Wanted to quote it to reiterate. Have you thought about taking a third option? Maybe a degree that could support a musical career? Music management or something? Recording or studio management?

God so much to comment on/get back to.

Tell me if I miss anything.

If I were to be a musician, I don't know what sort of musician's field I would even go into. I don't really know...
I'd kinda prefer to be actually playing my guitar though.

My friend attempted to do a Electrical (or was it Electronic?) Engineering and Music double major. It didn't work out and he dropped the music. I wouldn't be against trying it.

How does one "Try out" a field per se? People on average scored ~100 more on the SAT than on the PSAT (scaling up the PSAT score, of course). PSAT is harder than the SAT, or so I've heard.


Collapse box 1. (Note that this applies to everyone who said something like using music as a hobby in my off time)... I'll be losing out on music knowledge that I would have learned in class. Experiences wouldn't have been experienced. The "Musical Journey" will have absconded from my life. I will not meet the kind of people who love music like I do.
Collapse box 2. (This applies to everyone blah blah that I have to be living as a rockstar) ... I don't necessarily have to follow that path. Nor do I think it is likely that I will.

Compared to my classmates I'm higher than almost everyone and according to the school ranging in the 2000s is "Major Scholarships"
My guitar teacher is that good. I really shouldn't have to go through with explaining why.
My dad works at a mercedez dealership and he talks to people all the time. Just about everyone knows about my guitar teacher. My guitar teacher played on broadway. My guitar teacher started naming off famous people who go to various places around the area. Apparently some famous wrestler (Damos the gladiator or something? Most definitely spelled wrong) goes to a Gold's Gym. Like seriously I shouldn't have to prove to you what I know. My point was that he knows people and could really help me out if need be.

Funny you say all this, my guitar teacher recommended getting a business minor with a jazz music major. He said jazz would stand out more as a field that not a lot of people take and business would help me too.

Don't spam my topic. Reported.
And really, if you have something to say about a Fourier transform then say it. Otherwise you're just trolling Cent (very well, I might add) who is managing to ACTUALLY be a productive member of this conversation.
This isn't null.

What the heck does that mean. I've never heard of a music degree that wasn't able to hold a music career.

That's not what I mean by support. I mean, if you get big, something that gives other information in support roles, such as management, post production...that type of thing.

Thanks for clearing that up =)

Also, as a side note, how do you pronounce your username? I always said Kah-meh, like DBZ, Kamehameha!! Excalibur said he says kame like cane but with an m.
Off topic but I doubt this will tangent off into another conversation, that's not against the rules right?

Oh, Ex would. He doesn't like me much. Kah-meh is correct, actually, and related. The old dude...Master Roshi? His house was 'kame house.' Since DBZ was taken off the air I kept the name for nostalgia sake.

My point is that most people tend to get somewhat disillusioned when they head off to college, and it seems this hasn't happened to you yet. I have had significant exposure to and know people from the top circles of academia and at least know a few things about (albeit classical) music at the highest level.

A 1960 (or 2060) SAT score is hardly terrible, and might put you above your high school classmates and get your a merit-based scholarship at your state school. And like I said, you don't need to do better than that to earn a decent living as an engineer. Getting a EE degree from x State University is fine to make a great living. But in the world of the top colleges (ivies, MIT, Caltech, etc.) 2400/4.0 students are quite frankly a dime a dozen and scores like that barely get you noticed at all. To be honest, the SAT I is just too damn easy.

As far as music goes, you haven't said anything to give me an idea of how well connected your teacher is. Every professional musician has lots and lots of contacts in lots of places (it's the only way to survive in that world). Aside from connections, it's almost impossible to succeed in the music world. In the classical setting, the admit rate to a place like Juilliard is hovering around 8%, and even then only a handful of graduates go on to make decent money with major symphony jobs. I have friends at and graduated from NEC, MSM, Berklee, San Francsico, Northwestern, etc. and most of them are frankly pretty screwed financially right now.

I'm not trying to tell you that you suck, but I do implore you to try to stack up your abilities realistically before you decide that you're a world phenom and destined to succeed wildly in whatever you choose.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 22 2011, 9:39 pm by DT_Battlekruser.

Which is why my suggestion of becoming a bartender then offering to play a gig is a completely legitimate and reasonable suggestion. You can bartend to help make money to put yourself through college, double major in engineering and music, and have a gig to play. I wasn't spamming.

And all my nonsense about Fourier transforms isn't the point, the point is there's so much overlap in so many fields that there's no reason not to do both.

What do I have to say to you to tell you that my teacher is well connected.

I know I'm not the best guitarist. I realize this. Through my guitar teacher I've met people who are years ahead of me in playing ability. There are plenty of areas that I have that need tons of work. I still have a chance of doing something with it though.

I know I'm not the smartest person in the world. Person at my school ranked in the top 155 in the country for PSAT scores. I think he got like 1 point off in total. I know I could land a job in engineering regardless.

Oh and, I was thinking, maybe I could find a college that has engineering and music and business and try a double major with engineering and music and drop one when I decide which I want to pursue.

I would check Harvey Mudd and the University of Hartford if you're looking at music and engineering.

Mostly, I agree with DTBK; you're coming across as being on quite the high horse (your first post was more or less coolstorybro), and that's a bit of a dangerous place to be when you're trying to decide what to do with your life. Sounds to me like you don't really care about STEM careers, though. Why are you considering them?

I was tested and apparently (and I had forgotten about this until this last monday, to my credit to not being on a "high horse") I have some (rare?) gift with spatial stuff. Idr the details.

What do you mean "I don't care about STEM careers". Elaborate where you're coming from, what STEM means (sciencey technical engineering math or w/e amirite?), and why. I don't really even know if I would or I would not like to be an engineer... that's in part what this is.

I mean hell man, I put up that first post as a realistic fact-based way of putting out what I have to my talents/abilities. Like if I wanted to be dumb, I could go ahead and be like...

In the 6th grade standardized testing scores, I got so high on it (like 99% on the math) that I was invited to go to this "West Virginia Wesleyan Summer Gifted Camp" which I went to for a few years. I also was invited to go to John Hopkins and take a long-ass test, which I was then invited from that to go take the spatial recognition test that I mentioned. (At least that's how I think it was ordered... like I said, it was awhile ago).

I would expect most major universities to have all three programs you're interested in. That would, however, rule out most smaller colleges that could offer you a specialized education more efficiently.

As for your bragging... well, it's nothing that special. Nothing to start talking about how smart you are over (and, for future reference, this is the sentence that's probably making you look bad: "My parents could probably do a better job bragging about my intelligence.").

FE has a point in that you don't seem to have any interest at all in engineering. I'd still strongly advise you to go against any inclinations to focus on music (except as a minor or something), and would recommend looking at other alternatives. Also, what's the name of your tutor? That might go a long way towards justifying your obsession with music (in a good way). Your parents would likely be happy as punch if you went into something like law or medicine - anything appeal to you there? Something specifically in mathematics or science?

It sounds like you're saying that nothing interests you at all except music, which is... not a good place to be in. Also, I agree completely with DTBK. I don't have any of the connections or acquaintances he does, but his post had a very high truthiness factor (and it all, particularly the academic statistics portion, matches with what I do know - admission was more competitive than I expected when I went through the process). A 2060 SAT is significantly better than average, but average is pretty damn bad. If you try and apply to a competitive program, in engineering or music, you're going to be facing stiff competition for admission (though, I haven't seen any of your musical works, so for all I know you're a new Beethoven). Don't be overconfident.

For testing things out, you can likely try out something along the lines of robotics in high school. My school had both a robotics team and a robotics class, so I got to have some fun building stuff before actually going to college. You can try your hand at programming by taking a programming class, or trying to do it independently - I had a lot of experience beforehand and played around for several years making dynamic websites. Not all that impressive, but it let me know that I actually enjoy sitting in front of a computer and trying to get it work and yelling "Eureka!" when it finally did. You can try getting an internship - they're hard for High School students to get, but it might give you engineering experience outside of what your school offers. You can try getting into some program for High School students offered by a local college; I took a class in Columbia's SHP program on nanotechnology in my junior year, and some local colleges near you may have something similar. If you want to have a slightly easier time in college if you do go down a techie path, I recommend taking Calculus BC and Physics C and the associated AP tests. Oh, and lastly, I if you do decide to go for Engineering, I recommend applying to Cooper Union; you probably won't get in without a lot of work, but it's in NYC, it fully covers tuition (and offers financial aid for housing if you really need it), and it's one of the best Engineering schools in the country. However, there's no music program to speak of, and most of the work in music is done by hobbyists. Not sure how much I'd like to have you here, but I can't help but plug it in an Engineering topic.

That was a mess, but I'm not going to be revising a forum post. Hope you can glean something useful from it.

If you believe there to be an overlap between music composition/history and engineering, say what it is in layman's terms. I do not believe that the average musician is well-versed in fourier transformations (just like an artist isn't well-versed in the technical specifics of light).

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Mar 7 2011, 3:09 am by Centreri.

The reason I said something along the lines of "my parents could do a better job..." was because to be completely honest, I don't think I actually really care about comparative intelligence on a large scale (me vs the world). I had completely forgotten about the spatial recognitions test... though that could easily be attributed to memory.

I had already learned the basics of calculus in 9th grade (but only the basics). I'm already taking Calc AB AP and Physics H (no physics C in my school). Thinking about taking another level of calc at a nearby college next year.

You all keep saying I have "no interests in engineering." I actually really love math. I'll argue with the teachers n all that nerd stuff. Don't know about engineering though. Our school doesn't have a robotics club. Programming is not something I'm interested in. I don't think I'm apt for that kind of work, quite simply.

I realize I couldn't get into every school for engineering ever. Some schools are just too competitive and are like, "You must have a 2400 on the SAT's to get in" and I don't know if that would happen. Also my grade average is only like 3.6 on a 5.0 scale, so I probably wouldn't make that cut...

My high school has only 200 students. There are a lot of programs that don't exist because of this, but at the same time, I actually get 1 to 1 coaching on "HOW TO GET IN TO COLLEGE" stuff. Every student actually gets to sit down with the guidance counselor.

And at "This is a mess, Hope you can glean something"
This is my life dude. If I couldn't muster the effort to read a small paper on it, I definitely got problems moving ahead.


A demo for a video deal that my guitar teacher got. He's working on video 3 and 4 right now.
Most of it is written as a lesson, after you watch the intro, skip to 5:00 for epic lulz.

Edit: In the background there's a signed picture of Chuck Norris.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 7 2011, 3:17 am by TiKels.

A musical guest came to my school this week. He played some, then talked a little bit, and then he took questions. One of the things I found interesting was his advice on studying music. He was talking to a student who is going to Berklee next year. He recommended getting a degree in music business or audio engineering over a performance degree. His reasoning was that with the other degrees you still get the technical training, but you also get a marketable skill. You can join a band to play in while you hold a real job, or use your job to parlay into playing music. His example is that if you did some work in a studio and the producer didn't like one of the recordings, you could volunteer to give a try at playing bass or whatever on that track. He also said he knew a lot of people who went to Berklee but didn't graduate. The reason was that they got offered jobs and never finished their degrees because they were making money.

He specifically stated that studying for an audio engineering degree gives you a high level of professional musical training? Or did he say "Yeah, you can make a band while you take audio engineering and maybe you'll go somewhere"?

Also, you just know that his son made his website.

I don't know if anyone cares anymore, but I switched from a music to an engineering major for the following reasons:

1. I can do engineering with professional music on the side but not music with professional engineering on the side
2. I love them both equally but make more money doing engineering
3. They say engineering is hard but if you want to be a really good professional musician it is WAY harder... 8 hours a day of practicing on top of other music classes sounds about right. So you get almost no social life until after school, and after you begin your career.

My only reservation is that music is WAY WAY cooler than engineering.

But the pros outweighed the cons which is why I switched.

Oh and also you're going to be working for 40 years of your life. A lot of people screw up and start a career on something they don't like to do. Make sure you're still going to be happy doing what you're doing when you're 63.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 10 2011, 4:29 pm by Madroc.

He said going to Berklee would get you the same technical training as a performance major. I'm not stupid.

Also, yes.

I simply can't wrap my mind around the concept that going into a field of engineering will give you the skills necessary to play instruments, compose, or anything along those lines; sorry. And I believe that this guy said that, I'm not calling you a liar; but I don't believe him.

I'm sure audio engineering is a lot less math intensive than civil.

Perhaps. Maybe Audio Engineeering is so half-assed an engineering discipline that people who do it have enough time to effectively double major.