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Playing music at UCLA when it is not your major

Many School of Music ensembles take non-majors. Some are classes you enroll in for units, others audition each fall, and student-run groups fill the gaps.

Updated

You do not need to be a music major to play in an orchestra, sing in a choir or learn Javanese gamelan at UCLA. The Herb Alpert School of Music opens 35 of its ensembles, the Bruin Marching Band included, to students from any major. The catch is that they do not work like clubs. Some are classes you enroll in for units; the rest audition, mostly once a year at the start of fall.

Way inEnsembles
Enroll in the course20
Audition13
Something else (open enrollment, an interest form)2
From the ensembles' joining notes in the directory.

Ensembles you join by enrolling

The world music ensembles are taught as ethnomusicology courses, numbered 91 for lower division and 161 for upper division: Music of Korea, Bali, Java, Mexico, Persia, Thailand, Tibet and Turkey, Music and Dance of Ghana, the African American Music and Klezmer ensembles, and the Old-Time String Band. Many teach their instruments from scratch, often by ear and in group lessons; the String Band is the exception and expects you to bring an instrument you already play.

Because they are courses, you enroll through the registrar and earn units, and the instructor is the person to ask about space. A few jazz ensembles work the same way through Global Jazz Studies course numbers. Music of China is the odd one out: it takes an interest form and welcomes beginners.

Ensembles that audition

  • UCLA Chorale, a mixed choir of roughly 110 voices open to all students, auditions each fall and rehearses Mondays and Wednesdays from 5 pm. The smaller Chamber Singers is for advanced singers.
  • Wind Ensemble is chosen by competitive audition each fall. Philharmonia is mostly music majors, with places for qualified non-majors at its general auditions at the start of fall.
  • Percussion and the Woodwind Chamber Ensembles take non-majors by audition; the woodwind groups ask for no chamber music experience.
  • uclaFLUX, for contemporary music, auditions players, singers and conductors on the first day of the course.
  • The Jazz Orchestra and its sister jazz groups are mainly for Global Jazz Studies students, with occasional openings by fall audition for instruments the program is short on.

The marching band

The Bruin Marching Band is the biggest of them: more than 250 members from over 100 majors, most of whom do not study music. It is open to all admitted and current students, but auditions are required. For the 2026–27 season they were by video, with separate requirements for winds and brass, drumline and color guard. Band camp runs about ten days before fall term, with on-campus housing and uniforms provided.

The open orchestra

If you want to play without auditioning, UCLA Symphony is the campus-wide orchestra, founded in 2002 and open to students, faculty and staff across campus. It lists open enrollment, rehearses Wednesday evenings and gives a concert each quarter in Schoenberg Hall.

Student-run groups

Beside the School of Music, 138 registered student organizations work in music, dance, theater and film: a cappella groups, dance teams and companies, theater troupes and bands. They are run by students, and 52 of them say they audition, usually early in fall and sometimes again in winter. Many also run open classes or socials anyone can attend.

The whole Arts & Performance area is in the directory, with audition notes where the group has posted them.