Carl played guitar and though he wanted to perform with an alternative rock band he felt it was important to get a college education. He didn’t want to just hang out and jam, though he also didn’t want to slight that lifestyle. Carl, however, had big ambitions for his life and wanted to become proficient on the piano and study music theory to a great extent. Ultimately he had dreams of creating a new realm of musical theatre performance that would depart from the more traditional musical comedy or more grand dramatic musical tradition. It would be an outgrowth of the rock musical or rock opera, though he didn’t quite know what direction it would ultimately take. He knew he wanted to incorporate symbolic images in some kind of smoke or fog and the music be kind of an eerie background statement. He saw it as a kind of neo-noir stage event.
In considering potential universities it was important for Carl to be able to play with like minded musicians in the community where he would be living. After narrowing down multiple possibilities, he finally settled on Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois. He had visited the school with his parents while he was still deciding and loved what he saw of the campus. He and his parents spent three days in one of the Chicago luxury hotels and enjoyed exploring the local music scene while they were there in addition to visiting the campus. Carl loved blues and jazz and this was one of the major attractions that drew him to Chicago. Added to that was his tremendous interest in the program at Columbia College. He had originally been torn between the music department and that of Audio Arts and Acoustics. He liked the technical focus of the later but ultimately felt he belonged in the music center and that is what he applied for and was accepted into.
