Oregon Music School

Going to music school in Oregon is fun and exciting.  The first step is finding the right Oregon music school so that you can get the music degree you want, plus all the performance experience you desire.

The best Oregon music department might be big, or small depending on your preferences.  Do you like to get lost in huge crowds of other students and not be noticed?  If so, you don’t want to go to Western Oregon University… probably best to head to U of O or PSU for that.

But, if you prefer and Oregon music school that’s small, yet powerful, with small class sizes, lots of individual attention and virtually unlimited performances opportunities – there’s probably only one good choice for your Oregon music degree – WOU.

Oregon Music School Offers Wide Variety

At Western’s Music School, students find music performance opportunities in Oregon are the best of any college in the state.  This public university music program is more like a boutique small Oregon private music school. Here you find dedicated professors with small class sizes and a wide range of disciplines.  Perhaps the strongest Oregon collaborative piano program, is offered in the studio of Dr. Diane Baxter.

The best Oregon early music program is led by Dr. Keller Coker.  This music group has the largest selection of viola da gambas of any Northwest music school.

If  you are an Oregon Singer Songwriter and want a formal music education, you will appreciate the singing songwriter ensemble at WOU, led by veteran guitarist and composer, Christopher Woitach.

Oregon Musical Theater excels at WOU.  Here you can get a degree in either theater, or music or both!  Each year a new performance packs Rice auditorium with standing ovation performances.

Repeatedly voted the best for Oregon jazz studies, WOU retains the top jazz faculty in the state…  Tom Bergeron, Keller Coker, Mel Brown, Gordon Lee, Christopher Woitach, Kevin Walczyk, Kevin Helppie, to name a few.

The best Oregon Choral music is led by internationally acclaimed Solveig Holmquist 9PhD).

Ever taken an Oregon conducting lesson?  At WOU, you get the opportunity to take a full year of conducting lessons.  You may then continue with private conducting lessons, and even “major” in conducting.

One of the strongest Oregon music composition programs, is at WOU.  Here, two professors specialize in music composition, while most of the faculty are highly skilled at composition, in addition to their primary appointments.

The latest Oregon Music Recording Technology degree program is at WOU.  While the program is getting off the ground, several students have received a bachelor degree and several others pursuing a masters degree in recording technology.  In collaboration with Mike Moor, of Dead Aunt Thelma’s recording studio in Portland, the program offers real world recording experience in a celebrated studio, combined with the other great aspects of WOU…  For example, at WOU, not only will you use the ProTools system, but learn to create original electronic music and sound manipulation using software such as MAX/MPS/Jitter.

When thinking of an Oregon music school, one might expect to encounter an Oregon orchestra strings program.  At Western, the strings program is multi-dimensional.  Not only will you study classical technique, but you will have plenty of performance opportunities with popular music and early music.

Lastly, if you want Oregon singing lessons, WOU should be high on your list of considerations.  Study Opera, Early Music, Classical, Modern, Jazz and Pop!  What other college offers this variety for vocalists?

Oregon College Choir

One of the most renowned Oregon university choirs is from the “smaller is better” music school in Monmouth.

For most schools, college choir is a bit lame – often singing junk that you don’t like, all to get an easy credit.

However, Solveig Holmquist (PhD) assembled perhaps the finest Oregon College choir, that competes on a national and international level.  Her University choir frequently performs at Carnegie hall and a couple of years ago traveled to China on an international singing tour.

Imagine getting a vocal studies degree or majoring in something else and just joining the choir because you like college singing… and walking away with those sorts of listings on your resume!

There are three main Oregon University choir opportunities at WOU –

• The main college choir is open to all students
• The Chamber Singers is a select group of accomplished singers
• Soulstice – a jazz performance choir, founded by Kevin Helppie, and currently led by Sherry Alves.

Oregon College Singing

Oregon college singing can be one of the best activities when going to school.  Whether you take voice lessons in Oregon or just like to sing, there are plenty of opportunities across the state.

College singing in Oregon can be in a university choir, other music department programs, or at an open mic at your school.

For a good college choir Oregon has much to choose from.  Starting in the north, PSU has a great student choir… further to the south, you’ll find the finest Oregon college singing in Eugene.  Here, not only do students participate in the music department, but they tend to form elaborate high quality groups on their own – independent of music school activities.

Mid-way up the state, just a short jog off I5, is another great Oregon college for singing at western, or WOU.  There you will find numerous official groups and unofficial groups – for example, how about an Acapella Men’s group for fine Oregon college singing?  From oldies to modern improv, this group is fantastic!

Oregon Music Department

One small Oregon music department may be the best Oregon music school for you.  Music abounds in the state of Oregon, with thousands of bands playing the Portland scene, to high schools and exceptional college level instruction.  In looking for the best Oregon music department, naturally you want to find a college that offers a music degree with strong teachers in your field.

For Western Oregon music university, the primary programs are:

• Voice (classical, modern/pop, jazz)
• Collaborative piano
• Jazz (big band, all instruments)
• Guitar (classical, jazz, pop)
• Strings

Some things you’ll like about this Oregon music department, compared to other Oregon music schools, are the small class sizes and plentiful performance opportunities.

Gender Studies

Contrary to what you probably think when you hear the words “Gender Studies,” this field is not just about looking at women’s history. When I started my Masters Degree in History, I was concerned that I would need to take a course on Gender Studies and would feel uncomfortable as a male in a class that I perceived to be about male domination in society. Much to my surprise, I ended up enjoying the class as we studied not only women and their gender roles in history, but also the evolution of the idea of manliness and masculinity. I never expected to spend a week of class discussing the image of the male body presented in Rambo and the portrayal of war as a sport.

My Gender Studies class focused on gender roles and their evolution during war throughout American history; there was a particular emphasis on the Spanish-American War. I incorporated the lessons I learned in this course with the class I taught as a part of my GTA, one of the Graduate School Scholarships that I received. The concepts were very clear and applicable to myself and to the students I passed them on to. Although I’m not certain that I agree with every conclusion that my professors taught us about, I do think that there is some very interesting work being done today in studying the evolution of gender perceptions. I certainly gained a new understanding and perspective on American history through this course.

Graduate School Scholarships

How many Graduate School Scholarships should you be applying for?

The short answer is that you should apply for everything you possibly can. You never know, you might get all Graduate School Scholarships that you apply to receive, covering your tuition, fees, rent, and cost of living with a little to spare.

While I was working on my Masters Degree in History, I applied for the department specific graduate scholarship, the GTA, and a couple of other minor grants and received all of them. I had to work for the department, but the tasks were all relevant to my future as an educator in history and paid all my expenses. I actually managed to make money going to graduate school without an actual job off-campus. This is actually pretty realistic if you apply for the right types of Graduate School Scholarships.

The most desirable form of financial aid is a Graduate Teaching Assistantship (GTA). I had one my first year in my MA, teaching a Gender Studies class. It was a little outside my field, but I knew enough to teach the basic concepts while I learned more advanced material to bring into the classroom later. My GTA was the most rewarding part of my Graduate History Degree.

So, the long answer is to apply for everything that you can, but especially be sure to apply for any GTA positions. Also, remember that you have to pay loans back, but not grants or scholarships. Applying for scholarships is sometimes a time vs. reward consideration, if an essay is part of the application. Be sure to look into financial aid that is specifically intended for students in your department.

Masters Degree in History

While I was working on my Masters Degree in History, one of the required classes was a Research course on Historiography. The purpose of the class was to expand student’s understanding of various fields and schools of history. We discussed a wide variety of methods of research and writing for history, such as Microhistories, Environmental Studies, and Gender Studies.

I admit, I was fairly worried about the course; the syllabus predicted a significant amount of reading and writing throughout the term and I had a busy term grading as a service project for my Graduate School Scholarships. But, as I said, the course was required, so there was no way for me to finish my Masters Degree in History without it.

The final project for the class was a 15 page term paper on the historiography of any topic we chose. We had to present our project to the class the week before our final copy was due. One of the other students was presenting her research and we all noticed that she seemed to have done a lot more than the rest of us; she had a huge stack of notes and tons of information on the sources she had studied. It turned out that she thought it was 15 pages, single-spaced. Needless to say, the other 5 of us in the class were suddenly terrified that we needed to double the length of our papers. Fortunately, we were correct about the double-spacing. Funny little stories like that were some of my favorite moments during my Masters Degree in History.

Graduate History Degree

One of the classes I took during my Graduate History Degree, a course on Politics and Culture in Eastern Europe, had us reading a book each week. Based on that reading, we wrote a 1,000 word review of the book and rotated leading class discussion. My favorite week during the class, we divided the class into two groups and assigned each group a different book to read. One group read one side of the story of Tito and WWII Yugoslavia, while the other group read an opposing viewpoint. Basically, one author wrote a report for the Allies suggesting an alliance with Tito and the other author has the opposite view. So, all these students, each working on a Masters Degree in History, came in on discussion day with a biased view of the events. We sat down and argued about the interpretation of events that had been presented to us.

I had to lead discussion that day, which means I had prepared questions to ask everyone about the reading. Fortunately, when I’d applied for Graduate School Scholarships I was awarded a GTA position, so I already had quite a bit of experience with crafting discussion questions between the class I was assigned to help lecture and writing discussion questions weekly for my Gender Studies class. I’ve found that good questions are one of the more valuable skills you develop in a Graduate History Degree program.

In the end, my questions were primarily aimed at analyzing the biases of each author. The discussion went very well and everybody, I think, learned a little about identifying bias in a source. That postmodern idea of “Truth” being tainted by perception is one of the main themes of a Graduate History Degree.

Graduate School Financial Aid

If you are looking at pursuing a Master’s Degree, there are quite a few options available to you for Graduate School Financial Aid to assist you with the costs of tuition, fees, and living expenses. Your school will be able to give you the most information that is specific for the program to which you are applying, but I will tell you a little about the possibilities in my MA History program as an example. It might not be exactly the same at your school, but this might give you a few ideas on what to ask about.

The first thing to do is find out if your Graduate Degree Department offers specific scholarships to its students. My History program had several scholarships that were only available to History Graduate Students. You could only get one of them and you were required to perform some kind of service for the History Department, but it was a fairly easy process. Well worth the half hour or so it took to write an application. Your Department might also be able to suggest a number of other Graduate School Financial Aid options that are available from your school in any Department. Even if you are in the History program, the Music program might have a project that would make your skills useful.

Make sure to ask if your program offers any GTA (Graduate Teaching Assistantship) positions. Grading papers, teaching classes, and working for a professor teaching an intro class gets you valuable experience and funding. If you intend to teach with your Graduate Degree, this is a wonderful way to see what it is actually like. These positions are highly competitive, so prepare a strong application.

The last form of Graduate School Financial Aid that I have personal experience with is the Student Loan. Obviously, this is the least desirable option, as you have to pay back the money you receive with interest. Try not to rely on this option for you tuition needs. If you have no chance of receiving another type of funding from the school you are applying to, I would reevaluate your choice.