Drop a few classes so I have a better chance of transferring to Curtis or Juilliard? Auditions are coming up in about a month. I'm currently taking 8.

Sure.

yup

juliard is great prep for a job as a waiter

juliard is great prep for a job as a waiter

Ouch. My current teacher went all the way through to a DMA in music at Juilliard and ended up as a prof at my current school. It's quite a lot of work, but I think there are quite a few benefits as well, like doing something I really want, and meeting some cool people along the way, all over the world.

ask your current teacher

Head-Case is kind of a weird place

ftfy

ask your current teacher

He's already written three recommendations for me, for Curtis, Juilliard, and Mannes. I got into the audition round in all three. I feel like he would say drop most of my classes if I asked him.

Juilliard isn't what it once was. good luck with Curtis. i auditioned there almost ten years ago. the response to my audition was actually pretty positive (especially considering they were running way behind and didn't have time to hear the actual audition list music, so they asked me to play some difficult orchestral excerpts that i hadn't been practicing), being something along the lines of "try again next year, kid."

this is kind of a weird place to ask this question. what do you play and how much are you practicing now?

Where should I ask, then? Violin, extremely varied, from 0 to 8 hours a day. Depends on how much time I have. Doubling in EE and music, currently, but I'm still on winter break until the end of this week.

Most of the famous violinists who migrated to the US have ended up in New York, and at least technically faculty at Juilliard.

Edited January 23, 200917 yr by mypasswordis
weird typo

This is where you say "fuck the world" and go to LA to form a punk band where you use your musical background to create beautiful yet still punk music.

Hire a really great rockabilly guitarist, a great drummer, and a crazy but hot chick to front the band, and call yourselves X.

I prefer to ask unbiased people mainly in other fields of work because I already know what people I know would say. It basically boils down to the age-old question of doing music and quite possibly going nowhere with it versus going with something safe, along with balancing trying to finish undergrad in a sane amount of time. I'm looking at 5 years with my double, currently, possibly with some summer classes. An extra year doesn't seem too long but it makes a difference in the music world, with many of the major worldwide competitions capping off age at ~30. I should've added these details in my original post.

Let your instinct lead you. Some of the best decisions I made in my lifetime weren't the most sensible but the ones best fitting my "guts feeling".

music training from a renowned school won't be looked upon negatively on a resume

1) What are your chances of making it into your school of choice? 10%? 50%? 90%?

2) Assuming you make it in, what are your chances of making a decent living after you graduate? 10%? 50%? 90%?

3) Assuming you make a decent living, how long do you think you can keep it up before burning out? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? The rest of your life?

If you're being honest with yourself, you may not like the answers to the questions.

1. The chances depend on how much time I have between now and then to practice, which translates to how many classes I take and how much effort I put into them. Hence the original question.

2. If I make it into one of the best two conservatories in the nation (not counting Mannes), I'd say fairly good. I don't plan to start sucking anytime soon.

3. Rest of my life, as long as I don't have to deal with playing in an orchestra for large lengths of time. I'm definitely a solo person.

I love music. I'm just also practical, my parents even more so. I was almost kicked out of the house the first time around for mentioning considering going into just music. I very much understand that most people couldn't care less about their jobs and view it just as a way to put food on the table and am grateful of this one chance my parents are giving me to truly succeed in this field.

Eastman is a good school, but it isn't in the same league as Juilliard or Curtis for violin, trust me.

Alright, I'm going to go with dropping some classes. Thanks for talking it through with me.