Any music majors?

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Anyone here majoring or majored in music in college?
I have a Bachelor of Arts in music (piano was my major instrument, and voice was my minor) I am not in a career that is music related though. Anyone is in a career that is music related?

Master's Degree in Music Composition here. =)

My Bachelor's Degree was in Music Education, but that didn't exactly work out. My major instrument was the clarinet, but I ended up teaching private piano lessons--which, oddly enough, I sort of have a knack for. About six months after I began teaching piano (band directing just wasn't working out) I was asked to teach non-credit piano lessons for adults as well as children. I also play in a rock band and do the occasional jazz gig, weddings, parties, etc. It's really funny how you start out going in one direction and end up doing something you completely never expected.

I never quit, though. I enjoy electronic music and own a few cheap keyboards/synthesizers I bought off eBay, plus a few pieces of good equipment when I'm playing live. To my knowledge, I'm the ONLY Synclavier owner in Mississippi. I've recently started aggressively writing for handbells, and my first performance is on youtube now (see the thread "My first handbell arrangement"). I'm working on another piece that will be up in less than two weeks, and it will be a combined performance with Synclavier (synthesizer as well as string parts) and live winds and percussion. I'll start writing again after that performance, but I'm so eager I don't want to wait--but then again, if I DON'T wait that means I'll give up my much-needed practice time.

So do you still play at all now? Do you have any videos of yourself playing, recitals, or anything like that? We'd love to see/hear!

I was a music major for a short time. But, I didn't have a whole lot of talent, nor the inclination to practise as much as I should.

Also, I found out that if you start taking classes in music theory without knowing the piano, then you are at a serious disadvantage.

I don't play piano at all. The last time I played was my senior year of college. I had a piano professor also tell another student that I didn't play the piano well at all, yet he was my own private piano teacher. So comments like that hurt me so I quit. Plus majority of the students were totally into music. It's their love and passion. Not me. I just majored in music just to get something on a resume to make it look good.

My sister is majoring in music

Which college is she at?

Now that I'm old and retired, I'm focusing on developing my daughter in music (piano, voice and violin lessons, plus ballet).

I started piano at age 5 but basically quit when I was almost 23. I saw and heard the other college pianists playing and was so embarrassed. WHY did I major in music when I'm just scum? But that's another topic..

Aw, Anna! I'm very sorry to hear that.

Sounds to me more like your teachers were scum. Just so you know, I do openly compare students with others to give them an idea of how they are progressing relative to others. Sometimes they want to compete with other students, especially when I have siblings. But most often I just tell my students that I'm not running a competition and that what they have to learn they will do at their own pace.

It's no different in college unless you're a big conservatory like Juilliard. Most public college profs understand that each person's ability level is different and will pass you as long as you are passing your proficiencies, levels, and juried performances. As long as you get in the required Bach, Mozart, and Chopin in on time they don't really care. Plus, I also tell my students that just because I don't take lessons anymore it doesn't mean that I stopped learning. I'm doing new stuff all the time and discovering things musically about myself I never dreamed I could do--like sight-reading entire Mozart sonatas. Even though I was a clarinet major and "gave up" piano after my sophomore year, I ended up getting a job at a church known for placing heavy demands on its staff instrumentalists. And even THEN I went in the space of two years from accompanying choir anthems and playing note-for-note octavos to playing from lead sheets and even lyric sheets. And rather than buying sheet music for everything I want to do, I've started memorizing songs and learning them by ear (typically by just looking them up on youtube). I'm 32 now, and if you'd told me at your age I'd be doing a third of what I'm doing now, I'd never have believed it.

One reason I didn't find a doctoral program in composition immediately after grad studies is I that I was concerned that, in spite of earning a master's degree, I hadn't really DONE that much. I'm finding new windows of opportunity are opening for me now and it has really affected what I do musically. Things like that make me look forward to eventually going back to school and exploring even more different creative options. I hope you will eventually come back to the piano without any outside "noise" about how good/bad you are and just try to find the FUN in what you do. Make up songs, listen to the radio and learn to play along with what you hear, memorize common chord progressions, and so on. There's so much more to making/playing music than competition and academia.

I have a Bachelor of Music degree. I'm not doing anything remotely music-related, though.

I have a BA in music. Guitar was my instrument but I did lute, clarinet and voice as well.

I had a nervous breakdown/autisitc withdrawal right after graduating which pretty much squelched my chances of starting a music career. I was dx'd with Asperger's 3 years after that breakdown. I still play guitar and sing but I don't do anything with music professionally.

All of the piano majors at my college were so much better than me. I was totally embarrassed. I should have worn a sign "I'm a dumb a** wanna be pianist"

Well, you know what they say...

Those who can't, teach.

I've scaled down my teaching this year to allow time for composing and I've been pleased with the results. But from teaching alone, I bet I make somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 a month. Anyone a lot more dedicated to it could pull in more students and make probably up to $30,000 a year. Where I live, the wedding business is getting pretty slow, and I'll probably hurl if I have to play another Chinese funeral. But the point is there are gigs to be had if you want them. Something else that I hope to get to next year is recording my first album. As a pianist, having a mid-level computer recording system is a must, and it's also good to extend your computer and keyboard skills to include synthesizer programming. I seriously wonder why it is this stuff isn't REQUIRED for piano majors these days! Schools only want to educate you, fill you with knowledge of your instrument and aren't concerned with you actually making a career of it.

But seriously, work up some of your favorite Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart sonatas, along with some schubert art songs, and some Chopin and hit the local arts council or symphony association about letting you give a recital on a regular season program. Even if you aren't as talented as some other music majors might have been, you definitely have some useful skill worthy to be shared with others. Don't let them kill the music that you have. It's a real shame to go down like that.

That is wonderful about your love for the piano and music. Me? Not so much. I still have a piano at our home which I don't know why we didn't bother selling. I have had the piano since I was 6. I just don't feel any love towards classical music. Operas bore me now. Symphonies are boring too. Choruses are beyond boring.

Aaah, I see. To be perfectly honest, every now and then my interest drifts towards classical music, but for me it's more of a novelty than a serious endeavor. My major instrument as an undergrad was clarinet. I always thought that's what I'd spend every spare moment of the rest of my life doing. But as it turns out clarinet players are a dime a dozen. The thing that turned me off to my dreams of playing in orchestras is that we work so hard so much of our lives only to play in orchestras that program from the same selection of 300 pieces by the same 30 dead European composers (and occasionally Copland and Bernstein). It's depressing, but it is what it is. I can't imagine why I ever wanted to do that with my life, but I realize I'm much happier with what I'm doing now.

The music I'm writing now has more pop and rock influences than the kinds of things I used to write, which was strict modernist kinds of pieces a la Schoenberg, Webern, Milton Babbitt, and so on. If anyone challenges me on why I write the way I do now, I'll simply point out that composers of the past displayed a cursory representation of folk tradition in their work. In our postmodern world, technology together with commercial trends IS our folk tradition. The web distributor for one of my piano works disagrees, so it's looking like I always be strictly independent and self-published. However, I AM loving the attention I'm getting from my current project. I'm able to express my original ideas in front of my audience without just throttling them with it, which in turn makes me want to write more.

Partly what keeps me from succumbing to my situation is my fascination with synthesizers. I'm one of a tiny select group of musicians who own a Synclavier, an instrument that has it's own sort of romance. It's an amazing machine, and sitting down at its keyboard is like sitting down with an old friend. It helps keeps what I do fun.

If there were any kind of music out there that would make you WANT to come back to the piano, what would it be?

nothing would want me to come back to play piano. I don't have any interest in piano at all. A professor's comment just hurt me so I basically quit piano.