Do you study music at college or uni?

[futures_untold]

And how are you finding it?

I'm thinking of returning to college, but am still debating what to study!

Pat

[deadly_habit]

waste of money unless you can't force yourself to sit down and read

[djake]

im in college doing a music tech course, biggest waste of 2 years if you ask me.

i suppose it may depend on the college/lecturers.

but i wouldnt recormend it.

ive accually taught myself more than they have.

[zonetrooper5]

Last time I had a music lesson was in Year 9, watched/read tutorials on how to use certain synths and how to use Ableton Live so i'm all self taught.

[marshy]

Yup, Audio and Music Production at Bucks New Uni.

Really enjoying it, first term was more about music history, compression in the mp3 sense, etc. but now we've moved onto other topics. Learning how to create different waveforms right now, and the mathematical formulae to get each one from basic sine waves.

Sure, could learn that in text books if i really put my brain to it, but i'd rather have an expert showing me with industry equipment.

[legend4ry]

Not college, music college is very basic, the recording side may help you if you've only really made electronic music but its mostly midi work and learning how to use basic hardware and lots of write ups..

You can't do much with a music degree either... I wouldn't waste your money mate, you'll be bored stiff in lectures.

Though, everyone I know at Uni says its amazing and informative, so if you can't go uni straight away, see if you can find some year 0 courses.

I honestly wouldn't go through the college route, unless you have lots of patience.

[phrex]

sleep over it, decide from your heart. and fucking do it.
you can't go wrong if you do what your passion is. might be boring or exhausting sometimes, but hey, thats how life is supposed to be sometimes.

if you do it, you like it, you go for it - you will be good at it. and you most probably will find somehow a job in this spectrum.
i say go for your dreams

[Depone]

College and then Uni was the best move i ever made. Of course your gonna go over a few things you already knew, but to be able to mix with like minded people and lecturers.
Also @ my uni, my lectures are full of indispensable Personal knowledge and professional opinions you wont find in a text book. Real valuable information.

But...

If your only going to be going to College / university for the purposes of making better dubstep tracks, you may as well stick your thumb up your own ass and shout "I have aids" because its going to be little or no use to you.
Its def for more broad minded musical people, not some bedroom 'wobbler' (Not saying you are pat ). So if your into learning intersting things about sound, the physics (its not as daunting as you may think), phyco-acoustics and production techniques, Recording techniques such as mix placement and advanced shizzle, then go for it. You have to learn a lot of stuff you may not want to, so it may or may not be a godsend. For me it was a godsend. It got me out of a shitty job and into learning again!!! (i was a rubbish school student )

So to sum up. For just dubstep no... For everything else YES!

[humancond1tion]

I'm studying BA Music Production at Leeds Met.... to be honest its definitely not what I expected it to be... it is like the course content has not been updated for many years.

The first module we did was Composition skills... basically learning how to read music notation and scores and other boring, obsolete theory that simply is not required in modern day music production...

Then there was a video production module where we had to film stock animation of toy soldiers..... like wtf does that have to do with producing music.

The only plus side is getting to use the professional studios, which contain some amazing analogue outboard gear like Lexicon reverbs and high quality compressors and EQs... in the main studio there is also a Neve mixing console.... so being able to take advantage of hardware that you couldn't realistically afford in your lifetime is definitely a plus side, substantial enough to keep me wanting to carry on with the course.

At any rate the Music production course was a much better choice than Music Technology, due to it being an arts based course, Music Technology focuses more on the sound engineering aspect of music, such as the physics of sound and understanding acoustics and what not... physics was never my strong point, so if you're looking to further your knowledge of getting quality recordings, learning about using a studio and its contents efficiently, then definitely look for Bachelor of Arts (BA) and not Bachelor of Science... unless of course you like all that algebra malarky...

Plus, the social aspects of Uni are great. You meet lots of new, like minded people in your first year when living in halls, oh.. and don't forget, Universities are businesses not entirely government funded establishments, so rent will be stupidly dear and before you know it you will run up a huge amount of debt very quickly, that is of course if you're anything like me and you like to have a good time

[nitz]

Uni,

Head over to ACM, arguably the best of the best.

http://www.acm.ac.uk/

Plus no need to go through UCAS, you can apply online for next year.

[Novelty]

And how are you finding it?

I'm thinking of returning to college, but am still debating what to study!

Pat

I go to school for music.. I get $5350 USD per semester to go to school for music, and I just spend it on studio gear.

The only classes I have found useful though are world music and music for elementary school teachers.. I'm sure that once my ear training, music theory, and recording arts classes start it'll pick up..

if you can get paid to go to school, do it... otherwise, independent study wins.

[continuumdnb]

I study physics :/

[Dub_Fiend]

I've said this like a million times I'm sure, but I'm studying BSc Creative Music Technology at Stafford Uni I can deffo say that if it wasn't for me going to Uni, I wouldn't be making Dubstep today. Depone was right on, mixing with likeminded people in an amazing environment with top of the range equipment and informative lecturers... what more could you want?


Dub Fiend

[futures_untold]

I want to do a few things.

-Make tunes for creative and egotistical reasons (which I am already doing and can do for the price of the software I use).

-Make music plugins (which requires knowledge).

-Make green technology stuff (not sure what yet though).

-Teach music production to kids (I already have a degree in youth & community work, so a music qualification would actually over qualify me for music production tutoring hehe).

Thus, I'm definately looking to do a Bsc over a Ba.

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I've been seriously looking at doing an Open University 'Open Degree'. I could combine modules on computer science, maths, physics, electronics and accounting to form what seems like a hardcore but useful knowledge set for what I want to do.

I'm thinking along the lines that maths, physics, electronics and accounting are useful in life anyway, so even though I'd place a heavy focus of the degree on music related projects, I'd still be boosting my general knowledge.

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Considering I'm already £20,000 in debt from my first degree, I won't be pissing around in halls hehe.

And adding a piece of paper to my pieces of paper file would always be good I reckon.

[jaydot]

I want to. But equally don't want to waste my life even more than I have.

[leviticus]

Teach music production to kids (I already have a degree in youth & community work, so a music qualification would actually over qualify me for music production tutoring hehe).

I teach entry level music to the youth, been doing it now for around 6 years full time,Best job by far i have ever had so i would advise anyone to do it, just make sure you have lots of patience!

[Disco Nutter]

I've been seriously looking at doing an Open University 'Open Degree'. I could combine modules on computer science, maths, physics, electronics and accounting to form what seems like a hardcore but useful knowledge set for what I want to do.

I'm thinking along the lines that maths, physics, electronics and accounting are useful in life anyway, so even though I'd place a heavy focus of the degree on music related projects, I'd still be boosting my general knowledge.

Seems like you want to dig in a lot of things at the same time, Pat. I say you concentrate on 1 or 2 and get really good at them. Accounting is a pretty big thing if we're talking theory, not just making T accounts and double entry stuff. Believe me - I study economics, it gets really stale sometimes! But it is interesting, no doubt.

You know how it goes - better to be good in one thing than mediocre in 20. But if you think you can manage it - go for it!

And about teaching youths - I have yet to see how this feels. I have an offer to lecture international students on music production and dj-ing this summer at a festival here in Bulgaria and am really thinking about doing it! Teaching is a noble act, but it has to be done right so that it does help and not cause harm.

[Wrigzilla]

I'm studying BA creative music technology at bath spa university,

Now here's the pros of uni:
- access to equipment you can't afford
- specialist knowledge of lecturers
- hanging out with loads of like minded people (I've probably learned more production wise by talking with my coursemates than by going to lectures)

Cons
- getting in debt
- with music tech degrees, there are loads of things you can do with the skills you will learn, but there is no guarantee that you will get a job/work after it.

For you I'd say do some research on courses (with music tech courses you can have 2 completely different courses with different focuses but both have the same course title). But yeah, my course is a BA but we're still doing a module in signal processing (I really need to start that convolution reverb in Pd soon)

[Ennayess]

I'm in a sound engineering course at a wee college in Glasgow, the coarse content aint quite what I was expecting with the focus being on recording rather than composition but it's opened up doors I never knew existed. I'm heading back up to Aberdeen for the diploma in sound production after this year too, basically its all I really want to do.

I would like to get a degree in the field eventually but theres not much choice in Scotland (only Glasgow Cally and Paisley that i'm aware of) so maybe going to try get into somewhere south of the border. ACM looks peachy but I imagine its quite hard to get into???? Any other suggestions would be a treat!

[deadly_habit]

honestly my favorite thing to do is find the vintage or out of print audio books on electronics schematics etc that cover alot of basics and revolutionary ideas that we take for granted now. working on this one atm http://www.gibbsbooks.com/?page=shop/fl ... 802475e8ae
cost me like 2$ on barnesandnoble.com
the resources are there if you look, but you have to be proactive about learning, which alot of people unfortunately aren't and need school
i mean i guarantee an internship at a decent studio and independent study would teach you alot quicker and more practically than a college course
my 2 cents