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Balancing Piano Studies and School

Hi, I hope this is the right sub-forum. Please let me know if it isn't.

I am working towards an ARCT in piano performance from the Royal Conservatory of Canada which is an associate level diploma for musicians. I am currently a freshmen in high school.

My worry is that my piano studies will interfere with my chances of getting into university. (I am looking into the field of engineering)

If anyone has any experience juggling a large extracurricular commitment and is able to share how they coped, I will be deeply grateful.
Although my situation is slightly different, I think I might be able to help, or at lest empathise!

I'm a junior (I think!) in high school in the UK, and I attend a music school every Saturday for 8 hours as a singer and a saxophonist. This basically means I don't have Saturdays free at all, so have to do everything either in the week or on a Sunday. Last year, when I first started doing this, I really struggled, but this year I've been stricter with myself and I've got a few rules that I try to follow to help stay on tip of things:

1. Organisation is EVERYTHING-I have a practise schedule which helps enormously as it means that homework time and practise time don't just gel together. If I schedule my practise it means that I don't get behind on my work-important for you if you're considering academic fields like engineering.

2. Prioritise-You have to accept that there are times where you will have way too much to do and no time to do it in. You need to make sure you do the most important thing first and prioritise all your commitments sensibly.

3. Never Stop Enjoying Music-I'm presuming you like the piano. If you don't, stop what you're doing and focus on school. If you really like it, never confuse getting annoyed at other things for dislike of the piano itself. Let music not become stressful but remain a creative outlet which is purely enjoyable. If you don't enjoy it, stop doing it.

I don't know if this helps at all, but I hope it does!

Good luck!
Reply 2
Avatar for zeldaguy
zeldaguy
OP
Original post by LamantChenille
Although my situation is slightly different, I think I might be able to help, or at lest empathise!

I'm a junior (I think!) in high school in the UK, and I attend a music school every Saturday for 8 hours as a singer and a saxophonist. This basically means I don't have Saturdays free at all, so have to do everything either in the week or on a Sunday. Last year, when I first started doing this, I really struggled, but this year I've been stricter with myself and I've got a few rules that I try to follow to help stay on tip of things:

1. Organisation is EVERYTHING-I have a practise schedule which helps enormously as it means that homework time and practise time don't just gel together. If I schedule my practise it means that I don't get behind on my work-important for you if you're considering academic fields like engineering.

2. Prioritise-You have to accept that there are times where you will have way too much to do and no time to do it in. You need to make sure you do the most important thing first and prioritise all your commitments sensibly.

3. Never Stop Enjoying Music-I'm presuming you like the piano. If you don't, stop what you're doing and focus on school. If you really like it, never confuse getting annoyed at other things for dislike of the piano itself. Let music not become stressful but remain a creative outlet which is purely enjoyable. If you don't enjoy it, stop doing it.

I don't know if this helps at all, but I hope it does!

Good luck!



Thanks for such a thorough reply!

I'll definitely give your advice a go. It really helped just to get some of the stress out.

Best wishes on what you are studying!
Original post by zeldaguy
Hi, I hope this is the right sub-forum. Please let me know if it isn't.

I am working towards an ARCT in piano performance from the Royal Conservatory of Canada which is an associate level diploma for musicians. I am currently a freshmen in high school.

My worry is that my piano studies will interfere with my chances of getting into university. (I am looking into the field of engineering)

If anyone has any experience juggling a large extracurricular commitment and is able to share how they coped, I will be deeply grateful.


Hi zeldaguy
I completely understand. I did two piano performance diplomas at school in the UK but am going on to study Maths rather than Music. So my main advice would be: if you had unlimited time, you could get your diploma programme perfect, and have top grades. However I think it's important to get your head around the fact that given your time and commitments, your programme isn't going to be 100% perfect. This certainly doesn't mean that it won't be very good, more than good enough to pass. If you can imagine a threshold, where you more than enough practice to safely pass, but not enough to get full marks (!), then that seems like the best option. You could always do more practice, but you don't necessarily need to, if that makes sense.
You say that you worry that your piano may jeopardise your chances of getting into university - hopefully if you enjoy piano then there are many benefits of the hard work you are putting in. Have you considered what you would spend the extra time on if you stopped piano? If you genuinely would spend it on school work then perhaps consider reducing your piano workload, however I know for many people that the extra time would simply turn into relaxing time, so piano would be more productive.
I don't know when you would be taking your diploma, or when your school exams are, but what I did was take the diploma in the first term, really focusing on piano that term and letting my school work drop a little, and then in the next two terms I focused on school work and did little piano, and that system worked out well for me, so perhaps you could give some thought to the timing of your diploma.
Best of luck :smile:



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