http://www.berklee.edu/majors/mpe.html

... this is just one that I know of because of a friend who's doing it, I'm sure there are many similar programs.

If he is anywhere near top 20% of his class he should have no problems getting an academic scholarship somewhere and getting through school pretty cheap. My PSAT's were similar and I'm on a full ride at an accredited engineering school. Especially with AP credits, you can get a head start on gen-ed's and make double majoring relatively painfree. I am two classes away from a dual focus in only four years, and dropped those two classes to start graduate courses instead. It's not a waste of time or money if you plan accordingly.

Lol, Berklee. xD

It's a waste of time, and it's a waste of money. In that time he spends learning music skills he'll never use, he can be learning more about engineering and getting ahead in that sphere. It's that simple. Have a lot of free time? Get a job, or an internship, or take a shitload of classes at once. Instead of going for something like music, that you'll never use.

What? Why? There are so many engineering applications in music. Do you know how often I hear the freaking words "fourier transform"? So much of structural vibration applies to music and acoustics. I'm double majoring without wasting any money too, so it can be done. Whether or not its a waste of time is up to the person doing it.

Lucky fucking you guys. Don't take this for granted.

Edit: Obvious answer: Pursue both. One of my buddies that I play sax with is majoring in engineering and his band's been playing at the local bars. Pretty cool. If you're really so smart you'll find a way to do both.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Feb 22 2011, 1:34 am by Vrael.

Acoustics and music theory/history are very different things, Vrael.

Shut up Cent, you're just mad you don't know what a Fourier Transform is.

While that may be true, it in no way invalidates my point. There is very little intersection between the two paths. Pursue music as a hobby, put most of your time into engineering.

Yeah, this was one thing that I overlooked when I made certain assumptions about what exactly he wanted to do with music. I'm assuming that he wants to make a band and go on tour and sell albums. There are, of course, session musicians, music teachers, music store workers, instrument technicians, orchestra members, composers, and more "lower-risk" jobs that musicians can do as well.

I have a friend who was telling me about a school that a special program where you could get an audio engineering degree and a music degree at the same time. I think it was one of those 5 year programs sort of thing. I forget what school it was, but I want to say University of Michigan. Sounds like the perfect thing for you.

I strongly doubt that audio engineering is a good field to go into. It sounds like that sort of field (like "game development") that's oversaturated because of its name but is... well, bad. Less pay for more work because of the oversaturation. Not to mention how limited "audio engineering" is... Just wikipedia'd it, and I'd definitely not recommend it. Sounds like it's just manipulating programs to produce the desired sound. Baaaad.

Cent, you obviously have no clue what you are talking about. Just stop talking.

Feel free to refute what I'm saying, dumbducky.

If you won't, shut up.

Fair enough. I'll have at it.
Your advice is purely based on job prospects and pay. Not than you know anything about that, as everything you know about comes from Wikipedia and Wikipedia makes no mention of average salary. You admit you know nothing about it aside from connotations you have, and then assume audio engineering is just like the similar fields you think it is like. All of your posts have a smug air about them. You seem to just be saying "Be a 'real' engineer, you'll get payed more.' What is engineering but manipulating things to produce the desired result? Even if it is something as simple as using a program to manipulate sound, it still needs doing. Ultimately, if music is his passion, then a career in music will make him happier than a career that he doesn't care for.

You don't luck my smugness. I don't care, I'm right. Based on this and this - granted, a limited resource, but the best we have - the average Audio Engineer makes 70% of what the average Mechanical Engineer makes. And, again, you're creating connections between audio engineering and music that don't exist. I'm sure that Tikels wants to play the bass or guitar or whatever for a living, but thinks that that's not viable. And I agree. But composing music and playing a guitar has very little in common with working on a computer program to remix something - and, likely, he won't be the composer of the music he's working with (though I suppose he might be).

Tikels is smart enough to do more than audio engineering. He can go and try and make music with instruments, or he can try at engineering. But a half-assed attempt at mixing the two will likely lead to a crappy salary and no more satisfaction than otherwise.

Next time you try to aggressively shove someone aside in a discussion like that, make sure you know what the fuck you're talking about, dumbducky. Your only argument in the above is "You're not an expert". That's not an argument.

How does double majoring = "a half-assed attempt at mixing the two?" He has a degree in both audio engineering and music. Not half of one and half of the other. Any job he'd be able to get as a musician he can still get. It's not like he would graduate college and have to go find a job that requires both. And the most important part of my argument is not "you're not an expert", it's you're not him. If he wants to pursue music over engineering (or both at the same time), then who the hell are you to tell him not to because he won't get paid as much?

... I'm one of the guys he's asking for advice?

I'm through here, dumbducky. I've made my points. If Tikels thinks that audio engineering is a good idea, not my loss.

Your arguments are just fluff, though. And you seem to have misunderstood me when I said that "audio engineering is crap", because you think that I mean "double majoring is crap". Lol.

The aforementioned friend is in a band and his experience with audio engineering and production lets them self-produce really high quality stuff. The two are not mutually exclusive.

If you want to be a standard engineer, I'd say go for it. But most people don't really seem to, they just appreciate the profit and prestige in doing so. If that's you, and you're committed to your music, go be poor for a while and see if it works out. You can get a degree in college in whatever engineering you'd like to fall back on and pick up a minor doing what you enjoy.


You're really one of those people? I thought such blatantly one-dimensional shortsightedness was just a myth.

I haven't read much of the thread at all, but you should consider the different jobs that music can lead to. A lot of musicians end up doing tutoring, for example, or teach at a school or university. Then there are people who join bands or put out albums, and still others that write lyrics or manage bands etc.

I would suggest getting formal training in engineering, and do it for a few years to build up some experience and money, while keeping music as a hobby. Then when you're older (mid-late twenties, thirties) you can have the freedom to drop your engineering job and persue music, in whatever that ends up meaning. Or you could combine the two jobs and do audio engineering as I see has been mentioned.

u tard?

Cent, you forgot that the average Mechanical Engineer makes .2% of a Rock Star salary.

Like I said already, you're mad you don't know what a fourier transform is (which means you know nothing about the inter-disciplinary overlap) and you're taking it out on the thread.

This vs. this.
Engineers make money. Musicians are often unemployed (of course, you could become a music teacher, but you'll still make less money than an engineer).