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Is there a reason clarinet and trumpet are not good choices?

Musically, it's probably all a wash, but as far as scholarship money goes, the least popular get the most.

A band teacher starting out beginners has two problems: choose an instrument the child will succeed on, and end up with a balanced set of players.

If a child's first attempt produces something close to a musical tone, they are assumed to be more suited to this one. It may or may not be true. But some sets of teeth and lip muscles possibly make it much easier or harder to play trombone as opposed to oboe or flue. Maybe. A band teacher has almost no individual time to work on tone production, and few students have private teachers at first. So there's a bit of pressure to make a good first guess.

At the same time a band of all drums or all saxophones is very difficult to work with, and as musical fashions change what the kids come in wanting to play changes.

There is no call for sax in the classical world. There is no call for bass clarinet in the popular world. Clarinet, flute, trumpet, trombone, tuba are mainstream and don't go completely out of fashion, but pop music is played on guitar, drums, and synth. High school music is taught toward the wind ensemble that grew out of the military band that grew out of the brass band roughly 130 years ago. What the future will bring is anybody's guess. At one time accordion schools were packed with students, and ensembles of 100 players were not unknown.

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping for.

I got a full tuition scholarship on clarinet. They usually need many more clarinets than oboes.

Good for you. From discussions with college & conservatory teachers, this is really an exception. There must be at least 250 student clarinetists for every oboist.

So the popular ones like piano and violin are hard to get scholarship too?

From a musical standpoint, learning a 2nd instrument can only enhance and broaden the learning experience. I believe that my students benefit greatly from participating in band, choir and orchestra.

From a social standpoint, I must say that the adult friends that I have sustained over the years from high school are ones that were in band with me.

CY, I don't know how familiar you are with college level education in the USA. Unlike many European countries, it is not free. We have private universities and public universities, which are partially underwritten through taxes.

Tuition, not room and board, runs from under $5,000/yr at public institutions to over $25,000/yr at elite private institutions.

To help students financially, there is tuition assistance. This is a combination of grants and loans, depending on what the student has enrolled in. Scholarships are completely different and are based on merit (or at least, that was the original concept - some are now based on other factors).

A college of music, within the university, may need certain instrumentalists to fill out their student orchestra. Those are most likely to receive financial grants. Consider it a incentive/bribe to attend that particular college. Your local chapter of the music teachers might offer a merit based scholarship to the student who has performed the most brilliantly. It can be used at any institution of the student's choosing.

Some institutions, like Peabody or Curtis, are fully underwritten by donors who appreciate the importance of the arts. There is no tuition to attend. In effect, each student is a scholarship student, as entrance is totally based on the student having achieved the highest possible level of mastery possible.

At music schools, there is a rough correspondence of student instrumentalists to the normal composition of the orchestra. Public university music schools also have strong band programs, again, because they are feeding grads to local schools throughout the state, and they, too, must support their athletic departments (who are major fund raisers for the universities).

To be clear, availability of student loans, usually a major component of student tuition assistance, is not a scholarship. It's deferred payment, albeit generally at a favorable interest rate.

I don't think it's being "popular" instruments that most band and orchestra kids play the clarinet, trumpet, flute or violins: I think the school music specialists and band/orchestra directors find the students with previous musical backgrounds usually in piano who can quickly adapt to the more challenging instruments such as bassoon, oboe, french horns and versatile percussionist. The "select" instruments are "selected" students.

Years ago in my high school both viola players (another girl and I) were also the piano accomplanists for choir and band. And, from my studio, the kids in band mainly have played bassoon, french horn, and percussion. Others have played trumpet, clarinet, flute and viola. These instrumentalists mentioned also took private lessons on their other instuments and played in MENC festivals (adjudication) and also State. One majored in basson (MM) another minored in trumpet. At present 2 of my former students are heavily involved in music at their middle and high schools and are considering become music educators. One is a percussionist, the other is french horn. Both are well established at the piano. Both are girls. One is also doing piano composition.

I think it's exciting when my piano students find their abilites transfer to voice, band and orchestra instruments or to composition. How they choose to spend their lives in music is a very personal decision for them. I'm honored to have been any part of their development as a musician.

To add a bit to the college scholarship question:

One college respresentative told us that they just don't know which instruments will be plentiful in any particular year. Some years, it seems they have all violas. The next year, everyone plays clarinet. We discovered several schools along the way that seemed a bit short on violins. My daughter was awarded scholarship money for violin at 4 different universities. This was not her intended major; the money was offered because they needed violinists in their orchestra.

Obviously, if you are intent on being a performer, you want the strongest program you can get into. So does everyone else, so competition will be intense, and the money may not follow. And music kids applying to Ivy League schools (which don't give scholarships) don't have much of an edge, either - that is a very common pursuit of Ivy-caliber kids.

But a high level of competency on an instrument - any instrument (there's a school in Ohio that likes bagpipes!) - can translate into scholarship if you are flexible enough to consider schools that need you.

If you are serious about hoping for scholarship money, my recommendation is to choose a versatile instrument that the student likes, buy or rent a decent instrument, and invest in some private lessons. Just like with piano.

If this orchestra has 20 violins and there are 40 students major in violin, I assume the top 20 students will be in this orchestra and receiving financial grants?

How about piano major students? Since there is only one piano in an orchestra, what kind of financial grants a piano major student could get? PianoDad's son is probably one of the top pianists in his age group and PianoDad seems to hope to get scholarship from French horn? And if he does, does it mean PianoSon needs to major in horn and minor in piano?

I was hoping it might help on the college (non-music) application. So even you are in the all state orchestra or winning some competitions won't help at all?

I doubt it. If there are that many violins, they don't need to give scholarships. Just because you are in the orchestra does not mean you get a scholarship. In my D's case, I think there are only about 11-14 violins total. The money is used to attract more.



A excellent collaborative piano student might well get a scholarship, with expectation that he/she participate in chamber music or be available for accompanying. As for other piano students, it depends upon what the school needs. Do they need to fill up the piano studio? Otherwise, I doubt playing the piano will directly = money. Usually music departments have x number of dollars that they have to share. Committee meetings are held as various studio teachers argue for the students they want. A studio that has many applicants is not going to be able to get a large share of the money, unless there is someone truly outstanding.



Good horn players are hard to come by. Good pianists less so. A scholarship might well be associated with his willingness to participate in orchestra, but not necessarily to major in music. In my daughter's case, she applied as a non-major, and they told her they would up the offer if she would consider majoring. Since she was "undecided" as her major anyway, she decided to give it a try.

The following link shows the number of entries, by instrument, for the ABRSM grade exams during 2009.

It gives some perspective to the popularity of various instruments though it gives no indication of the grades involved.

http://www.abrsm.org/?page=press/factfile/instrument.html

Piano*Dad just hopes that eldest son wants to continue his music participation in some fashion when he gets to the university level. At this point, Piano*Son has no interest in a music concentration. I suspect history, international relations, economics, or some other social science will command his attention. Music may wind up being a 'minor' or merely an extracurricular pursuit. That's fine with me.

But, .... there is always a but ....

... he hopes (as do I) that his musical resumé will help in two ways. First, it should send a strong signal to most schools that the applicant isn't simply a grade drudge; that in fact he has some depth beyond the conformity of the average high school classroom. This is important, even at those ivy league schools. All schools need multiple criteria for deciding how to craft the best incoming freshman class that they can create. You can bet that a DVD of his best performances (on piano, and hopefully on horn as well) will be a part of his application packet, as will a fact sheet listing what he has accomplished.

From talking with music faculty members, we already know that when a DVD from an applicant crosses their desks, if they like what they see they can weigh in with the admissions office to give that applicant a bump in the rankings.

Secondly, there are indeed very good programs out there that will spend some money on students who bring an attractive package of skills to their campus. This is clearly more likely at second tier schools that are striving to move up than at places that are already the most highly selective (like Yale, for instance).

Music is part of that package of skills.

How much will schools offer besides admission? That's clearly idiosyncratic. Once you get beyond general merit scholarships because the school simply wants you, I strongly suspect it is driven by needs for less common instruments, and by how much value the institution places on having a good orchestra, wind ensemble, etc. It'll also be driven by the type of school it is (i.e. does it have a full performance degree program or not). You have to do some homework to find out what schools want, what scholarships they offer, and what commitments they expect in return.

In our case, scholarships based on musical ability would be nice, but they're not likely to be the only, or even the main, rationale for looking at a particular school. General merit scholarships are our primary hope. Specific music scholarships are fine as long as they don't fully bind the student to a very specific academic path (music performance major on horn, for instance).

A program that was attractive to us for other reasons (strong academic departments in my son's areas of interest) would rise above other schools if scholarship money were forthcoming on the basis of a gentle commitment like that.

Both of my kiddos played trumpet in band. My daughter was always more the musician and inevitably was 1st chair throughout HS, only swapping off briefly with one of her guy friends. What a band program will do is hook your kids up with some really decent other young people, at a time in their lives when that is really a good thing. There are many social activities and "the band" becomes a real force in their lives in a very positive way. I will admit that the band is not an orchestra. Our small town did not have one. Yes, the football games can be monotonous, but the kiddos give it their all and there are of course band only concerts with better repertoire. My daughter also played keyboard there as well on occasion. The kids tend to build relationships that last,and even though my daughter is 10 years out of HS at this point, she still has "band friends".

I have had some of my students that applied to college on two instruments, so there are no liabilities that I can see.

I appreciate you and the others sharing your children's and students' experiences with the band. The social connection is really what I would like for him and I am glad to hear that playing both piano and a band instrument is viewed so favorably. Thank you again.