Time/effort estimate for learning

[jrdioko]

Hello to all, and thank you in advance for reading over my post.

I am a student at UC Berkeley, and I've recently become interested in learning to play the carillon (the bells in our tower) there. The problem is, to enter the program, you must audition on an instrument and satisfy the following prerequisites: "the ability to read both treble and bass clefs fluently; key signatures through three sharps and three flats; the common duple and triple time signatures; and a working knowledge of the keyboard." I assume since both clefs are required as well as a knowledge of the keyboard, it makes most sense to audition on the piano. The problem is, the only piano experience I've had is some basic lessons in elementary school (of which I remember nothing) and some time spent on the piano at home learning a couple of simple pieces by manually figuring out each note one at a time.

I have hours of free time over the next three months and possible some once school starts again (depending on the difficulty of classes), and I thought this would be a nice goal to set and work on. I was wondering how long you expect it would take me to get from where I am now to a level where I could audition and fulfill the above prerequisites. I'm willing to put in the effort, but my goal is carillon playing, not piano playing, and I need to get started in that program soon if I want to leave myself enough time to develop skills on that instrument (it takes a year and a half before you start preforming on any significant level).

As far as other music experience goes, I've spent 6 or 7 years off and on taking violin lessons and 1-2 years teaching myself guitar and mandolin. I've taken a music theory class in high school and understand most of that on one level, but I've never reached a point on an instrument where I can sit down with a piece of music and comfortably sight read through it. I can hear something a few times, pick my way through it a few times, and then be able to read along as I play it, but that's not true sight reading from scratch.

If anyone has any comments, suggestions, estimates, etc., I'd appreciate the input as I try to decide if this is something I should go ahead with.

[Bob]

Talk to someone who's already doing it. 

With your background, I'm sure they would love to have you  -- you're willing to learn about it and practice for it.  What more could they ask?

Find someone who's doing it now and "apprentice" with them.  Start small and work up.

I've heard people memorize those pieces.  The "keys" are a little different than a piano.