Starry Night Thoughts

Music Stuffs

Don't know exactly what to call this but for those who wonder about music degrees in college, I'm gonna give my experience here.

Right now, I am in college for a piano performance degree. Now, for clarity's sake, I'm not in a School of Music or Music Conservatory. The program I'm in is just a Department of Music in part of a larger College of Arts deal. School of Music and Music Conservatory people have different experiences than mine and probably stricter "guideline" I guess, I don't know what to call them but I'll get to what I mean in a second. I'm pretty sure the core  of it stays roughly the same though, so here we go.

First of all, for getting into the Department of Music, you don't initially have to audition (again, NOT Music Conservatory or School of Music because I'm fairly certain those DO require auditions.) Our has three different degrees-- Bachelor of Arts in Music, Bachelor of Music in Music Education, and Bachelor of Music is Performance with a concentration in X instrument. In my case, that's piano.

What my school does is that they'll have posters up about auditions for the music program, but what they're really auditions for is a music scholarship. If you want in the Music Department for one of those degrees, all you have to do is declare one of them as your major while entering the school. Now, depending on that declared major, you'll have different requirements to hit at the end of the first two years and final year.

In my case, I entered as a Bachelor of Arts in Music under a music scholarship because I auditioned thinking I had to do that to get into the program. This scholarship is small in terms of college prices, it was more of a carrot dangled in front of my face saying that if I had "music" in some capacity as my major, I would get that sum of money. Still, anything is nice.

For Bachelor of Arts, each semester you're expected to learn two pieces of music from two different time periods. In the case of piano, it has to be memorized, but I'm not certain on any other instrument. At the end of your first semester you play those two pieces, along with whatever scales, chords, or arpeggios you've learned/ worked on in lessons, at something called a"jury." This jury is with every instructor for your particular instrument who grades you on your work for that semester. That is also your semester grade for instrument lessons.

My case, I played two pieces along with a few selected scales and chords in front of my two piano professors. I did not do arpeggios because I didn't know any ( I came in with no classical lessons or anything like that, I just like to play). One of those was my professor for lessons. They each gave me feedback and I got my semester grade. We continue on with life.

Second semster-- this is where the degree you chose matters. Two new things happen this semester for my school-- recital lab performance and degree related auditions.

Recital lab is a class where every music major must attend. You listen to people play a certain amount of times a semester, and if it's not your first semester there, YOU are on one of those performance days. It's all about practicing public playing. Trust me, only idiots like me actually like the performance part of it and EVERYONE is nervous. In your second semester, you get to play in that class.

The degree related auditions are exactly what they sound like. I don't believe a Bachelor of Arts has to participate in them and can just do a jury, but Music Ed. have do pass both an education test and music test, and Performance students have to do what's called a "performance hearing." This is exactly like the jurys except you are required to play your pieces in front of the entire music faculty who will decide if you're good enough to get into the Performance degree. For that hearing, and subsequent Performance major jury and hearings, you're required to play three different pieces, instead of two, from three different time periods. If you don't make it into the program on the first shot, there are two of three more chances to change majors.