Music to your ears: Free music lessons beginning next fall
By Michelle Murphy
The administration has given Music Department Chair Hans Boepple a new reason to smile. Thirty years after the department's inception, students beginning this fall will no longer have to pay an extra fee for private music instruction.
In the past, well over 100 students each quarter, fewer than half of them music majors or minors, interested in private voice and instrumental training have had to pay increasing sums of money. These sums, nearly $500 per quarter for a weekly hour lesson are paid on top of the student's regular tuition.
"The administration finally realized that students were double paying," Boepple said, a fact which he claims deters students from becoming majors or minors, as these commitments require 12 and six quarters of private instruction respectively. "In essence, music students are incurring exorbitant fees for something that they need to complete their degree."
Former music minor, senior Jennifer Righetti agrees that the fees can be burdensome.
"It's great," said Righetti of the decision to waive fees. "It should have been done a long time ago. The fee was definitely a deterrence for me."
Other than the fee removal, the program will not see much change. The department will offer the same wide variety of instruction opportunities in not only basic voice and orchestral instruments, but also outliers such as jazz piano, jazz guitar, harp, and musical theatre style voice lessons. Sign-up will remain as it has always been; however, as with other classes, there will be a cap on the number of spots open in the program. The University's allotment of 2,500 instruction hours per year will offer many students an opportunity that Boepple feels should have been afforded to them all along. The only fear is that those 2,500 hours will not be enough.
"What they've offered us is just a little bit short of what we're used to (enrollment being), so I think there's going to be some pressure on the enrollment cap," Boepple said of the University's parameters. He added that if more students than can be accepted sign-up for private instruction, the department will hold auditions to determine who will take the available spots.
Despite these possible shortcomings, Boepple remains un-phased, saying, "We have been assured by the Dean's office that they're willing to make adjustments - if the demand is extraordinary, they will respond."
As for why the university finally decided to make the change, Boepple says the answer is simple.
"It's the right thing to do and they recognize that," he said confidently. "The goal is really to make Santa Clara a musical campus - to give them a wonderful orchestra and a wonderful choral program and for anyone who wishes to participate in music to be able to do that."
û Contact Michelle Murphy at (408) 554-4546 or mdmurphy@scu.edu.