posted
Hello. I'm asking for help/advice regarding graduate studies in composition.
I am a rising senior at a small liberal arts school, and I've majored in Music. (We have no distinguishing music majors. You're either Applied Music, Music technology, or Music Education) Let me just point out one thing: I'm vastly ignorant of graduate school, just like I was vastly ignorant of undergraduate college when I first came. I was homeschooled, and I'm the first in my family to go to college, and, generally, the first among a lot of my friends/friends' parents to go. I know nothing.
I've focused my studies on Music Technology and Piano, and have a lot of interest in scoring for film or video games.
Here's the rub. I've spent the vast majority of my career focusing on piano performance and more avante garde electonic pieces. So, I'm graduating with respectable chops there, but weaker ones in lyrical composition. In any case, I'm hoping to remedy this next year. So I've found myself, and have an idea of what I want to do, but now am worried that it's too late.
That's backstory. So, now I'm trying to look at graduate programs, and nobody in my faculty has the faintest idea about where to even begin to look for graduate studies in film composition. At all. After asking them repeatedly about graduate school, they've pretty much said they've no idea where would be a good place anymore, because they're so far removed from the music community (My school has a horrible music program, and I only realized this half-way through my college career. They are not pleading ignorance because they are lazy, or fear that I can't pursue graduate studies. They literally are so out of touch they do not know where to start when it comes to recommending graduate programs.) The only faculty member who is good (Who is a genuinely talented and wonderful person) is rather more familiar with avante-garde composing, and has tried to help, but told me I should check around with other composers and ask them for advice about schools.
I know there are a couple composers I've seen floating around here for a while. Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated.
I suppose my questions are: What are good graduate programs in film composition for me to consider? Or, what regular composition programs do you think/know would let me have the freedom to explore sentimental/accesible music? And if you don't know of specific programs, what are things I should look for if I start looking up programs? And, of course, if you notice any questions I should be asking, but am not, feel free to ask and answer them as well. I'd greatly appreciate it!
posted
While there might be some graduate programs related to composing film and video game scores, I rather suspect the best way is to start doing it. Seek out small film and video game makers that have projects under way that don't seem to have scores, and tell them you want to write something for their project, and do it. That's going to be the best way, far and above, to break into that sort of work.
I definitely wouldn't go into such a graduate program unless they were paying for it.
Also, professors in your general field at schools which are top music schools (I'm guessing you know which those are, now? If not, we can help) would probably be happy to field a quick (emphasis: short) email on the topic. If you're open to international options, make sure you mention that.
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posted
International, ouside of Canada, doesn't seem feasible. Money-wise, I'm not even sure I could afford a plane-ticket to cross an ocean at this point.
I'm familiar with top-line schools such as Eastman, Yale, CCM, USC, Berkeley, Columbia, etc. I'm just worried that they may be so top-flight that I'm not going to get in, or get a fellowship/TA or something.
It's the next tier - That tier of really good, but not-quite-so-well-known schools that I'm especially curious about. Especially since schools like Eastman, for instance, require about 12 hours more course hours in theory that my school doesn't even offer (I've worked out independant studies for this next year, but I'm still worried). I'm wondering if other schools may be more understanding of the nature of my school's curriculum. (My school is totally accredited; it just has the bulk of its teaching wrapped in a few very, very comprehensive classes; for instance, rather than having separate piano, aural, and written theory classes, we had four big ones that encompassed them all in each one)
I'm in the middle of scoring a short film, and have plans to compose a video game (Though this video game is a student project of my friend's). There's also a possibility of me scoring background music for a website another friend is putting up.
Actual contact with local companies hasn't happened yet. Is it really (Forgive my ignorance) custumary to just put forth my services and shoot them an email? Like, Hi, my name is Nathan, I'm a music major, can I write music for a game you've got in development?
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quote:International, ouside of Canada, doesn't seem feasible. Money-wise, I'm not even sure I could afford a plane-ticket to cross an ocean at this point.
If they're giving you money, you can afford to fly there.
quote:I'm familiar with top-line schools such as Eastman, Yale, CCM, USC, Berkeley, Columbia, etc. I'm just worried that they may be so top-flight that I'm not going to get in, or get a fellowship/TA or something.
That's what applying is for, to find out. Though if your school is as far down in quality as you say, it will be tough. Personal contact with professors at the other school who might be able to advise you in where to apply for your specific subfield (for movies and video games) is a great option for starting to build the connections that might work past that. Btw, I know IU has a great new media program at IUPUI, and the school of music at IU Bloomington is pretty decent .
quote:I'm in the middle of scoring a short film, and have plans to compose a video game (Though this video game is a student project of my friend's). There's also a possibility of me scoring background music for a website another friend is putting up.
Those are good.
quote:Actual contact with local companies hasn't happened yet. Is it really (Forgive my ignorance) custumary to just put forth my services and shoot them an email? Like, Hi, my name is Nathan, I'm a music major, can I write music for a game you've got in development?
They don't need to be local, though local is good if you're near a lot of video game and/or indie movie producers, but you need to be plugged into the world of those things, which can be done from anywhere. Since you're interested, I'm assuming you pay at least some attention to game development, and possibly films. There are lots of places to find out about what small game companies are working on and what indie films are being made. Most of them will not have original scores, and will be overjoyed at the possibility of getting some sort of original score. Find those things under development that seem interesting to you, and then yeah, pretty much make that offer. Share some sample material you've done, ideally one of the projects you mention that you're particularly proud of. Don't offer to do it all, just say you'd love to make a small composition on reasonable terms for a part of their project to help build your portfolio, share what you like about what they're doing, and see what they think.
And background music for a website is the devil .
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Another question: Who's "They" in the "They pay you" scenario? The school? Potential employers that want me to have a certain type of degree first? Goverenment grants? Loans? I ask because this is an intriguing idea. I always thought you had to cover all transportation expenses and everything yourself, and that any aid you received would only cover tuition and such. (Again, I'm vastly ignorant.)
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posted
The school. If you're funded (that's the terminology), you'll generally get full tuition remission + a stipend, likely in exchange for TAing or similar. The stipend can be spent on transportation just fine. Of course, it wouldn't be huge, but it's manageable.
Again, you probably should not go into a program like this if you're going to pay it all or mostly in loans. Only go if you can get it at least mostly funded.
How're you paying for your current schooling?
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posted
That's true for a lot of people. For what it's worth, it's a lot (several orders of magnitude) easier to be funded as a grad student than undergrad. Not that that means its easy but it's certainly a lot easier.
Something I'm looking into myself actually. Sadly I don't think the university I want to go to has any money available for Spring entrance. Too bad as I want to live in Seattle. Being flexible in where you can go helps quite a bit. As Fugu said what you need money-wise is to be able to move your stuff there, that's kind of it. Assuming you get funding of course.
posted
Masters. Pretty much every music program I've looked at doesn't let you enter the PhD program until the completion of a masters.
I'm not sure if this is the same in all programs, or if it's unique to the music programs I've looked at.
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posted
If you want to actually do those things, you don't want a PhD anyways. A PhD is about studying how things are done.
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