So, I'm doing a music degree program. Sometimes, people think music is easy compared to other courses like Engineering, Medicine etc. After all, we just play a bunch of notes on our instruments, maybe put together a band and do a couple of gigs, easy right?

Wrong.

Just so happens that I have exams this week. I have exams every 4 weeks in addition to a final exam at the end of the semester. Most of the subjects also have a big project for to be handed in at the end of the semester which accounts for 40-60% of your final grade. And the exams are not just simple multiple-choice questions. I have...

1. Ear training (Sight-singing, dictation, chord recognition etc)
2. Scoring for rhythm section aka Arranging (This time round, supplying drum and bass parts in multiple styles to the given melodies)
3. Performance studies (Playing clarinet and piano for 3 different bands)
4. Traditional 2-part writing (For this test, just counterpoint. For the project, compose a 2-part invention)
5. Acoustics (Physics all over again, but this time it's not the simple stuff you get in Form 5 chapter 1)
6. Moral Studies (waste of time)
7. Malaysian Studies (waste of time)
8. DotA

And it's just my second semester. And I have MPYO music camp next week and I haven't started practising. And I'm playing Debussy's Premiere Rhapsodie for the chamber recital next week and I'm hardly prepared. So much for a jazzer trying to do some classical stuff. I've got a lot to learn man. And people actually think they can come to ICOM, play their power chords in their rock bands and come out with a degree four years later. No wonder the college has such a high dropout rate.