The Berklee Beat
Written: Mar 28 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: best modern music education available--period
Cons: not so good general education, and liberal learning system allows for flakey students
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| doctorawesome's Full Review: Berklee College of Music |
Berklee College of Music is the place to be if you are enthusiastic and commited to a career in the music industry. Berklee outshines all other schools that are open to the prospective career musician in several ways. For the less serious musicians however, Berklee may not be the best choice for a few key reasons that I will illustrate later on.
The music education is obviously the biggest selling point at Berklee, but they also offer majors in many other aspects of the music industry such as music production and engineering, music business and management, and film scoring. No matter what a student's major is, he/she must still play an instrument and pass a number of required classes that build skill in music performance on that instrument. Everybody on staff plays an instrument of some kind, even some of the GE teachers. This makes Berklee a very rich environment for musicians to learn in. Berklee is the only music college that focuses on and prepares the students for careers in music. After considering such music colleges as the University of Michigan, San Diego State University, and the University of Arizona, I chose to attend Berklee because of this career-minded approach to teaching music that these other schools lacked.
Berklee can be intimidating at times because there are so many great and talented musicians here, but that actually makes for a better learning environment. The lesson programs are somewhat formulaic in theory, but they are open to interpretation and adaptation by motivated students. My business classes for example have a mostly planned curriculum, but the teacher will make time to answer any questions and mold the course to fit the wants and needs of the current students. This is possible because almost all of the classes at Berklee are relatively small. After attending some lectures at other universities in 500-seat lecture halls I was left wondering what more these students were learning than I would by reading a book on the subject. This is my favorite part of Berklee: the classes are small and personal, and learning is interactive and helpful. Listening to a lecture is just like reading a book only more expensive. All classes at Berklee are small enough for the teacher to know a student's name, and personally grade his/her work--at a university there are T.A.'s that grade all work for the professor.
Another good thing about Berklee is that there are no illusions. anybody who comes with dreams of being a rock star is quickly taught the reality of the industry and how best to create and achieve realistic goals in the music industry. From jingle writing to teaching private lessons, Berklee offers instruction (by teachers who are current professionals in their areas) in all aspects of the music industry. Berklee is current and will teach its students how to survive, not just the artistic values of age-old music like at Juliard and other conservatories. At Berklee all music is taught--from chamber music to reggae--with the sole intent to broaden horizons.
Berklee is an extremely liberal school where a student has more freedom than many college-aged people can handle. There are many who just cruise and don't do work or go to class, and they can still pass--they just don't learn anything. A student at Berklee can learn as much or as little as he/she can motivate him/herself to learn.
The only other drawback is that Berklee only offers a minimum amount of general education. This may not be a problem for some artistic types who just want to learn music, but the more academic types might feel a little short-changed when they show up for English and it is at an advanced high school level rather than a college level, or when all of the GE requirements are just a review for those who were more advanced in high school.
Overall I would not choose another place to attend college as a career-minded musician (and I hate Boston so I have searched high and low for another school to go to). The resources here, as well as the deep connections Berklee has with the music industry are untouched in the college world.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
doctorawesome
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Member: Aaron Loeser
Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 1 member
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