Hello Kerubino,
Well, as someone who attended the Guildhall and the Royal College, I guess I'm as well qualified as any to give opinion!!
These are three of the top schools in the world. The Royal College of Music has more applications than any other music college, and of course limited resource and space, so only the so-called best should get in. Not so when I was there!! The Royal Academy is the oldest conservertoire of music in Europe, and the Guilhall the ugliest!! Like any sort of institution, these have their high days and holidays as it were, and sometimes the RCM is best, sometimes, the RAM etc. This can generally be attributed (in my experience)to the standard of the pupil in the academy at any one time, and obviously, the teaching staff, both permanent and visiting. When I was at the RCM, the best place for singing was the Guildhall. The RCM was best for string players and so on and so forth. For instance, if you're a singer in the UK at the moment, the best place (so they say!) is the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama. I've generally found them to be of a high standard whatever they do.
I'm very wary of singers in music college in any case. I think you generally have much more benefitial tuition with a private teacher. You should (as used to be done in the golden age) have a lesson everyday, but you just get an hour a week or one and a half hours for post grads, which I think is pathetic. I hated every minute at music college and all it did was to set me back big time. I'd been singing professionally for fourteen years before the RCM, and within three months I couldn't speak due to a vocal muck up!! That, of course is on a personal level, and many students get loads out of it: it just depends on what sort of student you or one may be. I react badly to group type classes for example, and I'm very much better working on my own. Some students are opposite of course.
Er. . .what else can I say? Your friend should just do the auditions and go for it!! London is a great place to be for a musician as there's simply much more happening at any one time than any where else in the world, with more theatres, concert halls, cabaret spaces,clubs etc. And it's useful of course seeing the big names live.
Hope that old rubbish has been of some assistance?
Ian Voice wrecker to the stars!!!
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