What am I doing?

November 28, 2008 at 8:37 PM

I've been completely focused on going to grad school for violin performance for so long but today I applied to a program for violin repair. I'm not completely sure why I did it, but I did. I'm interested in doing such a thing and I'm even interested in making violins. If I decided I really liked it, I would probably try enroll in the Violin Making School of America. Some of the reason I did this was because I want another year of preparation before I actually try for performance. I want to go a good school for performance, one that is well-established and prestigious. I would do this program and still take lessons, perhaps from a teacher in Minneapolis since that would be close. There would be orchestra's in close proximity for me to audition for and attempt to be in. I would still play but my day to day activities would be focused on other things. I think another part of the reason is because I'm not certain that, even in a year, I could get into a masters program for performance.

In other news, I have a new bow! It's a really nice bow, made by Guillaume. It's worth a lot more than I paid for it and it's just an awesome bow. It works very well with my violin and it makes my bowing technique so much better.

From Ruth Kuefler
Posted via 68.103.50.46 on November 29, 2008 at 3:45 AM

Sounds like a pretty good plan actually. I've toyed around with ideas from transferring schools to switching to viola, and ended up staying in one spot and getting a viola minor, and probably taking an extra year to finish undergrad. The way I see it, as long as you're going after what you really want, and doing a good job, there's no deadline as to when you have to accomplish it. Best of luck to you!

From Tommy Atkinson
Posted via 199.172.240.177 on November 30, 2008 at 10:07 PM

If you want the option of another year before you do a Master's, could you defer your graduation at all? I know there are lots of schools that have 3 graduation dates: a spring, summer, and winter. If you're really nervous about getting into MM programs, you could just not apply for graduation in the spring, and if you get into a school you like, just apply for it over the summer. Not sure how your specific school works, but that seems like a reasonably safe way to do it. If your auditions don't work out this spring, next year you could just take orchestra, chamber music, and lessons - maybe just get the minimum credit hours that will keep you enrolled.

Just a thought.

From Andrew Paa
Posted via 74.207.63.204 on December 2, 2008 at 5:36 AM

Hey, I have considered that as an option, but it would be way to expensive to do such a thing at Luther. It would be cheaper if I did graduate but it would still cost be $560 a credit and I would have to take at least 6 and then I'm not guaranteed any classes/ensembles/teacher for lessons. I'm at my max for taking out loans at the moment.

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What am I doing?

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