Would you say you need to go to college/university in order to make good music?

I had the same problem three years ago. My family forced me to enroll in a music school. That's why I had to drag my guitar everywhere. I like this tool. But I wouldn't say I liked solfeggio, music, literature, etc. A few months later, I dropped out. My family was angry. But I decided that I would work. And after so much time, I decided to start studying at praguefilminstitute.cz. I had a dream of learning how to make films. I hope to become a famous director in the future.
 
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Slouching Raymond said:
I think any youngster considering university shoud consider whether they want to get into serious debt.
If you want a good music education, seek out some university music students.
Ask them what books have been prescribed for their courses.
Go out and buy all those books, and study them independently.
When it comes down to it, you actually study alone at university.
You can get the same education, without the debt.
A degree in itself is actually completely worthless.
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Yep! I second this comment 110%, I mean the actual deep deep learning (the one that really transforms you from a person that doesn't yet grasp the concept to the person that now knows the foundation and now knows where to go next) happens normally with you being alone with your books/video etc. And not only in music but basically in all other fields as well. And I feel that these days it's even easier to achieve a deep learning stage with all these tools/resources facilitated by technology, like when I see my niece use this basic algebra tutor app and she gets help instantly, even the same 20 year old books you can download in seconds (a very different picture back then when I was in high school).

And yeah specially taking into consideration debt, debt that is only getting heavier and heavier to pay off with interest rates going higher with no short term sight of cooling off. A degree in this case I'd say yep it has little value and in contrast it has many costs associated. :coffee:
 
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University for lots of people is a job hunting passport. Nothing else. Employers wanting a filter to reduce applicant quantity, not quality, use it. Yesterday, a graduate I’d got in for a show, didn’t even know how to coil a microphone cable, or mic up a drum kit with less than one mic per drum. “I haven’t got enough microphones?” It also does not guarantee common sense. Two follow spots, two performers on stage. Both spots on the same person. It took lots of yelling on headsets to get the fact across.
 
I would liken university to being pulled through a hedge backwards.
What set me up more, was working for 3 years before going to university.
 
LOL the OP was here for 2 days and left and never returned. Here we are almost 4 years later giving the invisible man advice. He opted out of the college thing and is working at a restaurant making vintage Jello.
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So the question was do you need a college education to make good music...The obvious answer is of course not...that said college may help one with raw God given talent in creating "good" music. Whereas someone with no musical ability (and there are those unfortunates) all the music education in the world will not empower them to make "good" music because they are incapable of doing so. Kind of like asking "if I go to college to learn how to run fast can I then become a world class Olympian runner?" Sure you'll improve your running skills but if you don't have the gift of a super human body structure you aren't going to be winning any gold medals in running.

College is can be a really cool experience. In my single completed semester I gained a lot of new perspective from a few really great instructors about my world view and life. Had I continued it might have changed my trajectory of "success" in life. Alas I chose the softer, easier way...ouch! I was going to make it big in Rock n Roll...well so much for that plan.

Looking back almost 50 years later I totally had the chance to go somewhere in the music industry and do far more that I ended up doing. I just wasn't knocking on the right doors, pushing as hard as I could have or taking the risk I could have like others, Tom Petty is a great example of "persistence beyond exception". He very naively, not knowing any better put his nose to the grind stone, pushed hard and took big risk and made it happen. As Ringo put it "it don't come easy"...
 
JozepHine said:
It's important to recognize that college or university isn't solely about job hunting. It can provide a well-rounded education and help individuals develop critical thinking skills, expand their horizons, and build a network of like-minded individuals.

However, real-world experience and common sense are equally crucial in any field, including music.... Practical skills and problem-solving abilities often come from hands-on practice, mentorship, and learning from mistakes.
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No offense but this post has a real Chatgtp bot kind feel to it Strange days indeed!
 
vintagelatin said:
I'm about to start college and i don't really know if it's worth to get into a music program and pay money to get a degree in producing music. I don't want to be a top music producer. I just want to make good music and upload it. Is it really necessary to go to some top school for music?
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Yes and No - if you aren't a natural at learning then probably yes - if you are intending to be a Teacher or Instructor - definitely yes- if you are intending to a be full time musician then probably not - unless you are intending to be a full time Classical/Jazz musician - then yes.
 
My answers might come off as being generated by robotic AI. After all, I was assimilated by the Borg years ago.... it was futile to resist!!

My education wasn't in music, it was in chemistry. Thankfully that when I got a job in the industry, I was classified as a chemist, which brought a slightly higher salary. A fellow who was also in my same lab never finished his degree, although he was had chemistry as well as engineering classes. He was classed as technician. That differential persisted for the 30 years that we worked together, although his salary got closer as the years went by.
 
My view has always been that learning of any kind is never time wasted. Of course the things you learn must be 'true'* but even there, learning a lot of things over different subjects can help you form links and better understanding (e.g. the 'differential' principle is useful in many technologies, not just balanced audio) and the ability to sort the real from the BS.

*Anyone who has watched QI over the years knows "facts" is a slippery beast!

Dave.
 
I'm trying to lay down a solo in the studio and Jimmy says to me, "knock off the Julliard stuff and play something with guts."
 
Looks like the U.K. is going to lose many of our less, er, quality uni courses anyway, and music and the arts is always the first to get hit. The snag is that many are just so narrow, that by the time you graduate, everyone else has moved on to the next short term fad. Some degrees spring up and die within 5 year. The first two years of graduates do great, then the students in the system are studying tired and pointless content. When they leave and look for work, everybody else is on whatever comes next, and their skills are useless as they’re too narrow.
 
There is a phone in debate on Radio 4 BBC at the moment about the worth or otherwise of going to university.
Be available on iPlayer later.

Dave.
 
rob aylestone said:
Looks like the U.K. is going to lose many of our less, er, quality uni courses anyway, and music and the arts is always the first to get hit. The snag is that many are just so narrow, that by the time you graduate, everyone else has moved on to the next short term fad. Some degrees spring up and die within 5 year. The first two years of graduates do great, then the students in the system are studying tired and pointless content. When they leave and look for work, everybody else is on whatever comes next, and their skills are useless as they’re too narrow.
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Same can be said of computer/software courses. I took IBM Assembler Language and Fortran courses at McGill in 76/77. Then Pascal at Boston University, taught myself rudimentary Basic and DOS after university. Then 'mini computers' came along - BU had ONE 'mini computer' when I graduated, only for the computer engineering students.
 
Attended IAR in NYC in the early 80's.
This is, until I had an issue paying the second semester, when they duly told me to get lost.
I spent the $ on my first 3440 - a much better use of my cash.
 
The quality and background of teachers is also a bit random. Video courses that only consider DSLR camera, or those that have invested heavily in state of the art studios, that in year three cannot afford new battery packs, or XLR cables. I've seen U87s unused because they broke the suspension mount and they can't afford a new one, and worse, moving head lighting equipment - seriously expensive ones that nobody knows how to put new end of travel sensors in. Education is totally random - great teacher, great gear turns into dreadful teacher, gear laying around unloved in only a couple of years when a key person moves on. I went back to my old college and found a graveyard of great, but broken kit, just hidden away. Hugely expensive studio monitors with brackets screwed on being used as PA cabs. To be honest, making degrees academic works for me, and making technical qualifications practical again - A degree in history or law, but an HND in technology or bricklaying makes far more sense. Writing a document on the strategic and social uses of clay firing in the 1900s and the relevance for the industrial revolution vs here are some bricks, build me a flemish bond wall. I know which one I;d rather have doing some building work for me?
 
I've always felt a formal education in music would certainly enable me to have a lifelong career in the industry, but not in ways nearly as creative as I wanted. I could have spent my life playing everyone else's creations, or I could follow my own path, creating my own works and working with others of a like mind.
 
Any education will help you. I'll also add, if pursuing music of some kind to take some business classes (marketing and accounting). I'm older so don't even know the landscape today, but I remember a lot of musicians thinking they could just sit around and get rich. (for example, not understanding that if there are zero people in the club when you play, they lose money and do not invite you back, even if you're the f*in' Rolling Stones!) Learning how to market your stuff, and manage your money, will go a long way. Also stuff like copywriting and contracts (so you don't get ripped off) All the best to you!
 
Don't forget that for some music jobs, education is a mandatory requirement. Not what you learned and can do, but the piece of paper.
I dug this up - staff and three of our own students when we first started doing Higher Education - of the five members of staff, three still do music, me included, one died the day after he retired from teaching, and the other gave up teaching to work in a doctors surgery. Only one of the three students still does music. When I got offered my first teaching job, I wasn't qualified - and had to sign up to be allowed in. Only two of us were already qualified. I'm sure that the whole thing is flawed. Degrees are sort of 'door openers' - without one, you get no further, but that is pretty stupid really - what you know and what you can do are so much better at putting a value on you. In the UK, uni means 3 years of your life, big debt and questionable education?
 

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