# Music Education Background



## vertciel (Sep 30, 2007)

Hello,

I am just curious as to the music education which everyone here has. As for myself, I am going to get a Performer's Diploma in Piano Performance.

What about you?


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

i've gone all the way to a doctorate.
i liked music as much when i was an untrained kid as now.
some of the most knowledgeable musicians and aficionados have no 'formal' training.
they also don't have to use spell check as often as i do! 

dj


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

To begin with, I want to congratulate everyone who has completed college, graduate, and post-graduate level coursework in music. I admire the accomplishment. [Indeed, I married someone who has that achievement.]

Having said that, though, I think now might be a good time for Mark Twain's cautionary witticism about not confusing _schooling_ with education

My _schooling_ consisted of one college honors-level Music Appreciation course (which added very little to the store of knowledge already in reserve). My education consisted (and still consists) of a) enthusiasm for the subject matter, b) capabilities and experience as an autodidact, c) the opportunity to discuss that matter with good people such as those found here, and finally d) the good fortune to have a patient wife as an educational resource, as well. I can always turn to her for a face-to-face explanation of the meaning of terms like "half-diminished seventh," "German sixth," and "arch form" (for instance).


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## Oneiros (Aug 28, 2006)

I'm currently doing a B Music... I was thinking about doing postgrad stuff as well, but it's all a bit too academic for my liking. I prefer to enjoy music on a more down to earth level.


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## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

david johnson said:


> i've gone all the way to a doctorate.
> dj


That's quite amazing! What was your area of research?


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## Mark Harwood (Mar 5, 2007)

I like Chi's distinction between schooling and education. 
My music schooling was consistently bad, and ended at age 14, by which time I was recording my own primitive music at home. 
Education has included countless jam sessions and hundreds of live performances, solo or with various combinations of other musicians, of entirely non-classical music. As for theory, I am fortunate to have my wife Carol to ask. 
So, I'm largely unschooled, but reasonably well educated in several genres. For me, part of the attraction of Baroque chamber music, and of Classical guitar music, is constantly learning how it all works.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

I started out as a child ... literally ... my first church position was obtained at age 12, and that was after six years of piano study. I continued on to classical organ for another 6 years of private lessons, and later in college, two additional years of organ & harpsichord. 

That said, all of my formal training and education has been spent in front of a keyboard instead of in a classroom - all practical experience that no textbook could have ever prepared me for in any way. All my music education has been a total 'hands on' experience - and now some 47 years later, I have no regrets since beginning what turned out to be my career in music. 

I do have great respect for those who have earned advanced degrees in music - they will become the great scholars of music in present and future times. Bottom line is that the outcome of anyone's formal education becomes only as good as the efforts they put into it.

Kh


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

Private training in music theory for over a decade, personal studies in the same up through the present.

Have been playing the piano for 14 years, the violin for 16 years.

Was offered to attend music school at a private university when I was 15 but my parents refused, alleging that I required the full high school experience.

Extensive musical education, which still is and forever shall be in progress. All for the love of music.

My respects and occasional envy to/at those who progressed through music school.


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

Highest level of music education is A Level (which was a complete joke) and Grade 7 on the piano (which I have now almost completely forgotten). 

I did start a BA music degree once but dropped out after about two days. I remember thinking to myself: if I ever have to analyse another Bach chorale, I don't think I'll ever be able to listen to Bach for pleasure again.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

As a youngster, I had piano and clarinet lessons for a few years, then dumped the whole thing. I ended up getting a degree in Economics and working professionally as a real estate appraiser. No regrets.


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

Oneiros said:


> I'm currently doing a B Music... I was thinking about doing postgrad stuff as well, but it's all a bit too academic for my liking. I prefer to enjoy music on a more down to earth level.


This post and a few others on this thread insinuates that if one has formal training and formal education in music that one can not enjoy, approach, or listen to music in an organic way that someone without that formal training can.

I beg to differ. Although I am doing absolutely nothing anymore with my music degrees professionally, it opened an understanding of music that I never had which in turn has enhanced my understanding, relationship, and ultimately enjoyment of music.

I liken it someone who is trying to communicate with you in a foreign language. You may have quite a difficult time getting across thoughts, ideas, and intentions. But if you understand and can communicate in their language, well then, the lines of communication can become quite detailed and intimate. Most often, that is a wonderful thing.

V


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## Guest (Jun 26, 2014)

Initial Grade Piano.

Didn't want to over exert the little grey cells!


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

My formal education doesn't go much beyond a couple of fifteen-minute guitar lessons at secondary school from which I learned practically nothing. I have been composing music for around twelve years, and playing guitar seriously for about eight, in addition to alto saxophone and clarinet four around four years.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

I had some months of piano lessons as a kid, until the teacher moved away (hopefully not in response to having to teach me). I eventually taught myself to play a bit, though I was always lazy with practice and never got very far with it - at the very height of my pianistic powers, I could give rather noisy, banging and clanging performances of pieces like Mozart's rondo a la Turca, Chopin's "Raindrop" prelude etc. 

I tried to read up on music theory, but couldn't really make head or tails of it.

Some years ago, I tried out classical guitar, but never got beyond early intermediate pieces. I think the guitar is something you probably have to learn before adulthood. I never really got into it. Also, most of the literature at that level is not exactly the greatest pieces of music ever written.

Of late I have taken up a bit of piano playing again, but I have learned from experience that attempting pieces that are too difficult given my very limited time for practice, is a recipe for turning what should be pleasure into torture, so nowadays I mostly focus on intermediate level pieces. I don't think I could tackle anything above grade 4 level or thereabouts. 

Not that my very limited musical education ever prevents me from holding forth on the subject.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I'll answer this poll at the end of next year . In the process of getting a BM in Flute Performance.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

I had piano lessons as a kid and I've taken a beginning music theory class at the local community college and that's it =\


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

Tristan said:


> I had piano lessons as a kid and I've taken a beginning music theory class at the local community college and that's it =\


But you enjoy your music genuinely; that's all that matters!


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## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

I once read a CD booklet.


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## BRHiler (May 3, 2014)

BM in Music Ed, focusing on Trumpet and conducting

Taught 11 years HS Band. Had enough of the political junk, so now I help my father run his contract packaging company.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Didn't finish college and not for music. Played all types of saxophone (except soprano sax, never got my hands on one) in middle and high school. Stopped playing because the instrument wasn't for me. Would have much rather played piano, oboe, or bassoon... maybe clarinet but alas It was not to be. These days I play a lot of my own voice, I love to sing and am very good at it but never for an audience... my singing is for me.


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## SalieriIsInnocent (Feb 28, 2008)

I was a trumpet player in school. I was naturally a good player and had a good ear, that would prove to hurt my musical education. I basically had the classic beginner trumpet book and was told to learn the instrument myself. My form of learning the notes had nothing to do with learning them as notes. I saw the notes on the scale and saw them as fingerings, instead of what actual note they were. I'd sit and learn the melody slowly by seeing them as fingerings, never paying attention to how the note sounded, I'd just toddle on and practice the piece till I could remember the melody. I realized I was in trouble when, at the end of the year, I had to sight read. I was so embarrassed by the incident that I chose not to return the next year, and I've had the trumpet in a case ever since. 

Simultaneously I was learning guitar, and while I still never learned to read music, I consider myself to be a cut above most. Not considering myself to be Joe Pass or Elliot Fisk, I do put myself as a great guitarist with a diverse love of music that has given me such a unique sound. Years of playing in bands that were metal, rock, blues, bluegrass, and later I started digging into jazz, western, country, and folk. 

I wish I would've put more into the trumpet, because I could've gone very far with it. I loved playing it, I just wish somebody would've explained to me what I was doing wrong, but when you do a good job of sounding like you know what you are doing, people leave you alone. My problem is, I didn't think I was doing it the wrong way. I've tried to find places that train people from scratch how to read music the right way.

One question, was there a great composer or conductor who was a terrible musician?


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