Foreword

This volume is written by two collegiate music teacher educators who have met with numerous prospective music students and answered thousands of questions. We’ve seen students enter our institutions as excited music majors only to be blindsided by the demands of the program of study.

Throughout the book, we share advice collected from music majors, music education majors, current music teachers, and music teacher educators. While there are programs being designed for non-classical musicians, a vast majority of college and university music programs still focus on the performance and study of Western European classical music. We feel as though the world needs music educators who are guitarists, producers of electronic music, or members of a rock band in addition to classically trained instrumentalists and vocalists.

Researchers have reported several factors that predicted success in music teacher education programs. These included high school GPA, years of private study, years of piano study, music/other arts performance experiences, music leadership/teaching experience, and non-music leadership/teacher and extracurricular experience. It is not uncommon to hear first-year theory and aural skills courses described as the “weed out” courses for music majors. One of the key reasons for writing this book is that we feel as though, even if you don’t check all of the boxes on the list above, you are capable of success in a music teacher education program. May you benefit from the advice in this book! Enjoy!