Jump to content


Please note: You can easily log in to MPN using your Facebook account!

Berklee online courses - worth it or not?


Recommended Posts

Hi. I'm thinking about doing some of the keyboard style courses thru Berklee online (3-4 course certificate)... but am wondering if any regulars here have done them, and what they thought, in terms of value for money. I need something structured to make me do this, as I tend to get too busy with my day job to do it on my own. Previously am an ARCT-trained classical pianist, but that was several decades ago - but I think I remember enough music theory, harmony & counterpoint to get me thru the classical-era theory stuff.

 

Thanks!

Tom

Tom F.

"It is what it is."

Link to comment
Share on other sites



  • Replies 14
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

I haven't taken any Berklee online courses for keyboard but have tried a few and have to honestly say only one had a good teacher that made it worth it. Basically these are prefab courses of ten weeks of tiny slices of info and a assignment. Teacher is mainly there to review the assignment submitted and answer a fews questions. I took an arranging course and teacher didn't do much at all it was like she showed up did whatever her weekly required time commitment was and took off. As for certificate it's like little league if you show up and pay your bill you get a trophy. Sorry but I was really let down with online Berklee.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did an online Berklee course a few years ago called Introduction to Music Production, which may be called The Technology of Music Production now. I thought it was really good and I learned a lot from it. This wasn't a keyboard course, however. I thought I would share my experience to say that at least that Berklee online course was good. I know a few other people who took it including xKnuckles and we all thought it was good stuff.

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reverb recently sent me an email saying that I could take Berklee courses for free. I haven't looked into what the courses cover, how in depth they are, etc.--I'm assuming that they're intro level, but it might be worth looking at what's available if you have a Reverb account.

 

Grey

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reverb recently sent me an email saying that I could take Berklee courses for free. I haven't looked into what the courses cover, how in depth they are, etc.--I'm assuming that they're intro level, but it might be worth looking at what's available if you have a Reverb account.

 

Grey

 

Thanks for that tip! I didn't see the offer on their home page but found it by plugging in 'Berklee' in their search bar for 'articles'. It's an article from Dec 30 that describes 4 weeks of free lessons.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Berklee is associated with Jazz theory of a flavor useful for composing but perhaps less so for real world improvising. It's a hot topic these days with Berklee on one end of the spectrum and Barry Harris on the other.

 

Another path would be to find one or more really high-end teachers, and have them guide you. This is now not so hard to do, with zoom etc. The trick of course would be to do the homework on who can really help most in your circumstance.

 

I have no experience but if I was in the hunt, I would look at openstudiojazz.com, and similar places. For straight to the heart, Barry Harris style instruction in Jazz improvization (maybe the fastest way into jam session competency):

Bill Graham is impressive

 

For learning at a high level as an adult, you may want to get up to speed on the science:

Huberman Lab Podcast

 

There is quite a revolution going on in classical training right now and this has become a very respected resource to keep up with it:

Nikhil Hogan Show

You hear many heavy hitters talk without much dumbing down, and are left with many trails to follow if inclined.

Here is a book which has influenced many players and scholars recently.

RT-3/U-121/Leslie 21H and 760/Saltarelle Nuage/MOXF6/MIDIhub, 

SL-880/Nektar T4/Numa Cx2/Deepmind12/Virus TI 61/SL61 mk2

Stylophone R8/Behringer RD-8/Proteus 1/MP-7/Zynthian 4

MPC1k/JV1010/Unitor 8/Model D & 2600/WX-5&7/VL70m/DMP-18 Pedals

Natal drums/congas etc & misc bowed/plucked/blown instruments. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't taken any Berklee online courses for keyboard but have tried a few and have to honestly say only one had a good teacher that made it worth it. Basically these are prefab courses of ten weeks of tiny slices of info and a assignment. Teacher is mainly there to review the assignment submitted and answer a fews questions. I took an arranging course and teacher didn't do much at all it was like she showed up did whatever her weekly required time commitment was and took off. As for certificate it's like little league if you show up and pay your bill you get a trophy. Sorry but I was really let down with online Berklee.

This is disappointing but not surprising. With online classes like these, it is not possible to mandate attendance. "After dinner" on the West Coast is "after bedtime" on the East Coast, and "after midnight" overseas. Because the classes are asynchronous, the only way you can really hold students accountable for any work they do, is to require that the generate something that indicates that they have viewed or interacted with the preloaded content. You can also offer incentives for making it to a live lecture or summarizing a recording of it after the fact. But beyond that, it's entirely "product"-based: what did you, the student, do with the information provided to you.

 

Because the instructor can't really "read the temperature of the room" as he or she would in a live context, the threshold for grading ends up a bit lower. We can't tell if information is leveled right for this particular subset of humanity, or if something was unclear, so the only real guideline is the raw rubric for successfully completing the assignment, which usually has a pretty low barrier for entry.

 

It's a great format for some, particularly if you're self-motivated and apt to complete the class essentially as if it were in-person. It's nigh on useless for others, particularly if you are the type who might tend to do the least so long as you get your credit or grade at the end.

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Berklee is associated with Jazz theory of a flavor useful for composing but perhaps less so for real world improvising. It's a hot topic these days with Berklee on one end of the spectrum and Barry Harris on the other.

 

Another path would be to find one or more really high-end teachers, and have them guide you. This is now not so hard to do, with zoom etc. The trick of course would be to do the homework on who can really help most in your circumstance.

 

I have no experience but if I was in the hunt, I would look at openstudiojazz.com, and similar places. For straight to the heart, Barry Harris style instruction in Jazz improvisation (maybe the fastest way into jam session competency):

Bill Graham is impressive

 

For learning at a high level as an adult, you may want to get up to speed on the science:

Huberman Lab Podcast

 

There is quite a revolution going on in classical training right now and this has become a very respected resource to keep up with it:

Nikhil Hogan Show

You hear many heavy hitters talk without much dumbing down, and are left with many trails to follow if inclined.

Here is a book which has influenced many players and scholars recently.

 

 

The whole CST (Chord Scale Theory) method of teaching improve has been getting flack for quite a few years now and that's the big thing Gary Burton brought to Berklee years ago. From the big name improvisors I hear talk about their time at Berklee most talk about their individual improv teacher and not the codified CST so many schools and programs teach. I have spent many years working at and attending music school and lot of private lessons. If I could go back in time do things over I would focus my music education on arranging and composing program. One having good arranging skills is revenue source, but more important the things you learn in arranging and composing apply to improvisation and even being a good musician in general. I saw it in the music school and people come in that I knew were really good player sign up for the arranging and composing program and not the performance program. Then hear them play later after graduation and they were great. The said sure their chops dropped off not playing as much but it was worth for what they learned music as a whole.

 

Open Studio is excellent online school especially their new Open Studio Pro program that has a lot of live classes. I don't know if I'd call them a Barry Harris school, some of Barry's approaches find their way into the courses. Peter Martin the man who started Open Studio has decades of experience as sideman for some of the biggest names in the biz and he has his own albums and concerts to. That real world experience comes thru in what and how he teaches. Adam Maness other main teacher has that arranger/composer background I mentioned before and also another working musician. So you're getting info from working musician point of view and not just some modern music theorist.

 

For Barry Harris approach it's all buried in Barry's many YouTube videos but I say requires many listening to all of them to pieces things together. One good thing to come out of the lockdown is Barry's workshops that used to be in NYC are now done weekly on Zoom. Good way to help support Barry and to hear, see, and speak to the man himself. Also as mentioned in the post I quoted Bill Graham has very good Youtube on Barry's materials and there are a couple others. Issac Raz Youtube channel and a guitarist whose Youtube channel is called "Things I've Learned From Barry Harris" both have excellent explanation of Barry's approach.

 

Bottom line there is a lot out there, they all teach differently so best to just try some out. Find who explains things in a way that works for you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All learning is trending toward free.

 

Once Apple and Google perfect how to deliver accredited courses online the entire post secondary educational model will be burnt to the ground.

As it should be.

 

Going to college will be as obsolete as finding directions from an Atlas or stack of state maps.

It's going to be a joy watching it play out.

J a z z  P i a n o 8 8

--

Yamaha C7D

Montage8 | CP300 | CP4 | SK1-73 | OB6 | Seven

K8.2 | 3300 | CPSv.3

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All learning is trending toward free.

 

Once Apple and Google perfect how to deliver accredited courses online the entire post secondary educational model will be burnt to the ground.

As it should be.

 

Going to college will be as obsolete as finding directions from an Atlas or stack of state maps.

It's going to be a joy watching it play out.

 

 

The way I see it the problem is most schools is they are too theoretical and not practical enough seen that in both studying computer science and music. The schools that turn out a lot of good student are the tech schools CalTech, MIT, and similar where there is a lot of hands on so they understand how thing really work. Schools that teach a lot of theory the grad's usually don't understand how things really work in the real world. Music same thing the more hands on the better the grad's are.

 

That said a online model of college will make that situation worse. Lecture classes moving online to save costs make schedules more flexible, but students need to get together for practical education and to learn the social skills to work in teams. So hopefully moving some classes online will free up resources for more hands on work and developing communication and teamwork.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I took Orchestration 1 and 2 about 10 years ago. Mind you, this was when virtual learning was still in it's infancy. However, I have nothing but positive things to say about the experience. The materials were thorough and the portal UX at the time, was very well laid out. I think we had 1 live session as a class per week, then the rest was assignments and feedback/grading. The instructor was very comprehensive in his individual feedback. I'm still impressed with my final projects for both courses. It was a ton of work, but I learned so much. Thankfully I was able to get a decent tuition reimbursement from my employer at the time, but the $1500 was a reasonable fee for all that was included.

 

Edit: totally forgot I had a soundcloud account. Here's my final projects. I used EastWest symphonic library for the VIs in Digital Performer. Got very good at managing articulations through midi.

 

Orch 1 Final

Orch 2 Final

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One good thing to come out of the lockdown is Barry's workshops that used to be in NYC are now done weekly on Zoom. Good way to help support Barry and to hear, see, and speak to the man himself.

 

Thanks for the heads up! Missed the one on the 15th but will be on the lookout for the next one!

 

https://barryharris.com/webinar/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No Berklee courses but I have taken a lot of music and photography courses online. In my opinion value is really dependent on the teacher. Marketing and popularity have nothing to do with the quality of instruction. In the drum world, Drumeo is by far the most popular learning site, yet I find it the most mindless and least useful. Full of fluff and short on content. I get much more from Mikie's lessons. Same with photography. I've had some wonderful lessons over the years, and some totally useless lessons. Joined Kelbyone and the most prolific instructor on the site is also the worst, spending all of his energy telling you all the places he has been as a photographer, and burrowing the occasional bit of useful information in his own need for accolades.

 

All I can say is check reviews, post this question on more forums, and try one. Also consider one thing, if you try out for a band or a job are they going to care if you took a Berklee online course? Probably not.

This post edited for speling.

My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...