All UC Davis students are welcome to take intermediate to
advanced music lessons through the Department of Music.
How to Enroll
To enroll in lessons, first contact the music lecturer that corresponds to your
area of study. Each instructor will have a conversation with you
about your previous experience and may or may not choose to ask
you for audition material.
During their first or second year at UC Davis, declared
music majors are eligible for three
quarters of free lessons.
* Students must be a declared major and
actively enrolled in the music major core curriculum in order to
qualify.
Music majors continuing with lessons beyond their first year of
free lessons pay $300 per quarter for the equivalent of
ten half-hour lessons and continue to enroll in Music 131.
Fee Waivers for Music Majors
A variety of generous patrons of the music department have made
funds available to provide fee waivers for music majors who want
to continue lessons beyond the automatic three quarters of free
lessons. These waivers can be partial awards or cover the entire
$300 per quarter charge.
To be considered for a waiver, music majors must apply online EVERY
quarter via the webform. The due
date will be before 5pm on January 8th for the Winter
Quarter. There may not be enough funds to grant waivers to
everybody who applies, so please be careful in providing the
requested information; the department will attempt to take care
of the most urgent cases (those with upcoming recitals, those
with extraordinary skill/ability, those nearing graduation, etc.)
first.
Non-Majors
Lessons are available to non-music majors on a space-available
basis. The fee for non-majors is $300 per quarter for the
equivalent of ten half-hour lessons. Priority goes to those
who are also enrolled in departmental ensembles. For more
information, contact the appropriate applied faculty member. Fee waivers
are also available to a limited number of students in the UC
Davis Symphony Orchestra or University Chorus. Fee waivers are
not available to members of other ensembles.
At this time we can only receive payments for lessons via check
or money order. Checks must be postmarked by January 15th. We
cannot accept credit cards.
Because of the COVID-19 global pandemic, we are limiting use of
our spaces to those students who are:
Preparing for an upcoming Junior or Senior Recital in
order to fulfill the requirements of the music major.
Have a need for access to a stable internet connection and
isolated acoustic space for music lessons.
In need of access to specialized music equipment (i.e.,
students enrolled in piano—including Music 2A-enrolled
students—percussion, harp, and harpsichord lessons).
* Please note that the Music Building rehearsal and practice
rooms are closed at this time. For more information on
checking out an instrument, please see our Lockers and Instruments information
page.
Scheduling Process
To schedule use of Pitzer spaces during the Fall Quarter
(teaching studios or practice rooms), please email the department
Stage Manager, Caitlin Sapunor-Davis, at
csapunor@ucdavis.edu. Keep the following in mind:
Rooms will be available Monday–Friday from 8:00 am to 6:00
pm.
There are three teaching studios available with pianos
(Strings, Woodwinds, Brass) and one without
(Harpsichord).
The Percussion Studio will only be available for
percussion lesson instruction or rehearsal.
The six practice rooms all have pianos, with Room
One providing a Boston Grand. Each of them have WiFi access
through
Eduroam.
The teaching studios have the ability to connect to the
internet via ethernet, and the practice rooms have WiFi access.
Priority will be given to those taking (or
giving) lessons; practice-time requests will be approved as
available.
Reservations will be done in one-hour blocks. Recurring
reservations can be set up.
Requesting a Room
When requesting a room, please provide the following information
via email to the department Stage Manager, Caitlin
Sapunor-Davis, at
csapunor@ucdavis.edu. Multiple days can be requested in
the same email, just repeat the day/date and times sections as
needed.
Name:
Instrument:
Instructor (if applicable):
Purpose of reservation (lesson or practice):
Day/Date requested:
Time available (if you are flexible, particularly for
practice, please put multiple options for best possibility of
approval):
Is this a one-time request? (Yes, or No—this is recurring.)
Your request will be confirmed or denied via an email
response. Emails sent in the evenings and weekends will not be
answered until the next business day.
* If you are a new student, instructions for obtaining a
keycard will be included in the response email once your first
reservation request is approved.
Many of the following ideal settings, hardware, and best
practices have distanced music lessons in mind, but may apply to
other areas of your music study.
Internet and Computer Setup
Access to reliable high-speed internet is the most important
factor for a successful remote lesson experience—
At a minimum, it is recommended that you have at least a
1.5MB internet connection for high-quality video chatting,
regardless of platform.
It is easiest to use a laptop computer rather than a mobile
device.
It is recommended that a wired connection is used rather than
WiFi.
If your computer does not have an ethernet port, a simple
USB-Ethernet adapter can be
purchased from Amazon for as low as $13.
You will need a
CAT6 ethernet cable to connect your internet router to
your computer (into the USB-Ethernet adapter first if
necessary).
Audio Hardware
Using headphones/earbuds minimizes feedback or echo. Echo is
caused by your microphone picking up the other user’s audio
coming out of your speaker (at a delay) and sending it back. The
quality of the headphones is not important. Let your budget
determine your preference.
A high-quality external microphone can improve your sound for
the other person, but in some cases a cheap microphone can be
worse than your computer’s built-in microphone. Here are a couple
recommendations—
Note: Additional features were added in version 5.2.2, released
Sept 1, 2020. Be sure to update to the latest version of Zoom
before attempting to change the following settings.
In the preferences pane—
Video Menu
We do not recommend checking “Enable HD” nor “Touch up my
appearance” as it causes significant resource drain.
Under video please check “Mirror my video,” which only
affects your own view.
Audio Menu
If you have a particularly soft instrument (guitar, e.g.)
you may wish to un-check the box that says “Automatically
adjust microphone volume” and increase the input volume (on a
slider).
Suppress Background Noise = Low
Click on the “ADVANCED” button in the lower right and
choose these settings—
Check the box up top that says “Show in-meeting
option to ‘Enable Original Sound’ from microphone.”
During any meeting be sure to make sure this is
engaged in the upper left drop down menu, which is
not seen until the meeting begins.
Check “Disable echo cancellation”
Check “High fidelity music mode
Uncheck “Use stereo audio”
Virtual Background
We do not recommend using a virtual background. (Check
“none”). It tends to cut off edges of objects, which is not
ideal for music lessons.
If you missed the “Mirror my video” setting in the video
menu, go ahead and make sure it is checked here.
