Anyone's DC studying music at Oxford?

[53andABitPodgy]

Is anyone's DC studying music at Oxford? If so, which college and course? DC went to St. Catherines a few weeks back but doesn't seem too keen on the course offered there. They are looking for something a bit more modern interms of music technology and composing.

They have the predicted grades to apply (3 A*) but not keen on content of the course we looked at.

The course will be the same whichever college they apply to, so they're better looking at other universities to find a course that suits them better.

A friend turned down a place at LMH Oxford for Tonmeister at Surrey. She needed physic A level for it though. Each Oxford College seems to have it's own preference for particular instruments.

My DS has an offer for St Anne's and the only music course Oxford offer is a BA no matter what college you go to. There are different options you can chose in each year I think it's 2 in Y1.

My DC was at the same day - they said a lot of the potential applicants were undecided between applying for there or conservatoires for those very reasons; as I understand it you wouldn’t choose Oxbridge for music tech at all

Yes. It’s looking that way. Shame as he’s got the grades for it. Looks like the other Unis and Conservatoires courses are more suitable.

My daughter did a music degree at Oxford a few years ago. I agree with others. The course options will be same whatever college you go to.

There is not much choice in the first year, but plenty in the second and third year so each student can design around their degree around their particular interests.

You can specialise in composing (or performing) and Worcester used to be a popular college for that, but the composition specialist there retired recently.

My daughter had a great time but it's not somewhere I would choose if I was primarily interested in music technology.

DS2 has just finished his first year at Oxford. I won't say which college because there are only 2 or 3 students per college per year so it is identifiable. I'd agree with the above comments regarding music tech. While there are many options it does seem generally to be a fairly traditional academic based course.

DS2 will probably need to end up doing postgrad at a conservatoire afterwards if he follows his passion (conducting).

At Oxford it depends an awful lot on which College you go to, as you will usually be only taught by fellows of the College you attend, abd they all tend to teach their specialisms, or bring every general topic around to their favourite topic of research. Some basics will be the same wherever you go, but I always tell pupils to look at every fellow within the department, Google them and find out what they did their research in, what books they have published, in your case, what they yave composed, and then choose a tutor first and then the college accordingly. So if you are mainly interested in composition, find someone who you admire, either at Oxford or anywhere in the world, and then apply to the course/uni/college that will get you working with them. It also helps greatly at interview stage if you can say: 'I really want to come here to work with x in order to learn more about x. I just loved their recent book and was really challenged in my thinking by their argument'😀

At Oxford it depends an awful lot on which College you go to, as you will usually be only taught by fellows of the College you attend,

This wasn't my daughter's experience. She had tutorials at many different college.

That is very unusual. There are seminars, workshops and lectures that take place across various colleges and are taught by members of the University and are open to any student, but tutorials usually, to about 80 or 90%, happen at the college.

This isn’t true for music and some of the other smaller courses like Earth Sciences. In Fine Art all teaching and tutorials happen in the department.

I’m not a music specialist but it is not true that Oxford tutors only teach their specialist area. In fact Oxford tutors have much less control over the syllabus than at most universities - the courses are centrally set and you can’t do “research led teaching” in the way you can at many RG unis . Tutors tend to teach the core skills papers in themselves for their own students in college and then if a student picks a more specialist finals course that they can’t teach, they arrange a swap with colleagues at other colleges.

It is true though that the music course at Oxford is quite traditional and academic - it isn’t the right course to suit all interests.

The students I know who got into Oxford in past years have a strong background in choral and religious music. The ones in bands and more ‘modern’ didn’t get in. Prob the tutors didn’t think the students were truly the right match for the more traditional elements of the course.

Just thought of one man who did get in - he’s a composer and performer. Having said that he also sang in choirs so that might have helped who knows. I don’t think Oxford has as much tech equipment as some unis and conservatoires so that would need to be more on the side I guess