 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: rollercoastermike
Date: 2007-09-28 04:33
Hi guys,
I'm a senior in high school and I've been playing clarinet for 7 years. After a dispute with myself on whether to study music composition or clarinet performance, I've decided that clarinet would be a better choice. Now however, I'm having a lot of trouble finding schools to apply to.
Since I live in California, I'm planning on applying to 3 or 4 UCs. But when I go to their music department sites, I honestly can't tell them apart. Are they all equally good? Equally bad? All I have to rely on is reputation from word of mouth. Saying that, I'm for sure going to apply to UCLA, given that I've heard they have a good music program. But probably not Berkeley, because I've heard they have a not-so-great department (but how do I know?). The same deal applies to private schools everywhere else. USC I am also for sure applying to, just looking at the clarinet faculty they have (in addition to other great schools of USC).
That brings me to another point: should I put a clarinet professor into much consideration when I pick a school? If they leave the year I get there, or the year after, well that wouldn't be nice.
The main conflict I am having goes like this: why do the music departments at Boston University, NYU, USC, and UCLA look so attractive to me (at BU and NYU nothing really stands out in terms of music)? And which UCs could I go to that would put me in a pretty academically rigorous setting with a good music program? I'm having a hard time articulating this. Ha ha ha.
If anyone has any suggestions on schools, I will definitely look at every single one. I'm not interested in conservatories (I mean just conservatories, something like Oberlin is a different story) but more of a school where I can get a well rounded education. I would like the option to take decent composition classes or to switch to a composition major or some sort of emphasis in it so that I would have the preparation to get into a graduate school if composition interested me enough. Lately composition hasn't been going to well, but it's not as if I have no experience.
Anything and everything is appreciated!
Thanks,
Michael
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Author: ChrisArcand
Date: 2007-09-28 05:05
Your instructor should be your number one priority. Obviously everything is a factor, so if you find a really good instructor but its expensive and the living blows, then don't, but the instructor is the person who's job is to sharpen you into the skilled musician you need to be. So no matter how attractive the school, the instructor is what's up. I thought this before, and I really, really think it even more now that I'm actually in school.
Also, I believe that since you would like a well rounded education, you will therefore probably go to a university instead of a specific "prestigious" conservatory where the focus is really only on music, and I think that makes it all the more important that you take a look at the instructor as the first thing when you look at a school.
Above is fact; the following is arguable: I think that spending a fortune on your undergrad work is a big mistake, and so don't go out of your way to get into a "nice" school when there's others that would match that for a fraction of the cost. I haven't experienced it, but something tells me you'd regret it (especially when you see the grad school bill added on to that, if you want to get your grad stuff done...)
Anyway. The best of luck!
CA
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2007-09-28 05:47
You don't have to decide your life path in stone yet. You can always switch majors along the way. Heck, I started as a computer science major, music minor, and ended up double-majoring in CS and music composition.
I believe Berkeley does not have performance majors. From what I've heard, though, it does have quite a good composition program (it's on my grad school list at the moment, as are, from your list, UCLA, USC, NYU). USC is good in both, but one of the more difficult schools to get into for music. UCLA, I've heard rumors of pleasant surprises in the composition department recently.
Find a school that has good departments in as many of the things you're possibly interested as you can. Even non-musical things you have a passing interest in... you might discover something else you like doing better.
What I would recommend is to find somewhere that allows you to leave your options open. I agree with Chris that spending a lot on undergrad is perhaps not the best idea. You can do very well finding a less expensive school for undergrad and going all out for grad school. Cal State Long Beach (my alma mater, shameless plug), for example, has an excellent music program, and the low tuition and less competitive atmosphere offer much greater opportunity to explore. The place is ridiculously friendly. Double-majors in composition and performance are fairly common. I would've done it, but that would have put me at 3 majors, which is silly.
Also, it's a lot easier to change/add majors at $3,000/yr than at $30,000.
If you end up in composition in the long term, lots of grad schools pay your way through, too (well, you earn it by teaching undergrad theory).
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: CEC
Date: 2007-09-28 07:14
Michael,
I can't speak personally about most of your school choices, but I can say that USC would be an excellent choice. I studied with Monica Kaenzig a number of years ago and not only is she an incredible musician, but a fantastic teacher and person as well.
Best of Luck!
Chris
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2007-09-28 12:18
Make sure that you have a backup plan, because unless you were 1st chair in All State Band (maybe even more than once!) your odds are more than a long shot of getting a playing job full-time.
Stay real and have a backup plan.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: Iacuras
Date: 2007-09-28 15:12
I would also suggest looking at The University of Northern Colorado (Disclaimer: I am a student here, and might be biased). The music school is absolutely wonderful. We have a great faculty, especially in clarinet. Our clarinet professors are Bil Jackson (principal clarinet of the Colorado Symphony and Aspen Chamber Orchestra and helped design the new Yamaha YCL-CSG clarinets) and Brad Behn (a wonderful clarinetist, and incredible mouthpiece designer). We also have a great theory and composition staff, as well as two amazing band directors.
Wherever you end up, good luck.
Steve
"If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon."
"If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly."
Post Edited (2007-09-28 15:13)
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Author: tdinap
Date: 2007-09-28 16:13
Perhaps you can visit some of the schools and have a "sample" lesson with the clarinet professor. I know a few people who did this, and it helped their decision immensely.
Tom
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2007-09-28 18:44
I have to disagree with skygardener about music-only conseratories being the only places to make connections. Any *very good* university music department in an area with a decent musical scene will do you just as well for connections as a conservatory.
I graduated a year ago, and if I wanted to put on a quintet concert I'd have no problems finding some very fine musicians for it. It's a matter of actually paying attention to people, getting to know them.
What I *would* recommend is trying to find out which programs have a social atmosphere. I'm not talking "let's get drunk Friday night" social, but "I brought some trios, who wants to play them" social. Find a place where you can randomly walk up to another musician and they'll give you the time of day and chat a bit. Those are the musicians you can call to put together an ensemble.
I don't know if CSULB was fairly unique in this respect, but the practice rooms are all in an open area, and many people practiced with the doors open, or didn't even bother going into the rooms. This was a godsend for a composition major, as a friendly stroll from one end of the department to the other could literally find you performers for just about any ensemble you'd care to write for. I'm a bit bummed looking for grad schools, as lots of them seem to have isolated practice rooms, some even with electronic scheduling systems, pretty much removing the casual aspect of the situation, making it much more difficult to find a pick-up quintet to play in or 4 saxophones, 3 flutes, and a mezzo-soprano to play my latest hypothetical kitsch-opera. And if you DID want to be left alone, it was quite easy to close the practice room doors and face away from the window.
It's my impression (whether rumored or actual) that at higher-caliber (i.e. big-name) music schools, it can be harder to find random people for pick-up ensembles, as people are more concerned with spending every waking moment alone in a practice room, squeezing the last bit of note perfection out of their excerpts, etc. For me, going the composer/performer route that relies very heavily on getting to know people, it would make things considerably more difficult.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: William Hughes ★2017
Date: 2007-09-28 18:46
I believe it is an absolute must that you personally visit each school. There are many intangibles that you can only "feel" by being on campus, talking with students, seeing the facilities and meeting with faculty. Websites and word-of-mouth can only take you so far.
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Author: Sirene
Date: 2007-09-28 20:25
From my (many years ago) experience, the important things to a clarinet major would be the clarinet teacher and performance ensembles. If you have a chance, at least when you are down to picking between your acceptances, go to an orchestra or chamber music performance and see what you hear. Also, find out about how students are assigned to teachers and ensembles. I was a performance major at USC many years ago - my first choice because I wanted to study with Mitchell Lurie. Only after I got to school did I learn that he was selective about his students and mainly taught the grad students, and it took me 2 years of studying with the #2 teacher before I was able to study with Lurie. Same about ensembles - is orchestra (to pick the hardest ensemble for a clarinet major to get into when I was at USC) a per-semester or per-concert assignment? Is every performance major even guaranteed to be able to perform with the orchestra every year? I ended up taking up bass clarinet because being the best bass clarinet player at least got me into orchestra for most concerts - after the first couple of years I was sick of concert band!
As far as practice rooms - I think USC is short on them - I still work on campus (in an entirely different field), and walking past the practice room building there are always folks practicing outside that building. So might be a similar situation to what was described at CSULB as far as finding performers.
Since you are also interested in composition, of course, that would be the other important factor to consider - who are the composition faculty and are they folks you would want to study with. What type of composition are you interested in? USC, for example, has a film music program, other schools may not.
Good luck, decisions like this are hard - I was foolish enough to only audition for one school (USC) and got in without even realizing it was a big deal, but I wouldn't recommend that to a clarinet player these days.
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Author: Ryan25
Date: 2007-09-28 20:46
First of all, BU has a pretty darn good orchestra and one of the very top opera programs in the country so it does have things to offer along with going to hear the BSO play.
In all honesty, the only thing that really matters is the teacher and the relationship you have with that teacher. Performing in a college orchestra is fun but does not qualify you to join the New York Philharmonic. You will need much more experience than that and that experience will not be found in a school ensemble. You will need to go to festivals like Aspen, NOI, NRO, Round Top, Tanglewood, Pacific Music Festival, etc. You will need to try and get into training programs like the Chicago Civic Orchestra or New World Symphony or win a job in a lower tier orchestra to gain "real world" experience.
Basing your school selection on ensembles is not the best move. You say you want strong academics. Schools like USC, UCLA, Eastman, Oberlin, Northwestern, Yale, Michigan all have a reputation for strong academics.
What do you wan't to do with your music degree? If you wan't to be a full time pro player, then you need to study with the best teacher you can find that has placed students in professional ensembles. You have to play better than 95% of the people you will be auditioning against and to do that, you don't really even have to major in music or get music degrees. Orchestras don't care where you went to school or if you have a DMA. They care if you can play at an extremely high level.
Hope this helps. Be sure you figure out exactly what you want to do with your clarinet playing before you look for schools because what you want to do will play a big part in where you should go and with whom you should try and study with.
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2007-09-29 02:17
It's the individual Clarinet teacher which makes all the difference in the world for a performance major.
Creating ensembles, and other student connections are good, but the private teacher is the one who will get you good enough to "make it in the real performance world".
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: JJAlbrecht
Date: 2007-09-29 16:07
One additional suggestion:
If you are currently studying privately with a good teacher, have you asked your instructor for suggestions concerning the qualities of various music programs? Many professionals are pretty good sources for information about good music schools.
Jeff
“Everyone discovers their own way of destroying themselves, and some people choose the clarinet.” Kalman Opperman, 1919-2010
"A drummer is a musician's best friend."
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2007-10-01 10:16
You really should go to your prospective schools and 'hang out' a bit if you haven't already yet. Aside from your teacher and all that, it will be 'home' for at least 4 years.
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Author: sgb2007
Date: 2007-10-01 18:10
I am a first-year student at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. It's a liberal arts school but 1/3 of the student population is involved in music. We have a world-famous choir and a band and orchestra that also have international acclaim. You should do some research on it, if you wouldn't mind going to a school in Minnesota. A huge amount of people are really, really passionate about music here, but at the same time not all of these people are talented musically exclusively.
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Author: ChrisArcand
Date: 2007-10-02 05:13
I see this post has gotten quite the attention since I last viewed it.
As I said from the beginning, many people say the same thing: It's all about the instructor.
And the fact that you're calling some place home.
And the fact that you need to pay for it.
I don't think I need to go over how much I disagree with whoever said that you should go to a high end conservatory. If you're so concerned about the students not caring about performance and only about education, then maybe you should look at the fact that if the instructor holds a tight ship, you'll find fantastic players, better than those of a conservatory whose instructor is not as good. The clarinetists in my studio (I go to a University) are more serious, talented, and downright stinkin' good than many of the conservatories I have visited IMHO. That's no shot to any of you other students here, I've never been to a (good) school yet where I feel the studio is junk.
In any case, look at all your points and keep an open mind; just don't ever think that you need to spent hundreds of thousands and restrict your education to strictly performance to be a phenomenal player.
Isn't Jonathan Cohler like a physics genius or something? I don't remember where I heard that one...
CA
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