I agree that the lengthier, somewhat more interactive audition at Oberlin was better than the 10 min anonymous ones. The trial lessons have been even more valuable. My son did have one prof who said at the beginning of the audition that there are times where perfection is the goal, but that this audition wasn’t one of those times. He wasn’t looking for perfect, he wanted to get to know my son’s playing as he is right now and learn about what kind of player he was going to grow into. I think that was super comforting to my son and helped him relax before playing his material.
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Performing arts are subjective, I don’t think there’s any performance that’s flawless. Everything is good enough, to various audiences. I remember my son’s teacher explain to me that each audition piece is meant to demonstrate something, so as long as that something is clearly shown, that’s good enough.
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So true! And certainly minor glitches like a note that doesn’t speak or bobbled fingering (talking winds here) are common.
What the panel does want to see is beautiful tone, accurate technique, good intonation and musicality. Perfection, no. As talented musicians, they will shine. And at some point they learn to not beat themselves up over the small stuff.
I don’t think flawless is typical. I agree with some other posters about length of audition mattering. My kid actually does a lot better in longer auditions (Rice, CIM) where he feels he has time to present an entire picture of his abilities vs. 12 min auditions (Colburn, Juilliard) where they cut you off partway through, so if you made an error, it feels like you can’t recover from it.
And to add to this, important for kids to know that if they cut you off, it is almost always because they have their own time limit. Not because kid made an error or was not playing well. It is jarring to be cut off. Take it in stride.
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But they schedule auditions in 15 minute increments. Program is longer. Plus getting in/out of room, setting up, you got to take couple minutes away from that as well. I don’t see how they can allow you to play an entire piece.
Even Rice is 10-15 minutes at most.
Yes exactly. They will almost always listen to parts of your rep.
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Rice for double bass was nearly 30 minutes, which was awesome. Most of our other colleges have not been like that though.
Nearly minutes? You mean just couple of minutes?
haha… mistype. Nearly 30 minutes.
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I wonder if it has to deal with how many they are auditioning per instrument.
Maybe - Rice had 2 days of basses and we had 8 auditioners (4 grad, 4 undergrad) on the first day, so the second day was probably similar. Juilliard only does one day of basses and literally like everyone applies and most get prescreened in, so I don’t know how they audition through the amount of basses that will show up next weekend there without very quickly moving people through…
Cellos were scheduled 15 minutes apart. 3 days of auditions.
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Given the complexity of much of the music you do, and nerves, I will go out on a limb and say no one has a flawless audition even at the highest levels. On a violin, minor slips with intonation, volume, going too fast or slow. Music students are taught to be self critical, they are their own worse critics and according to a couple of teachers I have met, they often create issues where there really was none.
I am not a musician or a music teacher, but my take on it based on what I saw with my son, have heard from people who hear audtions at all levels, that they expect slips, including memory slips, it happens to all musicians, I have seen some of the top violin soloists make major slips playing a concerto, it happens. The people auditioning have been through it, they understand nerves. One of the things they are looking for is conistency (or lack thereof), an intonation slip is one thing, if the intonation is off a number of times that will be different. Having played clarinet (poorly, was a school player) I spoke with a top level clarinetist I met through my son who teaches at a couple of high level schools, and I mentioned things like a reed that suddenly wasn’t working well, and he said they can tell that in an audition. They can tell a memory slip from where someone really doesn’t know or understand the piece. The music audition process as I know it isn’t the judging for gymnastics or diving where the judges are looking to deduct points, most of the people on the audition panels really want the kids to do well, they can sympathize and empathize with what the kids are going through. Another thing I have heard (this was violin world, music teachers of my son I talked to over the years) is that in deciding who to admit a lot of it when it is close will come down to factors like musical interpretation, does the kid get it, is there a vision there in the playing, it isn’t only just technical playing.
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That is something that people often don’t talk about auditions, and that is the panel is looking at the auditioner and while listening for their playing ability, they also are asking themselves if this a kid that they can work with, do they seem to have a sense of the music, would it be fun to work with them (and yes, take it from me, they do see things that way). Meeting the base level of admission is one thing, but then interest in the students style and presentation and understanding is big, very big.
They are auditioning a lot of kids, and even though you have prepared all these pieces they are going to ask for sections of pieces. They ask for excerpts because those are sections they think give them a fair inkling of the range and ability of the student , things like period appropriateness comes into play for example.
The thing about getting cut off and told “thank you” is that you can’t tell what that means. They may ask a marginal kid to use almost the entire 15 minutes, whereas they will here a kid and after 5 or 7 minutes know the kid is good enough. Keep in mind especially at programs that use pre screening, that the kids who are auditioning are not going to be horrible.
Again with auditions, my advice to those auditioning is not try and get clues of how you did from anything that goes on there, the length of the audition (my son’s audition at juilliard lasted I recall 7 minutes, he got in there, his Curtiss audition was like 15 minutes and he didn’t get in), he had another audition at a top program that lasted 5 minutes, got in.From what my son and other kids around him have said, most panels are business like, they don’t interject much emotion into it and it is deliberate. And please, whatever you do, don’t listen to online claims about auditions (CC is a bit different, because this is mostly parents on here). I have heard supposed music students say they auditioned at X great school, and the panel clapped for them and told them they were another heifetz, which needless to say is manure. If they smile they are being polite, if they grimace it could be it has been a long day and they have a headache.
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Yes, it does. If they have only 1 slot open on an instrument (let’s say clarinet), they may only audition a limited pool, let’s say 10 kids, so they could listen longer. On violin because they are auditioning a lot of slots at a big program, the audition group will be larger, and time will then be very tight. One of the reasons all schools went to pre screens was because there was no way they could handle all the kids who applied, Juilliard on violin would get a ridiculous number of people applying because of the name of the school. Even with pre screens music schools can be auditioning a lot of kids on certain instruments, so time can be very limited.
Just so you all aren’t envying the small studio musicians, my woodwind kid never had an undergrad audition longer than 15 minutes.I think that is pretty standard.
Curtis was the outlier in that he had a 15 minute prelim round in the morning. Then there was a callback for a final round in the evening. The final round was around 30 minutes (full repertoire) followed by an interview with the dean.
UMICH SMTD waitlist for BA (Tombone). Son was just notified. He received a form to fill out about joining waitlist and it asked 1) what other colleges or universities you are considering at this time 2) Where have you been admitted? Provide any additional info in support of your appliciation. Why are they asking about other schools? Any advice on what to share here? It’s his preferred school. Also had audition for music ed. Still waiting on decision. Thanks
No advice, but that seems kind of intrusive to me!