Autumn / Winter 2025 Music

[northerngoldilocks]

Time for a new thread in time for the new school term!

Come and talk about music lessons, choosing instruments, exams, auditions, specialist schools, orchestras or whatever other music activities are going on. Everyone is welcome, from those with total beginners to those whose children are studying music at advanced levels. Ask for advice or share successes or struggles.

@Ubertomusic I can’t speak to those particular options but Scottish universities tend to allow broader options in general (more the liberal arts model) - certainly in first year and possibly later on - tends to be a 4 year degree and more flexible. The requirements with STEM degrees might be more prescriptive but in terms of workload I’d imagine for a musical student the individual options could be an easier option than a STEM course worth the same points?

The Cambridge medical degree allows students to do a completely different subject in their third year - most do science but one of my friends did music and got a 1st, and that is recorded as 1st class in his medical degree 🤣

It's actually biosciences I'm thinking about so thank
you for the insight! DD likes biology, this may change of course as she's still young, but I'll be definitely encouraging that.

Another option would be much easier as her German is not that bad, but STEM degree wins over MFL career wise.

Exactly, it looks more like American liberal arts model to me, probably not that flexible but still not as narrow as we have here.

What I find appealing is that music is offered as formal structured modules so you know what you should be doing. Life always gets in the way and I'm not too sure DD would be organised enough to do music independently for three years alongside her main degree, I don't think she's that type of person 😂 Whereas if she takes a subject (or module in this case) she just does the homework, practice etc as she feels she must.

I'm not even thinking about medicine, let alone medicine at Cambridge! 😂 DD is not that dedicated and diligent in her studies.

How did your friends organise their practice and performance at unis?

In a further update- the admin error was an error and he’s not through. The only one on his instrument to be dropped. He’s gutted and confused as he knows he played well. Still no feedback either.

@Siriusmuggle - I'm so sorry - that's absolutely rotten. What a rollercoaster.

@Siriusmuggle that’s so upsetting - I don’t understand how they could get the process so wrong.

Oh god @Siriusmuggle what an absolute mess. He must be devastated.

Nobody seems to know how it works. It appears that they’ve changed it but didn’t tell the candidates or the administrator. Even the panel are confused. His tutor is at a loss as to how he’s not been taken forward.
Hes got another one next week but he’s always been less confident about that one.

That is so poor. So sorry about that.

That’s absolutely awful! Feel so sorry for you and your DS. Wish him good luck for the next one

That's truly shocking, sounds like a serious problem in the admin 🤯 So sorry it's happening to you and your DS!

Sorry I’m only a lurker on these threads but I know NYSO is a really small organisation and if he’s been before maybe it’s worth emailing them about the injury and asking for an extension?

@Compsearch - that's also helpful thanks! DD2 is definitely NOT someone who can't imagine doing anything else - I mean I can't imagine her ever not being around music but it might not be playing.

Today she is utterly enthused by Anglo-Saxon, for example- she's a candidate for a Liberal Arts degree if ever I've seen one but they aren't such a thing here.
She is, however, enjoying the open day more than I expected - though I think it feels just like an extension of school to her, which says an awful lot more about how odd her school is than about how conservatoires are.

Let's see what she thinks when she sees uni too.

@achangeofnameisasgoodasarest the conservatoire audition process is obviously intense and stressful and competitive and it’s really amazing to be offered a place after going through that process, but none of that means it’s necessarily the right choice or the right thing to do.

I think it can be easy to be swept up in it once you’re in the process because it’s flattering, especially if scholarships are involved, so I’d just be wary of that. They will woo excellent musicians in a way that universities don’t.

@Ubertomusic everyone I know in this position just fitted it in somehow…not quite sure how tbh! A typical day for me involved 1-2 hours of practice, 1-2 hours of chamber music, a 3 hour orchestra rehearsal (7.30-10.30pm most days) and doing academic stuff around that. DH did 4-5 hours practice a day but as a pianist wasn’t in any orchestras. We did also spend a lot of time in the pub etc so I think probably didn’t sleep much. Good times!

@Compsearch Conservatoire does sound like a specialist music school 😁

Re. scholarships, I think in the current economic climate they're more about financial survival rather than flattery. Or at least I felt that way about DD's scholarship.

Oh sorry - that was my description of my time at Cambridge.

My time at conservatoire was more like 3 hours of attempted practice per day with just one orchestral project a term, 1 chamber rehearsal per week and MUCH time in the pub. I think that’s why for orchestral musicians, universities with loads of extra curricular music going on can be good alternatives and good prep for professional life. But depends on instrument and personality and so many other things.

Oh wow! That's really interesting, what do orchestral musicians do at conservatoire then? DD is doing at least 2.5 hours of practice and 1-2 hours of chamber music daily, then a few hours of orchestra, individual lessons, academic music, choir and performing classes/concerts throughout the week, probably adding 1-1.5 hours a day - and she's 11 so hasn't really started in earnest yet 😂 I get it a soloist may have to practise the whole day at conservatoire, but brass players cannot even do that much practice! 🤔

@Compsearch -thats really helpful thanks. She did like it - but I think she’ll like uni open days too. Weirdest thing is that the entire department for her instrument appears to be male- it was so odd to watch her walk into a room of 20 or so people who were all hugely tall boys. I tbh found that more offputting than she did!

Yes, exactly! To be honest I found it quite lonely. There is a bit of a mismatch because brass, wind, percussion for the most part are very keen on orchestra and there are more than enough of them to fill the orchestral spots, so opportunities are limited to start with and then need to be shared out, whereas strings generally less keen and often not enough to fill the spaces.

To fill the gaps we had things like wind repertoire sessions (playing through excerpts - useful) and brass band (not my cup of tea). Even chamber music - I found it hard to get string players interested in doing things like Schubert octet or Beethoven septet because if they did chamber at all they were focused on string quartets or trios. A lot of people I encountered were very determined and focused on their own practice and preparing for assessments etc so less keen on playing music for fun (sad!).

This was obvs an age ago but DH teaches at one now and while things are definitely more organised than back then, and they work really hard to make it a rounded and useful experience for all students, there’s a lot of unstructured time (deliberately). So if you want to practice your instrument all day it’s the best place to be; if you don’t, it might not be.

Very interesting, thank you @Compsearch

There absolutely are liberal arts degrees in the UK, achangeofname. Birmingham offers liberal arts and sciences, and Royal Holloway also offers liberal arts (and they're just the 2 unis that I know of from DD applying).

The really big issue with conservatories is - do you play an instrument that requires a specific practice room - if you are a flautist who can practice any where including your sound proofed student room (ie PCV at RCM) then that's fine. If you are a percussionist at rCM that's also fine as there are a lot of percussion only rooms and not many percussionists and no second studies. If you are eg a fortepianist with only one room you can book as there is only one room with a forte piano then you will be screwed if your conservatoire doesn't ring fence that room for historic keyboard players - hint - a lot of them dont.... Its one reason why organists are better off going to Oxbridge and getting almost unlimited dibs on an instrument and only going to conservatoire for masters.

There are females in her instrument at RCM if that is helpful

I think I spotted Liberal Arts at Warwick when I was looking with my older ons @Alwaysplayspicc but they didn't do music - will have to look at the others. Wasn't sure how they're viewed and organised as a degree here - I did a joint honours and even that confused people and definitely had its chaotic moments.

I think i was just surprised @Londonmummy66 as the entire bassoon dept at her school is female and most of her teachers have been too. I think the same dept at RCM might be all girls in the current first year.

It more made me think about the process that had got them to that place - ie is there some way that one school wants a particular sound that can only be made by someone very tall, particularly given the focus on contra, or do girls not feel welcome when applying? It could just be coincidence but for them all to be boys was weird when there were so many of them - it was a full dept class across all years and types of course.

Eventually DD2 says one other girl turned up, but she was also looking round, not a student.

@achangeofnameisasgoodasarest If you’re looking for Liberal Arts programmes with a strength in music, Durham would be a good option. It’s second in the UK for Music and the department is in a wonderful location on Palace Green which is a world heritage site. The Durham LA programme allows study of two or three subjects, so she could use that framework to build a JH prog with Music and something else, or in a three subject combination. Optional subjects include social sciences as well as Arts and Humanities. Plus vast amounts of music happening at a college as well as university level. There’s also the RNS in Newcastle which is an excellent source of instrumental teachers.