOTH tops in my estimation - violinist Joan Kwuon. While at Juilliard, “teaching assistant” to husband, Joel Smirnoff. When at CIM, faculty member, studio teacher. And - again echoing N8Ma - I know many, many students of Galamian and Delay who didn’t ask for their $$$ back or consider themselves slighted in the least when some lessons (etudes, prep work, scales, etc) were with teaching assistants. It’s rather more like the old art studio system (think middle ages) of master shop with assistants and pupils.</p>

<p>By the way, Musicprnt, although I know you wrote in jest, some of us didn’t find Galamian an “sob”. </p>

<p>Off my rant, apologies. For everyone looking - it is certainly a good idea to be clear about the studio instructor policies. Questions about who is teaching and how frequent are lessons with “main” instructor should be asked when there is any concern/confusion.</p>

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<p>DD is happy that her teacher is no longer performing since the weekly lessons are very regular. The few misses are made up when they can both schedule them. Studio is rarely missed. Her roommate on the other hand is with a still performing and recognized teacher. There are many more misses that are still made up. It means some weeks she has 2 or more lessons. TA’s do not take them over, however the Master/Doctoral students in the studio will run studio sessions from time to time. For DD, the regularity is important to her. For her roommate it is not. So not only important to understand how the studio works, but how you work, too, to make a good match.</p>

<p>And for her, location was important since she has many more voice issues in the winter and cold. She decided she was not going very far north.</p>

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<p>allmusic, if that was a question, the answer is Yes: At least some of the faculty at Juilliard and Colburn have TA’s teaching performance, with regular but less frequent lessons with the faculty, either in a master-class/studio setting or one-to-one. Can’t speak for the other conservatories, except Oberlin, where that is not the case, though faculty, as in the college, have sabbatical opportunities, usually taking them in semester rather than year increments, at which time, substitute faculty are hired for that period, sometimes young performers at the start of their teaching careers (so about the equivalent of a Juilliard TA). Is this bad? Nobody asks for their money back, but they’ve paid an awful lot, so it is something to consider if part of it goes for lessons with sons and wives of famous teachers - who may be very good, but it sounds a bit nepotistic. Also, consider that TA’s and adjuncts are not paid as well and don’t get the benefits that regular faculty do.</p>

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<p>Fiddlestix and N8 made the same point I was making (and yes, Allmusic, my son is not in college yet, but he belongs to high level programs with kids in college, and has gotten to know a lot of people around the NY music scene who went through the programs I am talking about, and I have met them as well; so I wasn’t just conjecturing about the way high level programs work, plus a good friend of the family is on faculty at Juilliard,as is his teacher, so be careful about making accusations of ‘not knowing’). </p>

<p>In typical academic parlance, a TA is a grad student who as part of their grad program is expected to teach (they usually in return have tuition reduced or eliminated, and get a stipend, for doing that). When I went through NYU many years ago, a lot of the UG courses were taught by grad ta’s, not professors and that is commonly true. </p>

<p>The kinds of TA’s I was talking about in music are not grad students, they are teachers in their own right who work with a particular teacher in the program. Delay when she worked with Galamian was technically his assistant, including when she worked with Perlman and Pinchas zuckerman in the 60’s. It is being in the umbrella of a studio, and the teaching assistants are full teachers in their own right, who the ‘master’ entrusts with a lot of the basic teaching. Delay herself, when she basically split from Galamian and had her own studio, literally had hundreds of students who absolutely had to have her, and she had her own assistants, many of whom are now top level pedagogues in their own right. </p>

<p>My original post was simply to try and evade misconceptions about the term TA, that people could have been applying it in the context of academic settings, where it would be a grad student teaching calc I, and that in music programs, especially the high level ones, that isn’t the necessarily the case, that if the student sees a teaching assistant they very well could be seeing a high level teacher in their own right. The reason they are assistants to a high level teacher is the teacher has confidence in them to do the basic work on scales and etudes and technique, so that he/she can concentrate on the music, and the other factor is these programs are much like symphony orchestras, they are hard to get the ‘big position’ in, it isn’t about talent as a teacher necessarily (take a look at how long pedagogues teach, many of them teach into their 80s and 90’s), and as someone pointed out with Joan Kwuon, it often is not about their ability to teach, but rather finding an open slot where they become the ‘master’. There are a lot of people playing in top level orchestras who have the talent to be principal players, but they won’t become one until a slot opens up in an orchestra and they win the audition. </p>

<p>Do all programs work like that? I never said they did. Could a music program at some schools have students taught primarily by grad students? Could be, my point was simply not to assume that TA and ‘teaching assistant’ meant the same thing in academic and music schools, that teaching assistants can be regular parts of instruction in some high level teachers studios and that these are not grad students teaching the whole shebang, these are experienced teachers who help with the instruction. With someone like Delay, the standard line on her from many students in her program was that unless you were one of the superstars, you tended to spend a lot more time with assistants then with her (and note, many of these assistants are today topnotch teachers in their own right).</p>

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<p>Fiddlestix-
It was in gest, I didn’t know Galamian,obviously(though I know people who studied under him), but one thing I have become convinced is that the great teachers, to a person, are a pretty tough bunch, in different ways. Arnold Steinheardt said Galamian as a teacher was tough and unapproachable,that at times his intensity seemed to go over the boundary into the personal, but he also said that once the teacher/student relationship ended, that he was good friend and mentor, so it was about the teaching (that was in AS’s memoir, violin dreams, which is a lot of fun). Leopold Auer was famous for his temper, Millstein loved telling a story about being in a studio lesson with Heifetz, and Heifetz played "scherzo tarrantela"by Wieznowski (sp?I am not a violinist, you can tell:)…Auer got so upset, he threw and broke a chair, and Millstein said he wet his pants, because he was up next and was playing the same piece:).</p>

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<p>When the original point about many conservatory students being taught by “TA’s” was brought forth, we were, I thought, discussing graduate students, and not the Juilliard variety of the term, which is more like an apprentice to a master teacher. </p>

<p>I’d suggest that there is quite some difference between a typical graduate student TA teaching undergrad performance majors, and the master teacher model at Juilliard. I would still contend that there aren’t many schools in which performance students are taught by graduate students as their main studio teacher. Yes, perhaps BA music majors, or kids getting supplemental lessons, but not those in top BM performance programs.</p>

<p>Again, if parents or students at schools other than Juilliard or Colburn are being taught by graduate student TAs as their main studio teacher, I hope they will speak up, since it will be helpful to a lot of people!</p>

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<p>Carole J. Everett former Dir of Admissions, the Julliard School in her book.</p>

<p>“Famous or big-name teachers are not necessarily the best. You are looking for a teacher who will be best for you at this stage of your development as a performer. While “name” teachers may help somewhat at a certain time in your development, especially with the politics of the business, they may not give you the attention you need to make progress in your technique. Will you receive weekly lesson from that teacher, or be taught by an assistant? Is the 'big name” still actively teaching?"</p>

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<p>And By the way the original point was not about conservatories. Not that you could be wrong yet again?</p>

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<p>Trumpet-</p>

<p>That lays into an entirely different question, whether the ‘big name’ teacher is the right teacher for the student or even a good one in the first place. There are some big name performers teaching in high level programs these days, whose students haven’t exactly burned up the musical firmament with their brilliance, and there are ‘quiet’ teachers who seem to turn out gems.I don’t want to get off the tangents of the tangents of this thread:).</p>

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<p>I have no need to be “right”, only to be accurate. Still waiting for verification from all of those BM performance majors who are being taught in their studio lessons by graduate students, or parents of those students, to weigh in.</p>

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<p>thought better about posting my reaction to the above</p>

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<p>Good luck to your son, T57. You will need it if you alienate all the good folks on this board who so freely give advice and guidance.</p>

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<p>T57 - Is it possible you are overreacting? </p>

<p>Please reread the posts - no one called you a liar. I believe some just suggested that your comments about TAs teaching performance majors didn’t “jibe” with their real world experiences. </p>

<p>I found these threads very helpful two years ago when my d was searching for the right music school. Back then, the threads read like a healthy debate between experienced people who each had a slightly different take on the process and the candidate schools. They didn’t always agree, but they were respectful.</p>

<p>It sure would be nice to insure these threads are helpful for folks in the future. This new approach you are taking, however, will certainly send the newbees elsewhere.</p>

<p>As one of the more regular posters often says - “just my $.02”.</p>

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<p>When I first came on this board, I sent out a couple of questions for advice which were extremely challenging (e.g., the issue of a gap year which at that time was considered almost unheard of for a music major-to-be). The responses I got were sometimes diametrically opposed to one another. While this made my job harder in some ways, but it also helped to clarify issues for me (and hopefully for others). I really, really appreciated the degree to which the wise contributors to this forum many of whom had a good deal more experience than I, were willing to chew over an issue and give a candid judgment while not judging each other. It helped my family make some very tough decisions and it turned out that we made them pretty well. </p>

<p>If any of those threads had gone negative, angry, etc, it would definitely not have been helpful. It is sometimes difficult to keep disagreements civil, but it is really important here. I am so thankful for this forum and know that it will help many into the future.</p>