Berklee

[Shango66]

Well I think it has to be said.....unless someone has got a line of credit on a never ending trust fund.
Being a pro muso is a struggle financially.

Go into any bank and put down muso, artist, actor..etc and you will be put thru the hoops to get a loan.

I wonder sometimes if I would have been just as fulfilled doing some other occupation, I'm pretty sure I would be vastly better off financially.
So wishing all good fortune to the poster and the audition, just be aware of what a " career " is like at the end of your expensive music education.

 

[Lunchie]

Its so dang hard to know if the large cost is worth it. Its dang hard to know if any field one can go to college for atm is going to pan out financially unless you go into something in high demand.

I am not going to say its a waste of money because if I was in your shoes and could afford to do so, I would in a second. It also depends on what you are expecting to get out of it. I am guessing one in a million end up playing for a sold out crowd in Madison Square Garden however I bet there are plenty that make a very comfortable living being studio musicians and grinding small venues.

 

[Alex Strekal]

I applied and visited back when I was going to community college, but in the end it was simply not affordable. I'm unsure if it was as hard to afford back in the day when most of the big-name graduates went.

The guitar teacher I had at college was a berklee graduate himself.

 

[snakestrecher$]

With the amount of online material you can (with a lot of effort) be just as great at if you went. Most if the really top notch players I met in Boston didn't even go to berklee.

That being said the ability to network and meet lots of other musicians is the strong point of a place like that.

Consider some other schools too like New England conservatory

http://youtu.be/r2Uk1Dk4E5s

 

[voodooblues]

I went to Boston university and spent a lot of time at berklee. My two cents here is that they really focus all the attention on the really gifted students, the one or two who will bring more reputation to the school. They are the ones spending time w Jon Damian and the other great teachers.

If your a performance major you get.... 30 minutes a week of private lessons. I think that's pathetic for the price.

A lot of my friends who graduated from there are struggling for work bc they graduated w a few hundred other great guitar players.

They seem to accept most applicants to make up for the ridiculous drop out rate.

If your dedicated you can learn on our own and save so much money. On the other hand if your dedicated you can excel there.

http://youtu.be/r2Uk1Dk4E5s

This is far from the truth. I went there and graduated. I was a performance major for about two weeks, but then I had to switch. There were so many performance related classes that I was struggling to keep up.

Another benefit of going there is that you are completely surrounded by musicians. A lot of very talented and very serious people go there, so you'll have no problem meeting people and starting a band if that's what you want to do. The music industry, from New York to Nashville to LA, is littered with Berklee alums. The connections you can make are invaluable. Plus, Boston is a heck of a great city.

 

[klasaine]

This is far from the truth. I went there and graduated. I was a performance major for about two weeks, but then I had to switch. There were so many performance related classes that I was struggling to keep up.

Another benefit of going there is that you are completely surrounded by musicians. A lot of very talented and very serious people go there, so you'll have no problem meeting people and starting a band if that's what you want to do. The music industry, from New York to Nashville to LA, is littered with Berklee alums. The connections you can make are invaluable. Plus, Boston is a heck of a great city.

A big +1 to all that.

Sent from my Nexus 7

 

[voodooblues]

And let's not forget that Boston is only a 4 hour bus ride away from NYC. There are many teachers there that split their time between the two cities. So really, it's like having two different cities to gig in.

 

[Mjark]

http://www.berklee.edu/admissions/auditionandinterview

 

[Jack FFR1846]

I know a few people who went there with varying degrees of success. One cleans houses for a living and is a great guitarist in my church. He's the go to guy if you can't figure out a chord in a song. He's around 50 now.

Another was my son's guitar teacher who opened his own guitar shop/lesson studio. He hussles doing studio work, ordering school band instruments, doing a small amount of new low end instrument sales and a little consignment. Most of the consistent stuff is weekly lessons. He does also have a gigging band.

In Petrucci's Boston Sessions a couple years ago, John talked about his audition and how he was already an accomplished shredder. Then they put him into chords 101.

To round out the line up, a girl I know (she's 28) went to another Boston music program in performance and just a few weeks ago was giving advice to some other potential music major.....to major in music business or something she could get work from. She still lives with her parents because she can't support herself with her present job.

 

[cactusrob]

There is a member here screen-named Tim Bowen whom I believe also went to Berkley, (Berkely, Burklee?)...super nice fellow and a heck of a guitarist...look him up and PM him.

If Burkley doesn't work out , you could perhaps try Julie Yard... (just kidding !!)

 

[adeiderich]

A buddy of mine from high school went to Berklee (Boston) and studied piano. Graduated and decided that he couldn't make enough money as a musician so he went on to medical school and now is an ER doctor. I always tell people, "You never know where your opportunities lie."

 

[klasaine]

OK, I can't believe I'M gonna be the one to say this ... enough with the friggin' negativity already.

If you're good and you apply yourself, Berklee (and a lot of other music schools), will make you better.

If you're not an a - hole you'll also make great connections that will help you get work (before and/or after you graduate).

Yes, a paying gig in the arts is tough and it's a small market but there is work out there for the good ones who apply themselves and aren't schmucks. And, if you're undeniably awesome beyond reproach - you can even be a schmuck and still make it.

Better to try and fail when you're young than to think ... what if I woulda?

 

[slowpinky]

Just came back to this thread - as far as all the negativity is concerned, I can understand the questioning of why indeed , fees for schools like Berklee are so high -so its up to any prospective student to mull that one over. But - it seems pretty odd to be so discouraging - I mean this is a personal decision and people who embark on a musical career are rarely thinking about money - unless they are truly deluded - and who is to say who can make a living from it - plenty of people who post here regularly make it work for them.

Like anything , very few are making a fortune from it - but many , many make their living from a portfolio career of playing, teaching, retail, recording, composing, arranging, promoting, research, et al... including me.

Its not always the idealistic dream career - nothing is! Music is tough - at 50 its harder now for me than it ever was. Sure I have a teaching job now , but I may not have next year or the year after and I certainly spent most of my working life without one....but you make do and work really hard...just like everyone else, and like every other endeavour, the hard work may, or may not - pay off!

There are of course other options than studying formally - but a school like Berklee is a direct line into a large and established network. And Boston is a helluva city for learning guitar in!

Its a dream for a lot of people - and schools like Berklee capitalise on that - but so does any and every enterprise. If its a question of value for money then people need to look around. Someone already mentioned NEC, but with NY so close, MSM, SUNY , and a whole lot of other good options are there too.

Shang - I always (and always have) put 'teacher' on my application forms for loans etc - in this part of the world - no one really gets the idea of a working artist.

 

[snakestrecher$]

OK, I can't believe I'M gonna be the one to say this ... enough with the friggin' negativity already.

If you're good and you apply yourself, Berklee (and a lot of other music schools), will make you better.

If you're not an a - hole you'll also make great connections that will help you get work (before and/or after you graduate).

Yes, a paying gig in the arts is tough and it's a small market but there is work out there for the good ones who apply themselves and aren't schmucks. And, if you're undeniably awesome beyond reproach - you can even be a schmuck and still make it.

Better to try and fail when you're young than to think ... what if I woulda?

I did say that the networking is the best part. And I was being negative, apologies. I just had a few room mates who struggled and it bummed me out. To stay positive the practice rooms in Allston are new ad beautiful!!!! Fender tube amps in each one. A fun place to chill.

 

[the embezzler]

I just looked up the fee scheme - is it 63,000 over the whole degree or is that per year?
Either way that is astronomical.
The degree course I'm doing here in NZ is under a third of that all up and I get an hour lesson every week. .
I hear that the conservatory of music in Berlin, where Rosenwinkel teaches, have almost zero fees but they accept only one guitarist every year.

 

[cbtd]

The singer in my high school band went to Berklee. He really learned a lot, and he was actually very successful afterwards. He started off writing and singing jingles. He eventually was first call in NYC for a while. Worked for Phil Ramone and sang on a bunch of stuff. He did have someone to pay his way, and a pretty good trust fund to backstop him, so that helps.

I think Berklee left him a bit like a lawyer coming out of law school, a bit hard to talk to until he had internalized it all and learned to hang with the human race again. Bottom line is it worked well for him.

Another friend of mine came from Japan to attend. He came out a bit mellower and just a phenomenal bass player. He didn't do a lot with music, but he had family money to back him up as well.

What ever happened to my trust fund. I've got to work on that in the next life.

 

[sax4blues]

Not school/degree specific, but there was a recent study which reported students from arts schools graduated with higher debt and lower potential income, and students from business/scientific schools graduated with lower debt and higher potential income.

 

[slowpinky]

I hear that the conservatory of music in Berlin, where Rosenwinkel teaches, have almost zero fees but they accept only one guitarist every year.

Europe has an entirely different philosophy of education. There are very few 'private schools' or Universities - I studied in Holland in the late 80's and the fees were nothing - although as a foreigner you have to show proof of income for a student visa. As we know, the standard of schooling in Northern Europe makes the rest of the world look a bit slow...but thats a whole other argument!

 

[McGlamRock]

I work in a pretty large law firm, at our branch there are at least 3 people I know that went to school for music (and nothing else). One works in the tech deparment, the other in HR, and I'm a secretary. Obviously we are not playing music as our day job, but we all make very good salaries and still pursue our passions on evenings and weekends. If the OP can get into Berklee or another music school they like, then I think they should do it.

 

[the embezzler]

I work in a pretty large law firm, at our branch there are at least 3 people I know that went to school for music (and nothing else). One works in the tech deparment, the other in HR, and I'm a secretary. Obviously we are not playing music as our day job, but we all make very good salaries and still pursue our passions on evenings and weekends. If the OP can get into Berklee or another music school they like, then I think they should do it.

Good point. I'd say whatever you choose to study, see it through to the end. Once you have a degree you have lots of options and directions to go in with post-graduate stuff etc.