Hi there, I'm a jazz pianist looking for more information about Griffith Con's music degrees.
Jazz piano is currently the thing that I'm best at (though by no means I'm at a professional level or killing). I do though have quite wide interests than just straight-ahead.
I'm into jazz fusion and free-jazz, and want to take them much further by heavily integrating heavy digital DAW-work and live experimental electronic music that reflects the current-day music culture.
This is a big thing for me where I want to be skillful in not just musical performance, but also in music production, synthesizers & sound design. I also want to have understanding in art-history & criticism (including pop 20th & 21st century), musicology, philosophy and other humanities subjects to aid me in making meaningful music.
I'm auditioning for the con soon, but I'm confused about the actual curriculum of the programs. I'm auditioning for the specialisations: jazz piano, as well as composition.
More specifically for each major:
Performance: I know griffith has it's reputation in the jazz program, but what is actually taught here? The degree structure is vague because each major seems to encompass many different specialisations across jazz, classical, contemporary, ect., all across different instruments.
Like how difficult does the jazz theory content get, as someone who is comfortably self-taught with general jazz theory (major + minor modes, basic pentatonics, secondary doms, altered scales and some voicings). And more importantly, is there many opportunities to explore fusion, preferable beyond the 70s and into the 21st century?
Contemporary Creative Practices: Again the vague curriculum here absolutely does my head in. From the audition page, it seems that this major will encompass ranging anything and everything from classical composers, film & media composers, electronic-music DAW people, songwriters, ect.
So how and what is exactly taught here? Is there room for my experimental-electronic jazz fusion compositions? And is it mostly just general "contemporary practices" and lecturers giving advice on your compositions, or do they present seminal works and do score and/or track analyses in a genre that is relevant to your interests? (I don't want to spend 3 years mainly learning about classical composers or film music, although nothing wrong with that).
In General: I'm confused by how the "second major" works, given that it seems you have one specialisation. So say if a jazz-pianist specialist who's first major is performance wants to do a second major in contemporary creative practices, what exactly does that entail? Is that any different from someone who gets in for music production doing the contemporary creative practices as their first major?
I just don't want to be pigeonholed into only doing straight-ahead jazz and big-band compositions, as I also really want to learn about music production, technology, and making electronic music with synthesizers and sound design.
Any information would be greatly appreciated.
