Hi, Before i continue with whether you should go to lasalle. I need to ask you a few questions.
1.How driven are you to play/teach music?
2.Are you willing to practice on your own and find outlets to jam and practice your craft other then in school?
3.Do you want to specialize in POP or JAZZ, cause in lasalle you have to choose, Bo pian..
If your serious about playing music, honestly it doesn't matter which school you go to. It doesn't mean that by going to Berklee or lasalle your going to become a superstar in the future. Some of the local musicians here didn't even get a music education and yet their playing at the biggest clubs here.
Yes, going overseas will broaden your outlook and you get more opportunities to play with some big names but there are a lot of good musicians here who can provide you with the same opportunities and share their experience's with you. Go to Harry's and the various clubs and check out the bands there. Their so many good players like christy, rick smith, Andrew lim, wen, colin yong and the list goes on. You might have to weigh the pro's and con's before you make the decision to go local or overseas.
The syllabus at lasalle is not pretty and your going to have to do alot of your own practicing and research. Overall i think that it would be a good stepping stone for any local musician who wishes to pursue music here. If you intend to go overseas to study i recommend that you look at the faculty of the school your going to before you choose your school. Questions you should be asking yourself are whether you have heard of this guy/gal, is he/she a reputable teacher? Do some research on them and lastly do you want to learn your craft from him/her. Its better to go to a school in which your interested in learning from their faculty members rather then just going because its famous. An example would be going to players school of music to learn from jeff berlin if your a bassist, or going to steve vai's guitar school (if he has one) to learn if your a guitarist.
At lasalle, i had the opportunity to learn from 2 very good bassists/ teachers, joshua wan and christy smith. It was a valuable experience. Even though i have my complains about the school, one has to realize that nothing is perfect in this world. If your after a decent music education and your willing to put in the hours of practice you should go down to the school and talk to the faculty members that are there. For Popular music try looking for Darren Moore and for jazz try looking for Tim o'Dwyer, ask them about the syllabus and clarify your doubts about the school before making a decision.
Lastly, choosing to study music is a very niche path and opportunites in Singapore are honestly quite few so do spend some time thinking about this before you make the plunge to go all out into it.
