High school senior with a shopping list.

[TMurphy]

If I get in to my first choice school, I will likely have a Recording Technology or Music Technology minor along with that BA. There is also the highly likely chance that I will re-audition and switch to performance major if I feel I can handle all the extras that come with it. The BA is just to get me in to school since I don't want to teach and I didnt know if I was good enough for a performance major yet. Regardless of BA or Performance, I want to keep up with music during, and after college. And taking from experience with recording and sound equipment, you always lose when you play the trade up game.

Let me start by asking you this...what do you think you actually want to do for a living??? Not what do you want to study, but what do you actually want to spend every day doing to pay the bills. What job do you think you'd be good at, and enjoy doing??? When you answer that question, you should pursue whatever degree will help you to do that. It sounds like you're interesting in recording...why not MAJOR in Recording Tech. or Music Tech?? Minoring in one of those, with a BA major seems backwards, to me. You can still stay involved in music, play in band and even take lessons, even if you aren't a music major.

[Yosef: Tubist]

Many schools today with really good Music Industry programs are music majors. Here at Appalachian, Music Industry student's have lessons that are half the credit of Education majors and a quarter that of Performance majors, but they're still lessons and the professors give you the work that you're willing to take (As I'm sure it is most places). Many people here double major in Industry and Performance (not particularly easy, but I've seen it done in 4 years)

[cdtuba]

If I get in to my first choice school, I will likely have a Recording Technology or Music Technology minor along with that BA. There is also the highly likely chance that I will re-audition and switch to performance major if I feel I can handle all the extras that come with it. The BA is just to get me in to school since I don't want to teach and I didnt know if I was good enough for a performance major yet. Regardless of BA or Performance, I want to keep up with music during, and after college. And taking from experience with recording and sound equipment, you always lose when you play the trade up game.

Let me start by asking you this...what do you think you actually want to do for a living??? Not what do you want to study, but what do you actually want to spend every day doing to pay the bills. What job do you think you'd be good at, and enjoy doing??? When you answer that question, you should pursue whatever degree will help you to do that. It sounds like you're interesting in recording...why not MAJOR in Recording Tech. or Music Tech?? Minoring in one of those, with a BA major seems backwards, to me. You can still stay involved in music, play in band and even take lessons, even if you aren't a music major.

Penn State only has a minor and West Virginia has neither. The more I think about it, the more I realize I wouldn't mind teaching...so that is turning into a legit option. And like I said...the BA will probably be only a first year thing until I get the specifics hammered out.

[MartyNeilan]

One final comment from me on this thread. Not to push Trevecca too hard, but something to consider:
If you are going to do the whole recording technology thing, why not do it in a city like NY, LA, or Nashville - where most of the recordings are actually made, and you can intern in a professional studio? If you are looking at doing this when you graduate, you will want to be in an area where there is a good number of jobs in that field, and where you have already made some connections.

Marty out.

[Rick Denney]

Penn State only has a minor and West Virginia has neither. The more I think about it, the more I realize I wouldn't mind teaching...so that is turning into a legit option. And like I said...the BA will probably be only a first year thing until I get the specifics hammered out.

My advice on how to go to college, potentially worth no more than what you are paying for it:

Study what you want. But keep your academic integrity and discipline. I don't mean "artistic integrity", as most people define it, which is to wander aimlessly to avoid doing something someone else thinks might be a good idea. Here's what it means: never turn down a subject or major course of study that interests you because you think it will be too hard. Never take a half schedule so you can have more time to party. Never be satisfied with anything less than your best effort, and that especially includes effort applied during preparation. Most importantly, decide to enjoy those courses you are required to take, which may at times mean you have to pretend for a few months.

If you can manage to build those principles into whatever you study, you'll do just fine no matter where you end up.

I didn't embrace these principles until grad school and I have always regretted waiting so long.

You can never be sure of any outcome in this uncertain world, but you have control over your own integrity.

Rick "who even now needs frequent reminders" Denney

[TMurphy]

My advice on how to go to college, potentially worth no more than what you are paying for it:

Study what you want. But keep your academic integrity and discipline. I don't mean "artistic integrity", as most people define it, which is to wander aimlessly to avoid doing something someone else thinks might be a good idea. Here's what it means: never turn down a subject or major course of study that interests you because you think it will be too hard. Never take a half schedule so you can have more time to party. Never be satisfied with anything less than your best effort, and that especially includes effort applied during preparation. Most importantly, decide to enjoy those courses you are required to take, which may at times mean you have to pretend for a few months.

If you can manage to build those principles into whatever you study, you'll do just fine no matter where you end up.

I didn't embrace these principles until grad school and I have always regretted waiting so long.

You can never be sure of any outcome in this uncertain world, but you have control over your own integrity.

Rick "who even now needs frequent reminders" Denney

This post illustrates exactly why Rick gets "Resident Genius" status.

[cdtuba]

My advice on how to go to college, potentially worth no more than what you are paying for it:

Study what you want. But keep your academic integrity and discipline. I don't mean "artistic integrity", as most people define it, which is to wander aimlessly to avoid doing something someone else thinks might be a good idea. Here's what it means: never turn down a subject or major course of study that interests you because you think it will be too hard. Never take a half schedule so you can have more time to party. Never be satisfied with anything less than your best effort, and that especially includes effort applied during preparation. Most importantly, decide to enjoy those courses you are required to take, which may at times mean you have to pretend for a few months.

If you can manage to build those principles into whatever you study, you'll do just fine no matter where you end up.

I didn't embrace these principles until grad school and I have always regretted waiting so long.

You can never be sure of any outcome in this uncertain world, but you have control over your own integrity.

Rick "who even now needs frequent reminders" Denney

This is probably the most useful thing anyone has said. haha. Thanks.

[sloan]

But hey, if my parents were millionaires

I don't know the OP nor his circumstances but 30 years ago I discovered one of the underclassmen, who was a decent but not spectacular player, was getting a BA instead of a Mus Ed degree and asked him why. He told me his grandfather had set up a trust fund for him which he could access only after he got any 4 year degree from any in state college. He liked to play the trumpet so there you are. I didn't figure out who his granfather was for a while, but once that fact was known the size of the trust fund could be approximated. It became obvious that this kid could do what ever he wanted for the rest of his life and not go hungry. I don't know that the OP is in this position but if he is I say "Wish it were me".

The secret is: IT IS YOU!

If you look at career paths 5 years out from a B.A., there are two cases:

a) you enter a field with state certification requirements (teaching in the PUBLIC schools, Engineering, Medicine), and
b) you don't.

In the first case, you need graduate training of some sort, and it really doesn't matter all that much what your undergraduate major is.

In the second case, you train ON THE JOB, and it really doesn't matter all that much what your undergraduate major is.

FINISHING an undergraduate major is necessary in all cases - but "what's your major" is almost completely irrelevant!

My main gripe with many undergraduate majors is that they PRETEND to be "job training". Usually, they are NOT. And when they are, they are a MISTAKE.

Alas, I put "music performance" and "music ed" in the "MISTAKE" category. Music ed is marginally different, because it does lead to certification with the state for teaching in the public schools. But, I have a problem with spending your undergraduate years doing job training. Music performance is suspect because (it seems to me) you spend entirely too much time *training* and precious little time "learning, analyzing, and thinking". "Music" seems to me to be a perfectly fine major - and so is "Classics", or "History", or "Biology", or "Philosophy". None of these "prepare you for a job".

If you are 20 years old, you HAVE a "trust fund" - it's your earning potential over the next 40 years. Go to college and find out who you are. Learn something, explore your options, and find out what you want to do 24/7. When you graduate, work hard at ANYTHING until you find someone who will pay you to do what you love.

Last week at TUSABTEC, Chuck pulled out the old chestnut: if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. The same thing applies to college - do what turns you on. The only rule is: FINISH.

Along the way, you should also pick up some useful job skills. BUT - to the extent your college courses concentrate on job training, they are useless as college courses (and you end up paying a lot of money for mediocre job training). DO NOT take courses on "how to write a lesson plan". TAKE courses on "music" so that you have something to base a lesson ON!

Notice that I didn't say you should not learn how to make a lesson plan - only that this is the sort of thing you should pick up somewhere else. College is too expensive for that kind of crap.

[for those who know what I really do in life, let me assure you that I put most "computer programming skills" in the same category as "making lesson plans". Anyone who is a competent computer scientist knows how to do it - but it's a waste of time to put any effort into *teaching* it, after the first year. These are technical, practical elements of *craft* that are a pre-requisite to an education - not the end product. In schools were that's all you learn, the students are better off doing an apprenticeship than being college students.]

[sloan]

One more thing: NO high school senior *knows* what he wants to do for the rest of his life, much less "what to major in". Choose a school that offers options. There are choices out there that your don't know about (and, about once a generation, there are fields of study and job opportunities that haven't been invented yet).

Accept the fact that what you study *may* end up being irrelevant to what you do once you graduate AND allow for the possibility that the degree you graduate with may bear no resemblence to the major you declare an interest in on your college application.

The means justify the ends. Enjoy the ride.

[Rick Denney]

a) you enter a field with state certification requirements (teaching in the PUBLIC schools, Engineering, Medicine), and
b) you don't.

In the first case, you need graduate training of some sort, and it really doesn't matter all that much what your undergraduate major is.

I will slightly disagree in practice but not principle. You do not need grad school to be licensed as an engineer, and there are many engineers who never went to grad school.

But there are two things you do need, one a requirement for licensing, and the other a requirement for success (which I define as actually enjoying it). The first is experience. All states require examinations, and the first is based on general knowledge. The second is based on knowledge gained by experience. All states also require four years of post-graduate approved experience before being licensed as an engineer.

Your point that few can know what their life's work will be as a senior in high school seems to me absolutely true. I had always wanted to be an architect. I was an architect geek as a kid--nobody I have ever know asked for and received drafting tools for Christmas, and I was probably 12 at that time.

But I made a discovery in college when I tried to sign on for summer employment as a near straight-A junior in a well-respected architecture program. Even during a building boom in Texas, nobody wanted me. There's a reason for that--I wanted to design things and said so. They wanted someone to empty trash cans and they knew that architects don't get to design things until they were a principal of the company. They figured I'd be unhappy, and they were right.

Then, I signed on with an engineering company, drawing belt conveyors in the drafting room. I discovered that drafters in an engineering company get to do more design than graduate architects in an architecture firm. The following semester, I received a mediocre grade on a design lab whose grade was solely based on a semester-long project, and when I asked why, the professor said, "Well, it started out good, but at the end of the semester, I just couldn't relate to it, maaaan."

So, their concept of design is what looked cool to them at the moment, not what developed from a clear development process. My concept of design was understanding what was important, and then achieving that important goal by use of something made for the purpose. I realized that I was happy designing basically anything, not just buildings.

I switched to engineering. My grades plummeted as a result--architecture had not been the place to learn disciplined thinking and I had forgotten. And it took me a couple of extra years, during much of which I worked to make it possible. But I was MUCH happier. I did grad school because as a professional I'd relearned that discipline and wanted to make better use of it.

Now, how does this relate to getting licensed? It is VERY difficult to get licensed as an engineer without an undergraduate engineering degree. (You MIGHT be able to get by with a physics degree in some states.) A graduate degree won't help, because it doesn't provide the broad engineering background that is required. That said, I still agree with Dr. Sloan.

If it's true that you can't really know what you want to do as a senior, then it makes sense to study broadly until those goals start to crystallize. I thought architecture was it for me, so I didn't care about classes that weren't absolutely required to get that degree. I shirked the extra mathematics that was not required (and that I'd tested out of), because of sheer laziness. I took cowboy physics so I wouldn't be bothered with calculus, even though I had student calculus in high school. When I switched to engineering, those bits of laziness were THE reason my grades plummeted. Even in architecture school, more attention to a broader education would have left me in a better position to change course. More study of history, art, and language might have set me up to do better in that junior design lab.

The underlying principle is not to assume that your choice of major will fit you as you grow up, so don't make decisions that will limit your breadth later on. You will regret those decisions. It's just the same as not trying to find a tuba for life at age 17.

Rick "an engineer licensed in four states" Denney

[tubatom91]

[/quote]
I will slightly disagree in practice but not principle. You do not need grad school to be licensed as an engineer, and there are many engineers who never went to grad school.[/quote]

My grandfather worked at Caterpillar for 15yrs+ as a checking engineer with a 1 year degree from Purdue Univ.
of course that was 50 years ago

[sailn2ba]

Close-out sales? Where are they?

[cdtuba]

Well...I played several tubas ranging from $4000 to $9000. The 5450 sounded the best and fit me the best. Seeing as I have the means to get one, and the fact that I want one, I see no reason not to get one. Besides, it will hold its value pretty well if I end up not going for a music related major (which is highly unlikely considering that the past 9 years of my life have been music and tuba, and I love every minute of it). This sure is a lot of naysaying for just asking for anyone's two cents on the horn and a mouthpiece.

[Todd S. Malicoate]

Well...I played several tubas ranging from $4000 to $9000. The 5450 sounded the best and fit me the best. Seeing as I have the means to get one, and the fact that I want one, I see no reason not to get one. Besides, it will hold its value pretty well if I end up not going for a music related major (which is highly unlikely considering that the past 9 years of my life have been music and tuba, and I love every minute of it).

Congratulations, and enjoy the new horn if/when you buy one.

This sure is a lot of naysaying for just asking for anyone's two cents on the horn and a mouthpiece.

Go back and re-read your first post. You hardly just asked for that. You made the choice to include the details of your school situation, so naturally some folks felt compelled to comment on those elements of your post.

FWIW, I think you received some great advice. You are asking the questions I should have been asking when I was in your shoes. Let me just add that if you truly want to be a performer, playing around as a non-major in a state school isn't the way to accomplish that goal. It's not impossible, of course, but you will need a TON of self-motivation to improve and you should take every competition you can for students and attend every tuba-(or music, for that matter)related convention you can. The competition for jobs is extreme and getting more extreme every year...most teachers and colleagues at your state school will pat you on the back and tell you how "good" you are. You will need much more than that to win an audition for anything.

Best of luck! Go for it if you really want to, but just realize that you can't travel half-way on the performance path and expect to have much joy or success as a player.