Calling LASALLE music students for advice! :)

S

seekress

New member
Hey guys, Stacy here. I'm thinking of applying to study music at LASALLE for August 2013 entry. NUS FASS is my other option but I think I'd rather learn a lifelong skill - music - than study History/Politics/Sociology which I'd mostly forget after a few years anyway.

I listen to a lot of different music but when it comes to performing I'm most comfortable playing pop with classical/jazz influences. I sing and I play the piano - got ABRSM Grade 8 practical and grade 5 theory but I'm E X T R E M E L Y rusty, it was only recently that I started playing again and realized that I want to study music.

As a result of my being rusty, I don't know if I should apply for the Diploma or Degree - what do you guys think is the difference between the two? If I do the diploma I suppose I'll be older than most of the people (I'm 19), but the degree seems to be stricter in its entry requirements, and theory-wise I'll have to do a lot more catching up for the degree.

Also, the LASALLE website says Grade 6 theory is a pre-requisite for the BA in Music. I'm wondering how strict this is - can I get in anyway as long as I do fine on the entrance theory test?

Regarding the audition, must the pieces I play be very complex and reflect that I'm (officially, anyway) of Grade 8 standard? And that's only for piano. For voice I don't have any training at all.

Does having only a diploma hamper your employment chances in the music industry? Is it common for those who do their diploma to go on and do their degree?

Thanks for reading guys, and looking forward to hearing your responses! :)

Stacy
 
Hi Stacy

With your musical background, I think you will be able to get into the course. But what do you really want to do as a career? The cert you get from studying music will not be much use unless you want to teach in a MOE school or you are aiming for post grad in music.
 
Personally the question of going to music school never came up. After I passed my Grade 8 ABRSM (by a whisker - so that was a good signal not to continue).

There are three types of musical education. The first is what we all have in common - learning piano, playing your scales, and passing your grade 8. Under the tutelege of a teacher who is probably demanding and strict.

The second education for me was listening to records. Partly for enjoyment, and partly - the process of listening to music and reverse engineering what you hear is one of the most important aspects of music education, and not one they normally teach you in school. I don't know if they do that in the unis. It may or may not be taught formally, and maybe it can't be taught at all because if a music teacher has different taste in music from you, you can't really learn that much. My guess is that formal music education will teach you industry norms, and how to be a professional.

The third education for me was producing music on my own. So far I have only made progress on the songwriting front, which coincidently is the aspect of music that involves the least work. You can write music while eating, running, sleeping, shitting, whatever. As far as I understand, there is only one way to learn how to write music well. First, you have to learn enough music / listen to enough music to develop a taste for it, and a real opinion about what works and doesn't. I wrote the first song I didn't feel like throwing away immediately more than 5 years of trying and failing. Writing a good tune is like solving a puzzle and you need practice to be good at it.

I won't be able to tell you what a music school can offer you. Maybe they can teach you how to be a good arranger. Maybe they will teach you standard studio techniques (although two of the greatest innovators in the studio - the Beach Boys and the Beatles - were essentially naive artists who were making things up as they went along). Then again, there is a long and illustrious list of pop stars who started out in art school - Beatles, Roxy Music, Talking Heads, David Bowie. It could be a good place if you have people bouncing ideas off each other.

If you have money, spend it on acquiring music, spend it on acquiring equipment. Why spend it on tuition?

And lastly, I think I said this before: personally I would not want to go into music looking to make money. Remember that there are no rock stars in the 21st century. Maybe a few packaged teen idols. The real money is in performing and touring. Not my kind of life. The decision I made for myself is, be an engineer, maybe even IT because at least that makes it easier for you to be a music programmer. Get a steady job. In your spare time, find a few friends and make music. If you do something you really love then there are a lot of people doing that thing that you really love, and it'll be very hard to stand out. I haven't heard a lot of music in the 21st century that's truly groundbreaking in the way that the Beatles, Bowie, Velvet Underground etc were truly groundbreaking. Professionally and creatively, music is at a dead end.
 
hey guys - LASALLE replied to some of my questions:

"Dear Stacy,

Greetings from LASALLE College of the Arts!

Please find below the answer to your questions:

1. The Grade 6 ABRSM Theory Qualification is a preferred certificate. Students need not have the certificate especially if they do well in our internal theory tests and our audition itself.

2. The diploma is a more technical course compared to degree. The BA(Hons) programme is definitely more rigorous and the curriculum is also more academic compared to the Diploma. Of course, the BA(Hons) Programme is also a validated on by our partner university, Goldsmiths College, University of London. The Degree is also more specialised. Students choose to go into one of our 5 specialisms of Popular Music Performance, Classical Music Performance, Jazz Music Performance, Composition or Music Technology.

3. Yes, it is common for students who have completed their Diploma to move on to do a specialised degree in Music at LASALLE. Regarding your chances for employment, we ensure that all our students are well equipped with the skills to have gainful employment. However, of course the level of qualification one has plays a part in various organisations' requirements and assessments of its candidates.

4. Our student cohort is 40% international and 60% local.

I hope this clarifies!

Best Regards,
Jacklyn Ho"
 
greybackshadow:

why is it difficult for you to get into yong siew toh??

soft administrator & centralcatchment:

thanks for your input :)

regarding employability and money, I think I'm pretty screwed whether I go to NUS or LASALLE. My main two interests in life are journalism and music, none of which pay well in Singapore. If I go to NUS to study History + Politics it will indirectly prepare me for journalism, but I won't get a rigorous education in music. If I go to LASALLE I can learn music and still pursue journalism on the side by getting internships, setting up a student newspaper in LASALLE, etc.

centralcatchment:

You seem to have taught yourself pretty well :) Why did you barely pass grade 8 - were you just not interested in classical music?

I suppose anything - history, music, literature - can be self-taught if you're disciplined and passionate enough. And I do know some people who have become quite skilled and knowledgeable in their respective fields simply by their own effort, without any teachers. But in that case, why go to school or university at all? There are undeniable benefits to having a teacher, who will help you separate the signals from the noise when you're trying to learn something, who will push you to make up for your own failings in discipline. And like you said, it's very tempting to be in a school surrounded by people with similar interests, who're able to bounce ideas off each other.

Perhaps globally music hasn't made any big breakthroughs in this century, but the music scene in Singapore is still young and developing... I'm curious to see what new developments emerge.

leng:

and what are YOUR plans, mr. leng? :) why you dao my smses
 
its hard for me cause yong siew toh's students are mainly foreigners and its a tough competition. standards are really really high. i don't know about lasalle. but yst focuses more on classical and a little on jazz, film, ethnic.
 
greybackshadow said:
its hard for me cause yong siew toh's students are mainly foreigners and its a tough competition. standards are really really high. i don't know about lasalle. but yst focuses more on classical and a little on jazz, film, ethnic.
Click to expand...

Hmm... yongsiewtoh's composition & recording arts major are mostly made up of singaporeans :)
 
seekress said:
centralcatchment:

You seem to have taught yourself pretty well :) Why did you barely pass grade 8 - were you just not interested in classical music?

I suppose anything - history, music, literature - can be self-taught if you're disciplined and passionate enough. And I do know some people who have become quite skilled and knowledgeable in their respective fields simply by their own effort, without any teachers. But in that case, why go to school or university at all? There are undeniable benefits to having a teacher, who will help you separate the signals from the noise when you're trying to learn something, who will push you to make up for your own failings in discipline. And like you said, it's very tempting to be in a school surrounded by people with similar interests, who're able to bounce ideas off each other.

Perhaps globally music hasn't made any big breakthroughs in this century, but the music scene in Singapore is still young and developing... I'm curious to see what new developments emerge.
Click to expand...

You have to be a little more clear about what you want. You just can't "study music". You just can't "go to school".

There has to be a distinction between what you want to learn from music. In music there are different skills, and different people excel at different skills. There is a fair amount of confusion about what are "musical skills" because they get lumped together in one package. But in order to think about what kind of musician you are, you go through all these skills like a checklist, and then it will be clear which are the ones you have and which are the ones you don't have.

The most obvious skill as a musician is that of a virtuoso. I can assure you that I am no virtuoso. I am more of a klutz. I also think about people like David Bowie who doesn't do much more than strum a guitar on stage or play rudimentary sax. Or rappers who can't sing, singers who can't rap. Or if you think about the Beatles, Lennon and McCartney were the great songwriters, while George Harrison was the guitar virtuoso. If you switched things around, Lennon and McCartney were just "good enough" guitar players, and George Harrison wrote a few great songs without being a great songwriter. I don't know if Wagner knew how to play, I don't think he was a concert pianist. For these people, their skills and what they bring to the table lie somewhere else. Why I scraped grade 8, in retrospect, yes. I'm not that hot about classical music. In spite of its name, it is probably not the definitive form of music, or its apex, or a peak from which we have never reach again. Maybe in some aspects, but not all.

You probably need a good teacher to learn how to be a performer or a virtuoso. You need to go to school.

Another skill in music is that of being a songwriter, or a producer. Learning to be a songwriter is something you can do on your own, by trial and error or learning from listening. Being a producer, it helps to be in a community where people are doing similar things, and then it is like joining a guild. That would probably involve going to school.

Another somewhat related skill is being a good listener. Knowing what you want, developing good ears, understanding your own taste in music. That, other than having a few friends who can introduce you to new stuff, or reading music magazines, is something you can do on your own.

I don't want to sound like, "going to school is always a waste of money". It's not that simple. There are things you can learn in school, and other things that are better off you learning on your own.

A more general comment on higher education: the objective has to be learning how to learn. For subjects like History / Politics, what you are really learning is a method. What you will be taught are the common Big Ideas, and how they apply to different stuff. Then it would make it easier for you to just pluck a book off the shelf and read it. What school can teach you will be relatively skeletal. It only makes it possible for you to build up your real body of knowledge on your own afterwards. You can probably finish off in 3 years or less. Unless you want to stay in school for more, you might as well go for a liberal arts education. Why anybody would want to stay in school for 4 years and pick up knowledge in only one subject is beyond me. University is not extremely expensive like in the US so there is no "crisis in higher education" in Singapore. In fact, if you are doing IT, you should just try to pick up the really complex stuff, like algorithms, operating systems, computer architecture. Then everything else you can learn by going online and browsing through coursera.

What youngsters don't always understand is that the university had its time and place in the pre-internet era, when it was the only place where you could properly transmit knowledge. Today, all knowledge is divided into stuff you can learn from the internet (ie on your own) and stuff you can only learn from a mentor. What people like you who go to school need to know is how to sift between the two.

I think that what Singapore potentially has to bring to the table for music is: we're nearby some pretty interesting musical traditions. Chinese music has dabbled in atonality a long time before it became part of 20th century classical music, and that is partly why Sonic Youth has a larger than expected following from Chinese people. There is Indian music. We are living a stone's throw away from Bali with their gamelan music. What we have to offer to the world is something that incorporates all these things into western pop music. But it hasn't been done successfully enough to make an impact.

Good luck. I can't believe I'm talking to somebody who wasn't even born when Nirvana released Nevermind!
 
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There has to be a distinction between what you want to learn from music. In music there are different skills, and different people excel at different skills. There is a fair amount of confusion about what are "musical skills" because they get lumped together in one package. But in order to think about what kind of musician you are, you go through all these skills like a checklist, and then it will be clear which are the ones you have and which are the ones you don't have.
You probably need a good teacher to learn how to be a performer or a virtuoso. You need to go to school.
Another skill in music is that of being a songwriter, or a producer. Learning to be a songwriter is something you can do on your own, by trial and error or learning from listening. Being a producer, it helps to be in a community where people are doing similar things, and then it is like joining a guild. That would probably involve going to school.
Another somewhat related skill is being a good listener. Knowing what you want, developing good ears, understanding your own taste in music. That, other than having a few friends who can introduce you to new stuff, or reading music magazines, is something you can do on your own.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the detailed breakdown :)

I don't know if the different skills can be pigeonholed so easily though - certainly you can teach yourself songwriting, but does that mean music school has nothing to offer in this area that you can't already learn yourself? And while having a professional teacher helps immensely in performance technique, does this mean people who never go to music school will be forever lacking in their performance skills? You can't really predict that 'you'll need teachers for skill x' and 'you don't need teachers for skill y'. A single skill can technically be acquired in a lot of different ways, each with their own pros and cons.

You have to be a little more clear about what you want. You just can't "study music". You just can't "go to school".
Click to expand...

I suppose you mean I need to be clearer about what music skills I want to focus on - songwriting, performing, producing, etc. And I will confess that I don't know. I am a music newbie, it will be years before I can consider myself an accomplished musician, and I really don't know exactly what kind of musician I will become.

And the thing is - it's okay to not know. How many go to university with an absolutely clear idea of their future career path? How many go to their first job knowing it's what they want to do for the rest of their lives?

Not everyone at age 18 or 19 will have read enough history to know exactly what periods of history they're interested in, or have had enough musical experience to know what areas of music they want to focus on. Ideally we'd all have our futures perfectly mapped out early on in life - but it is completely normal and even desirable to not always know what the future holds.

What youngsters don't always understand is that the university had its time and place in the pre-internet era, when it was the only place where you could properly transmit knowledge. Today, all knowledge is divided into stuff you can learn from the internet (ie on your own) and stuff you can only learn from a mentor. What people like you who go to school need to know is how to sift between the two.
Click to expand...

Definitely a lot of things can be learnt without going to school, but if you have the opportunity to learn it in school then well, why not? No one should feel obliged to take the self-learning path.
 
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Well, I've broken down for you the different components - what's possible to learn on your own, and what you'd be better off with a teacher for. I am saying this with the benefit of hindsight. I've learnt songwriting on my own, although I would say that it's only after I've been taught music theory that I can learn it on my own. Who are the greats? Lennon, McCartney, Pete Townsend, Alex Chilton - how many of them went to music school? Because to be a songwriter you need to practice: in your head you're always flipping notes around. What if this note comes first? What if I put that note there? All this is your own work, who's going to teach you all this detail?

A very closely related skill is production / arrangement, and I can see why you'd want to go to school for that. That is more craftsmanship, which is something you'd go to school for. In fact, I'm guessing that in composition school, they'd teach you more the "perspiration" component of genius, rather than the "inspiration". They won't teach you how to write a catchy hook / leitmotif: either you got one or you don't. More likely, they'd teach you how to use it effectively in your music. When I was younger, I was better at coming up with catchy hooks. When I got older, that was when I gradually learnt how to incorporate them in a song. Playing is something that would benefit from a teacher because a teacher can correct your bad habits. A teacher can stand outside of you and tell you where are the naff notes. Yes, there are a lot of untaught people who turned out to be good players. But maybe they also had teachers, like their band mates?

Yes, you can go into music school with the notion that, I'll find out later what my best skill is. But when I was your age I already had some idea: I knew that I had a great pair of ears, I knew that I was lousy at playing, I knew that I'd better try to be a writer or a producer rather than a performer. And it's not easy for anybody to make their way to Grade 8, so presumably you already know very well what your own strengths and weaknesses are. Maybe I was lucky: in sec school I had a good friend whom I used to argue about music all the time with. Today he is a music critic (not surprising).

Maybe you could just try to write your own song and see if you can do it. I didn't know that I'd be a songwriter until one day wrote something I didn't want to trash immediately. At the very least you have a rough idea.

I don't recommend going into school before you know what you want, although I must admit that I did go into uni not knowing exactly what I did want. Thing is, figuring out more clearly what you want is not really something that you should do in uni because that's something you don't really need the uni for. Universities are good for specialised, higher knowledge, not the generic knowledge you can learn on your own by reading music magazines or reading reviews or listening to music. I mean - Miles Davis was a Julliard dropout. Herbie Hancock didn't study music - he studied Electrical Engineering. That tells you what people think about music school huh. I usually categorised everything based on what I thought - should I learn this in school, or should I learn this on my own. Whatever modules you pick in the uni, this is usually at the back of your head.

Even if you don't know what you want, pretend you do. Start with something concrete: ie ("I want to be a (performer / writer / producer) and I like (jazz / pop / avant garde noise metal) ") Then you will have focus, and you'll usually have a perspective from which to judge what skills are good to add. Don't worry, you can change that template as you go along.

Another thing about tertiary institutions and I'm sure this also applies to music: professors like to teach you what they like to teach you, but that's not necessarily what you want. Maybe you'll learn through the process of disagreeing with them. But the feeling, at the end of a semester when you're asking yourself, "what did I learn that shit for?" is not a nice one. And picking a module to help you figure out if you like a certain something - you'll soon find out that it's pretty expensive to do that. I would recommend that you pick your teacher carefully. If you have too many "artistic differences" with your teacher, if he tries to shoehorn you into certain styles that you aren't comfortable with, neither of you will be very happy.

I know that the application process is gruelling but once you're in school you're in a race against time to make use of all the resources / opportunities there, so you'd better get started early and not figure out what you want from school only after you've enrolled in the wrong classes. Isn't it better to only have to ask your profs stuff that you can't figure out on your own, rather than you spend a lot of time and effort learning it in uni, then later on, you think, "damn, I should have been asking more valuable questions".

When you're in school, the metaknowledge is the most important. Learning how to learn is more important that learning itself. So to take your example of history, I actually knew that I wanted to study 20th century history more than any other period, because it was more modern, more relevant to our age, more complex, we knew more about it. So I did have a rough idea. At the same time I was a little puzzled that so much of what we learnt in history was about the method of history: how history is actually clouded in peoples' perspective, how history is always tainted by the views of the reporter. At school I thought, "this is such a cop-out, like they don't really want to teach us the real content". But now I think that it was something truly important to teach. So what I really learnt was how to learn history. (Just noticed your first post, you said that learning history and literature are not lifelong skills - not true!) And when I finished my history modules, I thought to myself, "damn, so much of what I learnt I could have just borrowed books from NLB for free. I should have been able to talk cock with the professor and ask him to write me letters".

Likewise for music, maybe they'll teach you how to help yourself. How to gain the right contacts in industry, how to practice, what to listen for in music. That is the really valuable stuff, not the actual content.

Remember, if you have a head start, it's easier to impress your professors, it's easier for them to write you letters, or act as references, and that opens the door to jobs, grad school, etc etc. How are you going to do that if you have to spend half of your time "figuring out what you want"? The letters are very valuable because they are truly the only thing that university and nothing else can give you.

As for you being an 18-19 years old, you already have some idea of who you are as a person. What you eventually learn and end up doing is determined by what kind of person you are, and you already know that. Well, a little bit of that anyway. What do you like doing? What can you not stand? You already know. I learnt that I am a jazz person after listening to a lot of jazz. I learnt that I'm not a classical person after listening to a lot of classical. You don't go to school for that kind of thing: you just listen to anything you can get your hands on. At the very least, what you can do before going into music school is to learn how to be a music critic. You can buy a whole shelf full of CDs and it won't be as expensive as tuition.

Last of all, anything any music teacher (including myself) tells you is an opinion and not a fact. You can question what he said, but he's not going to change his mind just for you. You ask me a lot of "what if this is not always true"? Well I've already said what I said, so you answer that one yourself!
 
Hi could I just jump onto your thread? Cuz I need similar advice!

I've just finished my A's and am looking at getting into Lasalle, preferably a Ba course. I wanna get in through singing, but I've seen some extremely discouraging comments about music in Lasalle on another thread, saying it's not worth the money and stuff. I really hope that isn't the truth so can any voice students in lasalle shed some light? Is vocal training in lasalle effective, and are the 3 years spent there fruitful? Also, how high are the standards for entry? Like are the students that enter lasalle of comparable standards to, let's say, top 50 of famous singing contests? I mean standards at the point of audition. Thanks so much guys!
 
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