Unis with practice rooms for non music students

[Lottie4]

Does anyone know of any unis where non music students can use the practice rooms? Also, possibly join orchestras, others music groups, ideally in the top 50/60 ranking unis

DD is interested in applying for two different courses, but on top of trying to work out the best ones for her re ranking, employ-ability, distance she has to factor in her passion for music (although she has chosen not to study this)

Oxford

Cambridge too. Loads of practice rooms there.

Kent

We five RG universities and all had access to practice rooms. Ds wants to keep playing piano. Most have a booking system.

Most I would have thought. I know King's College London used to offer lessons on the Organ and any students at my Oxford College could use the pianos, and lots of people at other Unis I know are in choirs/orchestras without studying music (lots of choral/Organ scholars don't study music).

It might be worth looking to see whether the places your daughter is interested in offer music as a degree subject. If so, the practice facilities are like to be better and more numerous, but there will be more competition for them!

And I imagine the quality of orchestras and choirs will be higher in unis that offer traditional music degrees, than those that don't, but again they will be harder to get into. My daughter is planing to go somewhere next year that doesn't offer music (Exeter) but there still seem to be plenty of opportunities for her to get involved in music making.

York

University of Bath (not to be confused with Bath Spa University) has a good newish arts building with practice rooms and performance spaces and lots of music extracurricular activities but does not offer music degrees so all musicians are "amateur" as it were.

When I was at Nottingham, I used to sneak into the music department and have a go in a practice room, pretending I was a music student. No one ever used to say anything.

Thank you, and any other replies are still appreciated. She viewed a smaller local university but they had nothing.

She is actually on a music scholarship at her present school, but I think she's decided she doesn't want to be in such a competitive field as it's mainly performance she'd want to do. However, it's something that's really in her bones, ie on top of A levels she's in the practice room at 7.30am, late at night and takes part in everything going.

I haven't said it to her, but I think long term she'd be better doing one of the other courses she's looking at.

My DS is studying Law at Birmingham but has managed to continue his interest in music by joining a string orchestra group. They get use of practice rooms and hold concerts in the concert hall.

I know St Andrews are going to be building a music centre soon as the acknowledge they have many musically talented students who want to keep up their practice and perform with others like them. I know this doesn't help your DD right now but it suggests that this is a thing in universities in general.

Lol at Oxford and Cambridge being suggested in reply One and Two.....

😂

Where music degrees are offered, there is massive competition for the orchestra and choir places. Music students will get priority. Vacancies are not guaranteed in your instrument either. Even choirs can be ultra choosy. Therefore a university that is highly regarded but that doesn’t offer music can be a safer bet. Or, be prepared to wait a bit and take a place in an ensemble and a less prestigious choir while you wait.

Well if you want to sing if the Uni is in a decent sized town/city then there will also be opportunities in local rather than University Choirs (and if religious music is something you are used to sometimes paid places in Church choirs).

Exeter has huge provisions for music and no music degrees so everything is set up to be done alongside a degree

When I was at Durham there was a huge amount of university and college based musical groups (my college had an orchestra, jazz band, strings group, flute choir, a couple of choirs, etc and, I think, three pianos which could be used to practise on). Grade 7+ competency on instruments was really common for non music students. It might have been extreme but universities are all for encouraging the extra curricular...

Reading uni don’t offer music degrees but do have a good extra curricular music scene with orchestras, choirs and other ensembles. They have bookable practice rooms.

Most of them. I didn't read music but did loads. In fact I have been reading and scanning my university year diaries so remembering it all now and I had a constant need to find music practice rooms. I took a piano diploma although I failed it twice (the practice part of it) and then stopped but I certainly was needing an awful lot of practice facilities. We could use a piano at the hall of residence. We could use one in the music faculty but the music students rightly had priority and it looks like in my second year I got permission to use one in an adult education institute where I was in a choir too.

Lottie that uis a bit like my son who had a music scholarship and went to university last year. I think he plays in his room for a start and they have a hall chapel and you can join bands and choirs there too although he's left his main instrument (trumpet) home this exam term so he's obviously not doing much today. He did the Last Post at the hall chapel which was nice - he always did that at school on Remembrance events.

My university diary is just crammed with musical stuff.

Beka, I did that too - I joined an orchestra in the town near where I lived at university not the university orchestra and seem to have done a few choir things in additon to the university ones eg quite a good church choir.

I am told that piano quality can be pretty poor in at least some of the generally available practice rooms so it can be frustrating for the pianists.

Good point. I was just grateful to have any piano at all. A traditional catered hall tends to have a music practice room in most of them.

UEA has a music building with several individual practice rooms with pianos & one or two ensemble rooms. They don't offer music as a degree.

One of my DCs loves playing the piano (piano diploma with distinction at school). I understand that the usual quality of piano in the general practice rooms at their university means accepting that touch is limited and even tuning is sometimes poor. DC also plays wind instrument for university orchestra and performs chamber music at university so opportunities for ensembles are n't lacking. Places in university orchestras for instruments with limited places will only become available when incumbent older students leave though.

Durham offer music scholarships for anyone taking any subject, a have friends dc's telling me they've never been involved in so much music despite the fact that they are not studying the subject!

Lancaster has a very vibrant extra- curricular music department, though I don't know about practice rooms