Accommodating non-music majors in the applied music studio.(Forum Focus: College Faculty)

Music units in colleges and universities are facing increasing pressure for applied music instruction, especially in piano, from students who are not planning to major in music. Most of us have had experience with those very bright high school students who excel in our studios, but who plan to pursue pre-health, engineering or any of a variety of other fields in college. Music is a very important part of their lives, something they do not want to give up, but their academic majors and their careers will take them in other directions. They will likely be significant supporters of music and the other arts, so it is in our best interest to do everything possible to keep them engaged.

Unless a music department is under-enrolled in some performance areas, these non-major students place a strain on a very time-intensive and costly form of instruction. How music departments handle this challenge seems to vary dramatically based on the size and character of the department. The most important thing is to make sure that, no matter how an institution plans on handling applied study for non-majors, the admission literature and all other recruitment messages make those policies absolutely clear, allowing prospective students and their parents to know exactly what to expect.

Some institutions keep it very simple and do not offer any lessons to students who are not music majors. Others offer the possibility of lessons that do not carry academic credit, staffed either by graduate assistants or through a preparatory program or community music division. Students "register" and pay for those lessons through a completely separate, non-course-related process. Some colleges find it easier to justify staffing and giving academic credit for classroom-type instruction and offer group lessons, particularly at the beginning level, and most often in piano. This can be a great way for students to get started, but it can lead to frustration later on when there are no opportunities for continued study. Some faculties have extended this group instruction model to more advanced levels of instruction with great success.

When colleges do offer applied instruction to non-majors, they either make room in full-time studios or hire additional adjunct instructors. Either way, the cost of ...