May 12th, 2009 7:06 am
me, myself, and I asked:
For aspiring voice teachers/pedagogists, what major should one take in college? Is it music education?
Esp. for voice (opera)…
common music
For aspiring voice teachers/pedagogists, what major should one take in college? Is it music education?
Esp. for voice (opera)…
common music
Tags: College Education, College Music, Common Music, Esp, Music Education, Music Instruments, Music Opera, Opera Music, Voice Teachers
May 12, 2009 at 9:37 pm
There are SOME colleges that offer majors in Vocal Pedagogy. Most majors in Vocal Performance offer at least one class in Vocal Pedagogy – not much, but something. However, if you wish to TEACH voice someday, your best bet would be to do what my DIL did – get a 5-year double-degree program with a BM in Vocal Performance and BM in Music Education. She now is a very successful vocal teacher and director in PA. Her only regret is that she should have done more PIANO – really valuable for a vocal teacher – but she has my wonderful SON fro that – whose major instruments was piano, although he aslso studied voice, and now is also a vocal teacher and director in PA. Of course, he got the requipments pounded into him from home – my husband and I both taugh vocal music from the early Seventies until last year ( me) and 3 years ago (him). I always had very good piano skills (since 2 of my degrees are in Theory, I had to – even though I am really a flutist – ya gotta do what ya gotta do . . ), and he is a FABULOUS pianist.
So – places you could do this? Our kids went to Temple University in Philadelphia. We went to Hartt (in Hartford CT) and Boston University for our MM degrees. There are many others that will suit you as well. However, you need to get IN – an you also express an interest in opera. Well, before you can TEACH that, you need to EXCEL in that – so worry first about YOU – studying, preparing a great audition, doing well in college, and then – —– are you going to teach in a school, or get into an artist’s program in opera? We have a young relative who is working towards that – and we do not have a whole lot of hope for him; you either have to be the TOP and the TOP schools – or sadly disappointed. This is tough.
We chose lives in music education – we made a decent income, benefits, retirement – and got to perform as much as we wished. It took effort and organization to coordinate these two lives – but we did it. If we did it – so can YOU.
Much luck!
May 13, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Short answer: If you want to teach in public schools, you must have a music ed. degree. This can be done for instrumentalists or voice majors. You do NOT need an ed. degree if you want to get advanced degrees in music performance and teach in higher ed. An ed. degree will not harm you in that path. Although if performing is what you really WANT to do, then I would advise you to bypass the ed. degree since it is a very time consuming degree and will not allow you to focus on performance as much as you would need to in order to succeed in higher ed.