Best study methods before going to university?

[Thatfabulousalien]

So I'll be going off to university next year, as many of you would know (currently in a year of working jobs to save money)
What are some good ways to re-adjust back into accedemic tests etc? 

[Spineur]

Make sure that the seed of your pants doesnt leave your desk chair.  In other word: no distractions (phones, twitter, facebook, TV) and you see you girlfriend once a week.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Don't start watching anime like I did at the start of this semester. I have work piled up that is overdue and I am absolutely getting penalised for it. Marks taken off my work for tardiness is NEVER good.

[relm1]

Limit your time on video games. It's a time killer.

[mc ukrneal]

It's all about discipline. And hard to replicate it without actually doing it. Assuming you don't want to take some sort of online program, I suppose you could try studying some topic and then taking some sort of test for it (perhaps something online). Or summarize the topic for someone else and answer their questions (like an oral test). Depending on the topic, some here might be able to help do that too - A test on a forum thread in real time.

Perhaps the process is more important though and having completed some identified work within a certain time limit may be as close as you get. There must be courses that post their own syllabus, so you could also just follow one that you find online (without the graded aspect).

[North Star]

It's all about discipline. And hard to replicate it without actually doing it. Assuming you don't want to take some sort of online program, I suppose you could try studying some topic and then taking some sort of test for it (perhaps something online). Or summarize the topic for someone else and answer their questions (like an oral test). Depending on the topic, some here might be able to help do that too - A test on a forum thread in real time.

Perhaps the process is more important though and having completed some identified work within a certain time limit may be as close as you get. There must be courses that post their own syllabus, so you could also just follow one that you find online (without the graded aspect).

That's probably a good idea. I'd suggest picking up something here: https://www.coursera.org/browse

[aleazk]

You are doing just fine.

Once you are at the university, you will catch the pace there. Now, just relax, listen to music and think in the flowers of spring.

[aleazk]

I sense sarcasm but not sure...

No, I was being serious. We are indeed close to spring here

[Monsieur Croche]

From what I've heard of your work, I tell you to not be at all surprised if at this tertiary entry level you are entering that you will not 'dodge any bullets' and end up needing to take the full undergraduate sequence of music theory and counterpoint classes. Being autodidact, along with your special interest in things modern/contemporary, I believe you are but somewhat informed and only shakily grounded in those earlier eras, their techniques and harmonic functions and practices -- i.e. there may still be gaping holes large enough they can not be quickly and securely patched up with a quick bit of private tutoring.  The written theory placement exam will inform you of what they think you need and will require of you.

That said,

Your private or classroom composition teacher is not the one from whom to expect this kind of catch-up tutoring; they usually start with 'where you are,' and guide you along the way, recommending a score to see how someone has solved a similar problem you are having, etc.  The progressive grind, grind process of undergrad theory is very likely in your near future, while there is still a perhaps possibility that you could be allowed to tutor with an advanced graduate student or prof, and then take placement exams which then waiver actually sitting through one or more semesters of undergrad theory.

Waivers if you pass a challenge exam:
You may arrange "Challenge" exams for any of those requisite courses (theory, ear training / solfege, music history, analysis, even) where if you pass, a required prerequisite class is then waivered; you still must 'buy' that number of waivered units that class allotted in the cumulative units to graduate (schools are also businesses), but that waiver then allows you an unusual freedom to instead take an elective, or sometimes design a for credit semester long private project where you work privately under a teacher's supervision -- nice.

Ear training: For unfathomable reasons, many institutions require it, but not that you start with this in the freshman year. (Voice majors, outstandlng in avoiding solfege, seemed to postpone this requirement until they were in their junior and senior years -- the very ones who need it first and most, lol.) Take the first semester in that first semester, period.

Piano: all music majors must be take and pass keyboard harmony, which is very basic as far as piano skills go.  Absolutely every music teacher of theory, comp, the conductors -- band, choral, symphonic, music history teachers -- you name it -- that I ran across had a piano ability at a minimum technical level I would call at least (in adult-scale terms) 'advanced intermediate.' They could sight read pieces, including from instrumental scores to some degree, at least adequate to their purpose and function as music teachers.  They were not all 'fine pianists' by any means but all could get around a piano at that level.  You really must have that skill level as well, for many future functions and to qualify for just about any type of music teaching job.  You will most certainly want that level of piano skill as a composer, too.  You must, as a comp major, still do a performance minor, and to all intensive and practical purposes, I would suggest making that piano (because not everyone is a talent like Berlioz, etc :-)

I imagine this is coming up very soon, so you can do only what time allows.  If possible to take the necessary placements tests which will have you assessed and determine what courses they will require you to take earlier now, the sooner you know, the better off you are in accepting and planning what must be. 
.....If your entry time is spring of 2017, definitely see if you can take those placement tests now. You will find out more exactly, having seen what is expected, that which you might cover before you arrive in order to maybe place ahead in theory or ear-training, at least.

You have one big advantage over many an incoming freshman instrumental or voice major, who whine and feel actually beleaguered in having to take these required courses ("I just want to play, what do I need this for?" lol.) -- your hunger for knowledge of theory and comp, and your awareness that even if slogging through Bach chorale exercises, etc. is not any real pleasure and holds little of real interest for you, you know far better the ultimate yield -- towards your own ends and goals -- the doing of it will bring.  Ergo, I predict you will apply yourself to a degree many of your peers will not, and be a far better than average student in these classes.


Best regards.

[Mister Sharpe]

I found esp. after age 25, that it was necessary to read many texts (certainly the more complex passages) twice, paragraph by paragraph.  It helped me immensely; often made me realize that what I thought I had read wasn't really on the page or was more significant (sometimes less so) than I thought at first.  Also helped with memory of same and helped me relax a bit (not having to depend exclusively on a single reading, you see).  Soon, it became a habit as unconscious as breathing. 

[Monsieur Croche]

I sense sarcasm but not sure...

I do think Aleazk's advice, since it is hard to avoid on this forum knowing you already work hard, is utterly sincere.

It is more to be taken, I think, as ~ while working that job as well as studying and not in school ~ "try to remember to breathe."

I could understand an anxiety about concentrating, getting back in to the mode of reading textbooks vs. a novel, but not only after one year.  What you are going toward is much the same as what you did in taking those advanced high school music prep courses, but without nearly as many space cadet peers who had no idea what they were doing or why they were there, lol.  Your peer group should be that much more interesting and stimulating as well, which is at least half of what attending a good school offers and is about.

In this interim year, you are not going to suddenly jump three levels in your piano playing, or overnight get a grasp on making longer pieces with a convincing form or stronger and pervasive inner logic -- that is why you are going to take the next level of study, and that is where much of that happens.

So, continue to work, job and music, remember at least a little time for just play, which is neither of those two, breathe take a walk and try to think about nothing, etc.

Remember that recreation is actually re-creation, and between being spent from work and your self-studies, you've got to leave room to let something in, and renew the self when you've been putting out at such a pace.

Not at all bad advice from Maestro Aleazk, if you ask me.


Best regards.

[Uhor]

A discrete perspective:

Music structures can be recognised in the brain through itself, legs, eyes, voice and fingers. Synesthetes can also feel them proyected in colours*, flavours or scents.

Finding the simplest ways to think, construct and move inside or between structures of interest is a way to see elegance.

Total immersion involves recommended people and books, players, doing all the excercises: corrections, analysing all the steps: what is general and arbitrary and its domain, realising what is not analytical, finding new ways: reformulations that suit particular cases.

Learn, feel, test, rest, make (music).


*colour pencils make good markers