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Music Majors Make Major Commitment
by Rachel Dudley
Music majors cram for a Music History test in the basement of Nash Hall
Valerie Hobbs and Music Department Chairman Al Corley
Laura Jackson with percussion major Andrew Barlow
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Music majors are forced to manufacture time. Very few people finish in four years without taking at least 18 class hours every semester. The typical amount is 19 or 20. The required amount varies according to the type of degree. Music Education requires 154, minimum. Music Performance requires 142, whereas most degrees, including a regular BA in music require 128.
Only seven music majors expect to graduate this spring, but most of them are at the top of their class. Along with a lot of time, dedication, commitment, ability, focus, and drive, a degree in music demands a lot of extra money and extra practicing. Valerie Hobbs, graduating with 163 hours, says she does it "Because it's fun. Because when you get in the middle of a song, and you can tell that you're doing a good job, then the technical side of everything just sort of washes away, and you're left in the moment of everything that is and that can be, and you know that you're a part of it and that you helped create it."
Music is a precise science. Just putting in the time and hours won't cut it, according to Hobbs. "Being a music major requires a singular kind of focus. Anyone can try to slop through a music major, but folks like that either get told to change their majors, or they never graduate."
There are 168 hours in a week, and Valerie can account for 166 of them, including homework between classes, late at night, and even at 4:00 in the morning, as well as the many she spends hard at work in the music building.
Laura Jackson is a piano performance major and also knows a lot about what it takes to survive four years of music. Laura is graduating in May at the top of her class and is now entering her 16th year of playing piano. "It's the passion - I love to play, I love to perform. Piano is so rewarding to me, because of the technicality, musicality, and amount of achievement I feel as result of learning a new addition to my repertoire. Once I have mastered a sonata, fugue, etc., it's the most amazing feeling in the world."
Performance majors focus on performance. Voice majors focus on the voice. Piano majors focus on piano. The Music Education major prepares you to teach others, no matter their focus. "With Music Education, you will be teaching kids how to play other instruments other than your primary one," Hobbs observes. "And you have to know what you're talking about, because you're that kid's primary information source. You have to be skilled at all instruments to be a band director."
All music majors take the same core classes, such as history, theory and aural skills, as well as courses required for their concentration.
Music majors are required to take lessons at least once a week on an applied instrument or in voice or piano. Performance and Music Education majors need 14 sememster hours of lessons. These once/twice-a-week sessions are graded and monitored by all the professors in the music department. You will receive a grade based on your progress from semester to semester. Practice is essential.
"I spend anywhere from 3-5 hours practicing a day," says Jackson. "This is mandatory as a piano performance major because of the repertoire I am learning, plus the amount of performances given on a semester basis. Performance is more practicing, because the focus is on just that - performance, not education." Valerie Hobbs spends an average of 2-3 hours a day practicing as a music education major.
Lessons, at $400 a semester hour, are not included in tuition. After your lesson fee, you will need to purchase your own music, and you may need an accompanist to play with you for your "jury" at the end of the semester. This jury is a performance in front of the entire music staff during exam time each semester.
After you sign up for lessons, you will need an instrument to play on if you are an instrumental concentration. Hobbs says her new French horn costs around $2,250 dollars. A new oboe goes for around $6,000 dollars, and a good used one is still around $4,000. Most students want to avoid buying a used instrument if possible because it must last a lifetime. Instrumentalists may have to spend $45 and $75 for accompanists during a semester. Vocalists have to hire one for the whole semester, not just for their jury. These can be up to $200, and get increasingly harder to find the farther you get into the semester.
Jackson would agree that the hardest part of being a Music Education/Performance major is the intensity of the schedule. "With many classes not being full credit-hour courses because of the number of classes required each semester, this makes your schedule very full. For example, choir meets for five hours a week but is only one credit hour." This is because so many other hours are required per semester to graduate in time without going over the allowed limit of 24 hours per semester.
Once you're finished with your undergraduate work, you can go onto graduate school or try to find a band director's position.
Reader Comment:
Chelsey Gaddy, Senior, 3/30/2006, 12:34 a.m.
How about some credit for musical theatre majors. Not only do we take music classes, but we have to take theatre and dance classes as well. In addition to being involved in choir, we are also required to be involved in every production. I know we are all busy...props to everybody! :)
Ben Clymer, junior, 4/5/2006, 9:59 a.m.
I feel that this article has opened people's eyes to a general knowledge of what a music major goes through. I am a double music major in performance and education, so I know about the constraints of a music major. I am glad that this issue is on the table, because for the work that we do, I believe that we are one of the most unrewarded majors (as well as musical theater). I just wish that we could convince some other people at this school, so that maybe we could get some more respect and some more scholarship money.
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