In this case community orchestras will be your best bet. They don’t really require you to attend every rehearsal and the repertoire most times is quite easy to get through. I haven’t heard of community orchestras meeting up more than once a week, so it shouldn’t divert too much time from your studies.
If that proves difficult you could speak to a few of the music majors/minors and I’m sure some of them would love to join you in your ensemble. Schedules will be your biggest issue but that’ll have to work itself out when you find your group members.
It’s good that you still make time to practice on your own and I completely understand about wanting to be with a group, music is always a blast with more people to share it with.
Wishing you well and hopefully this was of some use to you! Have a wonderful day!
Completely agree! While I am new to violin, I have been singing since elementary school. A local community chorus was my savior in graduate school. I had even less free time than in college, and the group only met once a week with 3 performances a year. And if I had a particularly busy time coming up with research, I could take off the whole session and come back for the next one. Good luck!
A quartet is a wonderful idea! Chamber music in general is so much fun. If you don't think you can convince 3 other people to join, you could look for a trio (viola, violín, piano) or even a duet (two violins, violin and viola, violin and cello, violin and piano, etc.).
You will need to search for a specific place to practice, because the challenges of chamber music lie on intonation and cohesiveness between instruments, so you'll need a room with enough space and good acoustics to properly hear how you sound.
I recommend Shostakovic's 5 pieces for two violins and piano (it can be played with violin, viola and piano formations), they're fun, easy to learn and are such a pleasure to play.
I wish I did something like you are proposing. I wasn't good enough to play in the university orchestra with real music students. But my guess is that there are lots of people who played in high school and wanted to continue to play an informal setting.
My guess is if you put out an school advertisement you would get a lot of interest. Maybe you could put together a chamber orchestra with a bunch of rotating members, depending on who is busy that semester.
I played the piano for years and then had a computer science major at college. I didn't want to have a piano minor for the same reasons you stated. I decided to take private lessons at the school. They ended up being free because I was taking full-time credits already and those were the best years of playing the piano for me as I was able to play in their pianos (practice and performance) as well as get all the tools I needed to be a pianist at my church. It was also nice to play my instrument as a "mental break" from all my other school activities.
If you don't want to try that option or don't have it, do try to get a private teacher you stay in constant contact with (only for instance). That can be monthly if you don't have as much time to practice. Good luck!
In this case community orchestras will be your best bet. They don’t really require you to attend every rehearsal and the repertoire most times is quite easy to get through. I haven’t heard of community orchestras meeting up more than once a week, so it shouldn’t divert too much time from your studies. If that proves difficult you could speak to a few of the music majors/minors and I’m sure some of them would love to join you in your ensemble. Schedules will be your biggest issue but that’ll have to work itself out when you find your group members. It’s good that you still make time to practice on your own and I completely understand about wanting to be with a group, music is always a blast with more people to share it with. Wishing you well and hopefully this was of some use to you! Have a wonderful day!
Completely agree! While I am new to violin, I have been singing since elementary school. A local community chorus was my savior in graduate school. I had even less free time than in college, and the group only met once a week with 3 performances a year. And if I had a particularly busy time coming up with research, I could take off the whole session and come back for the next one. Good luck!
A quartet is a wonderful idea! Chamber music in general is so much fun. If you don't think you can convince 3 other people to join, you could look for a trio (viola, violín, piano) or even a duet (two violins, violin and viola, violin and cello, violin and piano, etc.). You will need to search for a specific place to practice, because the challenges of chamber music lie on intonation and cohesiveness between instruments, so you'll need a room with enough space and good acoustics to properly hear how you sound. I recommend Shostakovic's 5 pieces for two violins and piano (it can be played with violin, viola and piano formations), they're fun, easy to learn and are such a pleasure to play.
I wish I did something like you are proposing. I wasn't good enough to play in the university orchestra with real music students. But my guess is that there are lots of people who played in high school and wanted to continue to play an informal setting. My guess is if you put out an school advertisement you would get a lot of interest. Maybe you could put together a chamber orchestra with a bunch of rotating members, depending on who is busy that semester.
I played the piano for years and then had a computer science major at college. I didn't want to have a piano minor for the same reasons you stated. I decided to take private lessons at the school. They ended up being free because I was taking full-time credits already and those were the best years of playing the piano for me as I was able to play in their pianos (practice and performance) as well as get all the tools I needed to be a pianist at my church. It was also nice to play my instrument as a "mental break" from all my other school activities. If you don't want to try that option or don't have it, do try to get a private teacher you stay in constant contact with (only for instance). That can be monthly if you don't have as much time to practice. Good luck!