B.A. in Music

[morgan1611]

Has anyone here earned a B.A. in music from T.E. or Excelsior? I've been working on Cleps for some basic courses, but of course I want to take ones that will apply. I plan to portfolio a lot of the music specific courses. Just wondered if anyone had been down this road and had some advice.
Thanks!

[cannoda]

Originally Posted by morgan1611

Has anyone here earned a B.A. in music from T.E. or Excelsior? I've been working on Cleps for some basic courses, but of course I want to take ones that will apply. I plan to portfolio a lot of the music specific courses. Just wondered if anyone had been down this road and had some advice.
Thanks!

I've looked at it. You'll find that it's a lot harder to find courses for a standard music curriculum than say, psychology or business. While online music theory courses exist, they are not necessarily easy to find, are expensive, or not offered on a regular basis. Traditional music history courses (Antiquity through 20-century) are available. Ohio University has two courses, Excelsior has a new one-semseter course, and Athabasca has a new course. Athabasca also has upper-level courses on folk and popular music if you are interested. Berklee also has several courses that would apply toward a music major, but is fairly expensive.

There are lots of DL upper-level courses in Jazz, Jazz History and American Music on the web. Fort Hayes State University seems to offer these courses on a regular basis, but many others schools also offer these courses.

You might want to look at MIT's Opencourseware: Free Online MIT Course Materials | Music and Theater Arts | MIT OpenCourseWare to provide some structure to your portfolio. You could actually follow the syllabus and assignments for these courses on your own and attempt a portfolio based on that work.

One problem you can run into at Excelsior is their upper-level requirement. They require 15 semester hours at the 300-level or above. In my opinion it would be difficult to complete their requirements for a major in music in just 30 semester hours if fifteen of those have to be at the upper level. It is not unusual for a school to require 20 to 30 hours of specific music courses to enroll in upper-level courses. Tesc, of course, defines upper-level differently and you would not have to take 300 or 400-level courses. With almost fifty semester hours in music I've completed all the requirements for a major at Tesc, but would actually have a ways to go to meet Excelsior's upper level requirement.

Also keep in mind that some of the 300-400-level DL music courses out there could easily be treated as lower-level by Excelsior. Many of the upper-level DL courses I've found have no music prerequisites or are not open to music majors at the school offering the course.

I believe that a music degree from Tesc is more accessible because of Excelsior's upper-level requirement. Coach Turner on Degreeinfo is probably the resident expert in DL circles on music degrees. Maybe you could ask him over there.

[morgan1611]

Thanks!

I've taken sa bunch of courses from a non accredited school, as well as gotten a National Certificiation and those are the things I intended to portfolio. I will check with that other site for sure! Thanks!

[cookderosa]

Originally Posted by cannoda

I've looked at it. You'll find that it's a lot harder to find courses for a standard music curriculum than say, psychology or business. While online music theory courses exist, they are not necessarily easy to find, are expensive, or not offered on a regular basis. Traditional music history courses (Antiquity through 20-century) are available. Ohio University has two courses, Excelsior has a new one-semseter course, and Athabasca has a new course. Athabasca also has upper-level courses on folk and popular music if you are interested. Berklee also has several courses that would apply toward a music major, but is fairly expensive.

There are lots of DL upper-level courses in Jazz, Jazz History and American Music on the web. Fort Hayes State University seems to offer these courses on a regular basis, but many others schools also offer these courses.

You might want to look at MIT's Opencourseware: Free Online MIT Course Materials | Music and Theater Arts | MIT OpenCourseWare to provide some structure to your portfolio. You could actually follow the syllabus and assignments for these courses on your own and attempt a portfolio based on that work.

One problem you can run into at Excelsior is their upper-level requirement. They require 15 semester hours at the 300-level or above. In my opinion it would be difficult to complete their requirements for a major in music in just 30 semester hours if fifteen of those have to be at the upper level. It is not unusual for a school to require 20 to 30 hours of specific music courses to enroll in upper-level courses. Tesc, of course, defines upper-level differently and you would not have to take 300 or 400-level courses. With almost fifty semester hours in music I've completed all the requirements for a major at Tesc, but would actually have a ways to go to meet Excelsior's upper level requirement.

Also keep in mind that some of the 300-400-level DL music courses out there could easily be treated as lower-level by Excelsior. Many of the upper-level DL courses I've found have no music prerequisites or are not open to music majors at the school offering the course.

I believe that a music degree from Tesc is more accessible because of Excelsior's upper-level requirement. Coach Turner on Degreeinfo is probably the resident expert in DL circles on music degrees. Maybe you could ask him over there.

>>

I don't know how motivated you are, but University Boston has a MA and PhD 100% online in music. Perhaps you could enroll in the MA courses with special permission and transfer back into EC...maybe not...but you could ask. Another issue is the cost, I think it is pretty expensive.
Are you looking for theory or performance? My brother's undergrad and grad are both in music, I could ask him for leads.

[morgan1611]

Maybe you were asking Cannoda, but I'm more interested in Theory and Pedagogy than Performance.

[cannoda]

Originally Posted by cookderosa

>>

I don't know how motivated you are, but University Boston has a MA and PhD 100% online in music. Perhaps you could enroll in the MA courses with special permission and transfer back into EC...maybe not...but you could ask. Another issue is the cost, I think it is pretty expensive.
Are you looking for theory or performance? My brother's undergrad and grad are both in music, I could ask him for leads.

As morgan indicated, I'm not sure if your post was directed at me.

My interest is more in music history, although I wouldn't mind taking a DL form and analysis course. I already hold a bachelor and graduate degrees outside of music. At Excelsior, I would only need courses to fullfill the upper level requirement in the major.

At Tesc, I would be done as far as the major, but need the additional 30 credit hours beyond the date of the last degree. I don't want to play the game of taking random (e.g. FEMA) credits just to meet this requirement.

I am aware of the BU program and would probably have a good chance of being admitted directly into the Master of Musiic program without completing the BA in music. At $546/credit hour I'm just not interested. I want the BA in music solely for personal satisfaction and can't justify that level of expense for individual courses or a BU master's degree.

BTW - Excelsior's upper level requirements for a BA in music are more onerous than any number of National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) accredited programs. The NASM accreditation is over-and-above RA accreditation for music degrees. I've identified several schools where a BA in music is possible with less than six upper-level hours in music, or where a major requiring significantly more work in music than Excelsior(36-50 semester hours instead of 30) requires less than 15 upper-level hours.

I think the problem here is that course numbers for music major courses are more reflective of when a course is taken than the level (e,g,. introductory, intermediate, advanced) of the course. One can argue that the first-year courses for music majors are at least at the intermediate level, given the typical requirement for a successful audition and/or the passing of musicianship or music theory tests prior to enrolling in a first semester freshman course in the major. There are several other arguments to support the contention that music major course numbers are inconsistent with the common notion of "course level" but I'll not go into them here.

I'm very interested in hearing anyone else's comments on Excelsior's upper-level requirement for the BA in music. I'd also love to hear from anyone that has earned the BA in music from Excelsior.