As college students, we can often feel defined by our majors. When we meet new people, we share it with as much facility as we do our names, and we are forced to suffer the stereotypes with which our majors are associated.
As a recently declared music major, I find stereotypes thrown on me that don’t necessarily conform to my idea of a Columbia music major. I am frequently asked, “How was the audition? What do you play?” and the either impressed or plain shocked, “Wow.”
I must admit, there was no audition. I don’t currently play in an ensemble, and I don’t play individually aside from weekly lessons, though I played oboe in the Columbia University Wind Ensemble last year. So much for the “wow” that I imagine connotes my having so much passion that I am willing to pursue an art rather than studying traditional academia and am willing to sacrifice security for “happiness.”
Actually, the music program at Columbia is probably nothing like what people on the outside imagine it to be. People often imagine the traditional study of music as it is in a conservatory—excruciatingly long hours of practice, monthly playing tests to just stay in the program, and hours of music theory and composition.
At Columbia, a student entering the music program should begin to see himself less as a musician than as a music scholar.
“You have to realize the kind of place Columbia is,” said professor Brad Garton, director of undergraduate studies in the music department. “It’s not a conservatory. It’s a scholarly institution.”
This might be disappointing for those who desire the kind of “live and breathe music” education that a conservatory provides. But Garton insists that Columbia’s program is more practical in many ways. “Conservatories train a thousand students for one or two jobs. A broad background will make you a better musician, performer, composer.”
However, Columbia does not offer as many performance opportunities as many students would like. At other institutions, performance every semester is often part of the degree requirements. At Columbia, the requirements include four semesters of music theory, two semesters of history, and electives. But aside from a keyboard proficiency test, no performance at all is required.
“The music faculty is made of scholars who are acutely aware of how much there is to know about music beyond playing it. We’re not a conservatory. That’s not our mission,” professor David Cohen, head of the music theory department, said.
Because of this, any student, even one with no musical background at all, could decide to major in music at Columbia. And though the major carries a hefty 40- credit requirement, there are only two different core sets of classes. The music department allows electives from other disciplines as long as they are 3000- or 4000-level courses.
Like other departments at Columbia, the music department is dedicated to a liberal arts education. Garton said that with a liberal arts education, students could pursue four diverse music-related areas at Columbia—history, ethnomusicology, theory, and composition. Though he admitted that there isn’t really a focused study for performance, Garton emphasized that students should seek such an education at a conservatory.
However, Cohen said that performance is still integral to a musical education. “I hope the students don’t think the faculty don’t want them to play. Fundamental to music is to play it. We don’t want to add more requirements on the students so there can be a performance aspect. We train scholars of music. This doesn’t mean you give up music. If you love music, you should love every aspect of it. Performance or theoretical,” he said.
Theory, Cohen explained, should be a foundation to performance, not necessarily a stand-alone discipline. Columbia’s music major is not designed to discourage musicians but rather to give them a more substantial background than performance alone could provide.
“Musical experience, we have found, becomes richer, more precise, and more vivid when it is linked to a conceptual and technical understanding of how music actually works,” Cohen said,.“Such an understanding of music enables us to listen and hence also to perform and compose with a deeper and more precise understanding of the various components of music and how they work, separately and together, to produce the total effect that we hear.”
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