I received a question from time to time:
“Should I go to music school?”
The short answer is it depends.
Nothing is so easy, so I will explain some of my thoughts on this subject, but first a little about myself, so that I know where I come from:
I have loved music since I was a child playing the piano in our living room. I think I have done serious damage to this thing because every song in my mind was about dinosaurs.
I talked quite seriously with the high school piano and then I went to a music school in Baltimore, The Peabody Conservatory, which I finished with a degree in music composition. It was really a fantastic community to be part of it as a young person. Even so, I have always had reservations about the true “value” of the experience that an anonymous soul was trying to put together with the “Music School Diploma” entry on a paper towel dispenser in the campus bathroom.
Today I write /play/produce funk-jazz instrumental music and I often wonder how things would change if I had not attended music school. Without further ado, this is what I think:
Reasons to visit the music school:
- You want to learn music at a level that requires a degree. It is very simple, this does not apply to things like teaching piano to children in your home, but to teaching music in some type of school.
- You are a classical musician and not the type hired as a 14-year-old granddaughter for record contracts. Many people are in music school New York, and improving their skills in the hope of trying something (like an orchestra). Note: The endpoint for them is not the conclusion, but the hearing. Note if you belong to this group, you may need to discover how you can improve your income at any time, and the ability to teach may be helpful.
- Learn certain skills that are difficult to learn in other places. There are some good music schools New York, which really focus on the new current musical environment unlike the more traditional schools. By learning the skills of music production, you are many times ahead of the mass of people who use software like Garageband at home.
- The music school teaches some really important life skills (I mean it), and education programs, from medicine to law, deal with music school specialties that take their trade seriously as people who have knowledge about commitment and time management. It is surprising but true. Trust me, the first thing I know about this. Do not get me wrong, you still have to have all the prerequisites for the area for which you leave professional music, but your musical training makes you feel “interesting and versatile.”
- My main reason for going to New York music school and a reason for choosing music as a career: since I cannot imagine that makes me happy to do something other than music. A career in music is difficult: many people who create music have to deal with many of the parts they really do not like, just to get to the small parts they live for. It can be difficult, and if your only goal is to be rich and famous, you enter music for the wrong reasons.
Then ask yourself, why do you want to go to music school? If you cannot imagine being happy, doing something other than music, think they can teach you specific skills, you need a structured practice environment, and you have the patience and commitment (and resources) that may be the music school is adequate for you.
