Thomas Edison and Music Degrees

[MLB125]

I am having trouble fulfilling my upper division music courses at TE. I have taken several music classes from Valley City State University but TE will not accept them as upper division. It seems like my only option is to take PLA's (prior learning assessment) from TE. I would prefer to take classes as I am not sure that I have enough prior knowledge. Do you know of any classes that TE will accept as upper division or have any other suggestions? Thank you!

[cannoda]

I am having trouble fulfilling my upper division music courses at TE. I have taken several music classes from Valley City State University but TE will not accept them as upper division. It seems like my only option is to take PLA's (prior learning assessment) from TE. I would prefer to take classes as I am not sure that I have enough prior knowledge. Do you know of any classes that TE will accept as upper division or have any other suggestions? Thank you!

Which courses are TESC not accepting as upper level? If they are 300-level courses they should be accepting them. Did they say WHY they are not upper-level.

Valley City has programmatic accreditation from the National Association of Schools of Music. TESC does not.

[KayV]

Adams State in Colorado has this one available:
MUS 379 Rock Music and Culture
• Format: Online
• Credit Hours: 3
• Open Enrollment
• Tuition: $597
Music Courses - Distance Learning - Extended Studies - Adams State College

Also, Athabasca University has several:

MUSI 267 Sound and Sense: Listening to Music 3 credits

MUSI 285 History of Popular Music I: Blues to Big Bands, 1900-1940 3credits

MUSI 286 History of Popular Music II: Be-bop to Beatles, 1940-1970 3credits

MUSI 310 Western Music: Beginnings to Baroque 3 credits

MUSI 420 Anglo-American Popular Music Tradition 3 credits

MUSI 421 The Folk Music Revival I: Before 1945 3 credits

MUSI 423 Advanced Studies in Popular Music 3 credits

Courses by Subject A-B : Athabasca University

Good luck in your search.

[MLB125]

Which courses are TESC not accepting as upper level? If they are 300-level courses they should be accepting them. Did they say WHY they are not upper-level.

Valley City has programmatic accreditation from the National Association of Schools of Music. TESC does not.

They are not accepting the theory, music history, or pedagogy classes as upper levels (although they are considered 300-level at VCSU). They said they are not upper because they can be taken in your freshman/sophomore years of college. I tried to petition to get Theory III and IV accepted as upper levels. My professor for the Theory classes wrote a letter to TE explaining how the classes are upper division but I was not successful.

I know VCSU is accredited from the National Association of Schools of Music. It makes me think that if TE won't accept upper-level classes from VCSU they won't accept them from anyone else! I was close to graduating from TESC but now I am thinking I may have to switch.

[MLB125]

Thank you KayV! I will look into those courses.

[sanantone]

You should have gotten the courses pre-approved. Courses from my community college were pre-approved as UL. If a course you take at another school has a similar course description to a lower level course that is offered by TESC, then you're going to get LL credit. It also works the other way around. Even though CCs don't offer any UL courses, if they match UL courses offered by TESC, then TESC will give you UL credit.

[PonyGirl93]

Well that's dumb, several of my 200-level CC credits were upper level according to TESC; you would think upper level courses at a four year university would be fairly automatically upper level.

Anyway, I have nothing useful to contribute :p Good luck!

[cannoda]

They are not accepting the theory, music history, or pedagogy classes as upper levels (although they are considered 300-level at VCSU). They said they are not upper because they can be taken in your freshman/sophomore years of college. I tried to petition to get Theory III and IV accepted as upper levels. My professor for the Theory classes wrote a letter to TE explaining how the classes are upper division but I was not successful.

I know VCSU is accredited from the National Association of Schools of Music. It makes me think that if TE won't accept upper-level classes from VCSU they won't accept them from anyone else! I was close to graduating from TESC but now I am thinking I may have to switch.

I'm bugged by your experience. Majors in the fine arts are different from other disciplines - you're expected to have an extensive background in the discipline at the time of admission. A very select few individuals can be successful in a music course intended for music majors without an extensive (5+ years) background in music.

I don't know if this is true of VCSU, but in most schools you don't get to take "music major" courses without an audition, exam and/or at the very least, an interview to determine whether you have a sufficient background in music. There is no survey course to serve as a foundation for all other courses in the major - you're expected to have that knowledge entering the program. A freshman that doesn't read music would get killed taking a 100-level professional music course.

The course numbering in schools with professional music degrees are more reflective of when you are expected to take a course rather than the actual course content. For example, some schools require the music history sequence at the 100-200 level, others at the 300-level and still others at a combination of lower and upper level courses. The actual course content isn't necessarily different across levels.

There are examples where music schools have obviously finessed course numbering or course sequences to comply with internal university-wide rules on the number of upper-level courses. I've seen the exact same courses (same textbook, identical syllabus) offered as 100-level courses and 400-level courses at different schools. Music Theory I is almost always a 100-level course at a school offering professional degrees in music (Bachelor of Music), but I've seen it at the 200 or 300 level in liberal arts schools with a traditional 30-hour BA major. Once again, same textbook and an identical syllabus.

In places that offer the Bachelor of Music (BM) it is not unusual for the Bachelor of Arts degree to appear "light" in upper-level content relative to other BA majors precisely because the course numbering reflects sequencing more than the level of content.

You may wish to get an evaluation from Excelsior or appeal further at TESC.