I wonder how many people agree with this.... Someone I know claims that if you are very serious about music, as in aiming for a successful performance career, should not be a music scholar at mainstream school.
Her point is, music scholarship is great for moderately serious musicians who enjoy performing and learning opportunities at school and whose main focus is academia rather than music. But if you are VERY serious, then scholars' commitments are simply too much and can be great burden, no worth sacrificing individual practice time which is far more important (for serious musicians).
She thinks too many young 'serious' musicians spend their precious time on school musical commitments as a scholar while they should really spend more time on honing their skills at home instead. You can join and enjoy school musical activities for fun and social reasons of course, but you can do so without being a scholar. It's much better to enjoy school musical life without duties on your shoulders, so you have freedom to decide how much to commit time to time and maintain your priority of personal requirements as a serious musician.
She is talking about classical string players who attend Saturday conservatoires, NCO or similar so already have opportunities to play in high standard orchestras/ensembles outside school. So I understand it would be a totally different story for other instruments/fields/circumstances - for instance, some instruments/fields require less individual practice time/disciplines, or no many orchestral opportunities available outside school.
Do you agree or disagree? Any opinion would be greatly appreciated.
Find advice on the best extra curricular activities in secondary schools and primary schools here.
Extra-curricular activities
Music scholarship should be better avoided if you are serious about music
Kutik73 · 17/01/2018 05:46
Ds ISVs always asking for home ed / we wouldn't survive a week together so I have always said no !! 
Floot, thanks. It was DS's first choice between May to November last year. Then, the state option became his first choice from November. But I suspect it's partly because he came 1st in their music aptitude assessments and I think he liked the fact that he did well and started liking the school! He is as simple as this...
Ah, claraschu I loved that post even if it landed in the wrong thread!
kutik some people want something in life, they ask for it. Others don't. Some people feel uncomfortable in a plane, they ask to change seats. Others don't. What I mean is that a school can be rigid or flexible but ultimately if you don't ask you don't get. No school is going to come to you and say they see your child is very committed to music, would your child like to miss PE, skip homework, etc? You will always have to ask, both at private and state, which makes it very dependable on the child and the parents.
I recently met a young man at a party who is now at Oxford and was a regular pianist at DS school. We were chatting about the difficulty of juggling everything and he told me that when he was asked to play at a, for example, school musical, he told the teachers "don't expect any homework from me this week". This had no negative outcome on his results. I was dumbstruck and immediately rewinded to all the stressful late nights of DS finishing homework during rehearsals and performances. Even when I told DS about my conversation he was somehow dismissive of the idea, because if DS can finish a homework he will. However, we have recently been given some flexibility to fit in piano practice start of day and it was DS' idea as he saw it had become impossible at any other time. So when he really needed it and saw no other way, he asked for it. Schools (normal, not specialist) need to see three things: one: that your child's commitment to music is true and serious, two: that academic demands are hindering that music commitment/progress, and three: that your child's academic progress will not be too affected by missing school time ( whether because the child is doing very well, or he's willing to make up for the lost time somehow, or if travelling is required, that things have been put in place for tutoring/studying/support during travels).
SE that sounds like a really good balance . Ds is also a brass player doesn't go to a jd but AYM where there's a good mix of state and privately educated pupils. As it's really small he gets the opportunity to play regularly with much older ( and better!) brass players which is really good for him. His school are great though I think he is feeling the pressure currently in balancing it all but he takes everything very seriously. And is his own worst enemy at times. A good chat with the head of year today has made me feel better . Really I think you need a supportive school - whether it's state or private hopefully this will continue to work out in this way for ds and your dd
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.