Gaining an education in music at the collegiate level is a completely unique experience vs. attending a school for a traditional non-music based academic major.
If you are going to attend college for music performance major as an undergraduate student, you will be likely studying with the same private college music teacher, otherwise known as your studio professor, for four years straight.
This is especially true for students studying classical music – aspiring opera vocalists, concert violinists, and orchestral percussionists obligatorily gravitate towards a single professional private mentor at a music school. Jazz & contemporary music students often study with the same core group of faculty throughout four years as well.
True, your music history, music theory, and regular academic classes will still be – usually – taught by a different professor every semester.
But your core private lesson and studio performance class – where you perform for the other students in your studio – will be possibly the most integral part of your music education.
So why is this different than not attending school for music?
To illustrate this, let’s imagine you wish to become a mechanical engineer. First, you apply & go to the best college you can find for mechanical engineering, which is where you have to start.
Second, you begin to take classes with professors who are experts in the field of mechanical engineering. Everything sounds good so far.
So what happens if you end up not being cool with the professor you are working with? Well, after the current semester, you will likely have a different professor for a different mechanical engineering class.
The possibility of one semester of one class in which you aren’t congruent with your teacher – especially one in a traditional large lecture hall – isn’t such a bad risk to take.
However, with music, you are with one studio teacher all four years of your undergraduate education!
Do you know what that means? You better pick correctly.
My goal as an author and as an independent college consultant is to assist students find the right-fit school their first time around so as to completely minimize or erase the chances of needing to transfer colleges later down the line.
You don’t simply want to attend a highly-ranked music school. You want to attend the music school that fits you best.
So how do you choose that right-fit teacher for you personally? I understand that this process can certainly feel daunting, especially in the eyes of a parent who is not familiar or versed with the music world.
It is indeed a challenging & complex process with many layers of subtlety.
That said, here are my top 10 tips to finding the right-fit music teacher/professor in college.
10. Zone In On the Type of Music School You Want
Generally speaking, there are three types of music schools – conservatories, liberal arts colleges, and universities. There is a fourth type, online degrees, but for the purposes of this article, as well as most of the content on this website, we are talking about the first three types.
Think about what your long-term goals are; if you wish to double major, or go to a college offering an extensive array of traditional academics, than an independent-standalone conservatory may not be the best option for you.
Don’t be tempted to apply to Juilliard or Colburn just because of the name-brand recognition if what the school offers is not true to what you want achieve in college.
On the other hand, if your desire is to eat, breath, sleep music and be in an environment where everyone is like-minded, then a conservatory may be the right fit for you personally.
9. Listen, Listen, and Listen
What if you have heard marvelous things about a professor at a given school, but you turn on his or her music on your Spotify and realize that you don’t emotionally connect to that person’s music-making?
That’s right – you probably shouldn’t aim to study with that teacher.
Diving into the recordings or other material (like workshops posted on youtube) your teacher has produced will give you a sense of who they are as artists.
You must remember two integral things during the “Listen” phase of all of this:
First, you are not going to music school to study a vocational trade. You are going to become an independent, unique, and individualized artist. Finding your right-fit teacher who music-making you personally connect with is critical to helping you realize this level of artistic integrity.
Secondly, remember this – don’t go into the college application process with a desperate “I just want anyone who will pick me” attitude. Rather, pick teachers based on your interest in them.
8. Attend a Masterclass
Frequently, well-regarded university professors in strings, brass, winds, percussion, piano, and composition travel around the country to present masterclasses available to the public.
What is a masterclass? It is a showcasing of a number of students’ talent in a usually public setting to a “master” teacher.
Once you start to investigate the schools out there and the teachers, see if you can track the schedule of a particularly desired teacher and attend his or her masterclass.
7. Get Your Playing Evaluated
You may decide you wish to study with teachers of renowned stature, such as a Heidi Castleman at Juilliard or a Richard Aaron at University of Michigan, however I can tell you that many, many other students wish to study with teachers of this renown as well.
Some years, top music teachers only accept 1-5 undergraduate students in a particular major/instrument.
So what does this mean? It means you’ll have to perform at an exceptionally high level to be considered for admissions at one of these schools.
Getting your playing evaluated by professionals who oversee hundreds of evaluations every year will be critical for you when deciding which colleges and professors are realistic for your level of education, abilities, etc.
6. Be Cognizant of Your Grades & Test Scores
Some great music programs are housed in some of the world’s most respected academic universities, such as New York University, University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, and Northwestern University.
Let’s say you find a teacher you really would like to study with at one of these schools. To even be considered for admission, you will need to have a GPA that is exceptional.
In fact, one of the reasons that Northwestern University’s acceptance rate into their Bienen School of Music is so low is because they have to filter out students whose grades don’t make the cut.
Now, if you aren’t the best academic student, that is okay, as a standalone independent conservatory, or a university whose GPA expectations aren’t as high as the aforementioned three, do often accept students based mostly on musical ability and accomplishment.
5. Ask a School’s Music Students
In all of my years interacting with people from a diversity of backgrounds and participating in a number of social groups, I have never seen as chatty of a crowd as music students.
Music students absolutely love to express their opinion on their teachers, their peers, the school they attend, etc.
To do this right, you’ll have to speak to a few students – hopefully good students too who can really express their opinions clearly.
One way you can do this if you can sneak into the cafeteria of a music school. If you just ask a student for his or her opinion of a school/teacher, you can likely find out a lot more information than just by looking online.
4. Track Student Success
Ask yourself this question: What are my professional career goals? What is it I would like to accomplish as an artist working in the real-world?
Pretty valid questions, if you ask me.
If you wish to perform in an orchestra, then studying with a teacher who has a track record of success getting students employed into orchestras is a good way to start. Bonus points if you find a teacher who is also an accomplished orchestral performer.
If you wish to perform in an unconventional setting, perhaps find a school that offers not only traditional training, but also opportunities to perform in pit orchestras for musicals, ensembles for recording studio sessions, etc.
If you wish to become a teacher in music, look for a school that has a high track record of getting students employed in the real world.
Whatever your goals are, investigating the backgrounds & track records of teachers at various music schools can be integral to your success in finding the right-fit school.
3. Investigate Performance Opportunities
Does the teacher you are interested in offer enough interesting performance opportunities for his or her students to satisfy you personally?
For example, the composition programs at some schools, such as those at Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Michigan, will have performance students come into the lessons of composition majors to help “workshop” pieces that will eventually have a public showing.
Doing this provides an interesting performance opportunity for both the composition student looking to realize his original artistic creations as well as for the performance student interested in modern music perhaps not staged within the traditional concert hall.
Often times, the percussion faculty at some schools, such as that of the University of New Mexico, will place an unusual emphasis in popular music, jazz, and contemporary music, as well as the traditional classical orchestral styles. Such a well-rounded curriculum could be beneficial to music students interested in contemporary music performance.
2. Take Trial Lessons
Often times, if you know someone who has an “in” with a music school, you can take a ‘trial lesson’ with a teacher at the school you are interested in attending.
This accomplishes two major ‘trials.’ First, the teacher is trialing the student, seeing whether that student would be a good fit for admissions into his or her collegiate studio.
Secondly, this is your opportunity as a student to personally trial out the teacher.
You may have heard dozens of great reviews about this teacher and even liked a masterclass he or she gave, but if you don’t get a good feeling about your lesson with him or her, that will provide you a world of insight you would never have had if you didn’t take the trial lesson.
1. Work On Your College Audition
Finally, after doing all of this hard work to discover your right-fit studio professor, the most important thing you can do to land your right-fit music teacher is to work on your audition.
There are many ways you can work on your audition. Most teachers would say to just “practice and make perfect” your audition.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t work nearly as well as you may think.
There are so many factors that go into a great audition beyond just working hard in the practice room.
I was working with a Boston University voice professor recently with a student of mine and her upcoming audition. He told to me that how a student presents himself or herself in just the opening few moments of the audition can significantly impact the adjudicating committee’s perception of that student.
What I find most effective for music students after years of doing this personally is do a series of mock auditions & interviews as well as finding a tailored roadmap for them that will help their chances of succeeding the audition process.
This includes trial lessons with teachers at schools, finding summer programs whose faculty includes studio professors working in major music schools, putting together meetings with students and administration at various schools, etc.
Of course, you’ll also have to be cognizant of the repertoire you choose to perform at your audition.
What About Non-Performing Music Students?
Music theory, musicology, and music business students may get it “easy” and not have to perform an entrance audition at some schools.
Sometimes they will though, especially if they are attempting to enter a high-level program at a school where any music student is required to also be a performer, such as at the University of Miami Frost School of Music.
Composition students often, but not always, have to take performance auditions as well for admission into a collegiate music program.
Frequently, composition students will be evaluated three-fold; once for a performance audition, once for a composition portfolio review, and once for an admissions interview as well.
So How Do I Get Started Moving Forward
I would start by connecting with local musicians who have a Bachelor’s degree in music and seek out their experiences. Even talking to one professional musician can help you shape the roadmap forward.
Of course, you’ll have to take any musician’s opinion with possibly a grain of salt – I have heard plenty of musicians, for example, both espouse the horridness and greatness of a music school they never attended or really know much about.
After that, I would starting visiting schools and see if you can meet someone besides your collegiate tour guide. This can be very helpful for your education about music schools moving forward in the long run.
