Claire Jones has had a long and loving history with the music major program at CNU. “Prior to committing, my school came on a school trip for the choir invitational. The day CNU locked down for COVID we came early in the morning and we were still unsure about COVID and if we were going to be allowed to perform. So we had a clinic with Dr. John Irving,” Jones said. CNU’s music program is actually rather unique to other music programs in the state. “I actually was attracted to our education department because CNU is one of if not the only school in Virginia that offers a music education program with a five year Master’s,” Jones said. 

Because of this stark difference music major Captains’ schedule looks much different from the rest of the Captains. “The normal class load for an average student is fifteen credits with the minimum to be a student being twelve. A typical college class is worth three credits. So a typical student can expect to be in four to five classes. A music major’s schedule is a bit different because some of our classes are worth only one credit,” Jones said, “Your typical music major could be taking anywhere from eight to twelve classes a week,” Jones said. 

That sounds like a lot; however, that is nowhere close to the workload of a music major. 

“We also have private lessons which occur a week, and we attend master class once a week and those classes are combined into one credit. Even though they should be separate credits because we meet twice a week at two different times,” Jones said. On top of classes there are also other responsibilities.

“There are also a lot of ‘invisible’ classes. We have performance attendance that is technically on our schedule but worth zero credits,” Jones said. 

Jones was also asked about dealing with performance anxiety. “It depends on the person. Personally, I enjoy performing.Depending on what I am doing and where I am at and who is going to be there I have varying degrees of performance anxiety, but I know at the end of the day this is what I love to do. By the time I am actually on stage and performing that normally all melts away.”

While there are alot of stressful factors about being a music major Jones says that there are some aspects she enjoys thoroughly. “For me, our chamber choir. I recently joined that group this semester. It’s the most ‘elite’ choir on campus because there are two choirs which are university chorale which you can just join and audition choir and chamber choir. That has been really awesome… There is really something different about getting together with an intimate group of talent musicians and creating awesome music together,” Jones said.