Hi I have a junior who is looking to study music in college, most likely a performance program. He has been playing guitar for 10 years and has been in the School of Rock program for 3 years. I think he was starting to get bored of the rock/pop and started picking up jazz this last year, and he loves it!
I think I remember seeing some kids with similar stories applying last year, so I’m hoping anyone with experience can chime in. My question is, how much sight reading was included in the auditions and how much will being new to sight reading affect his ability to keep up in a jazz program? He has been learning jazz standards, but just by ear. He does plan to work on this over the summer.
Right now he is looking at both jazz and popular music programs. The only one that he has found that combines the two is Columbia College in Chicago, so if anyone know of another we would love to hear about it! Thanks
Thank you! UNT is definitely on his radar. He is signed up to go to their summer guitar program, but may not be able attend if he gets into an a different audition based program. This is the exact type of school I was thinking about regarding the sight reading requirements.
We aren’t as interested in Belmont, the religious aspect and the saturation of Nashville are of concern.
Many guitarists don’t read anything but chord charts and tab. That said, he’d do himself a huge favor to learn to read standard notation. It adds a dimension of understanding, especially for complex rhythms. Long story short, rather than working around his weakness, he can fix it. This is coming from a parent of a classical player who reads extremely well though. I understand the hurdle he faces trying to start now. He’ll need to read to get out of any program. Even for guitar he’ll do a ton of theory and aural work, probably keyboard too.
For sure he would like to work on this weakness! When we visited a college recently, he got to see the advanced big band jazz combo play. They were on their first day back from break and the professor handed out brand new music for them to play. They were amazing! My son was impressed and inspired. Now, these were probably mostly seniors, but I guess my question is, Is it too late for him and should he just target popular music programs like Berklee, USC, and Frost? Or is there a little more leeway for jazz guitarist than the other jazz musicians in the beginning?
I unfortunately can’t answer that. My son decided to go into engineering. I can say that the Thornton staff is great. He was fortunate to do masters classes with several of them.
Thornton. Frost, Berklee, NYU?, New School (has both), Loyola New Orleans, U of Denver…I am not looking them up for the combo right now but worth looking into…
My son is a current freshman at UNT in jazz guitar. He fell in love with the program at the summer jazz combo. He also did summer programs at Berklee, Eastman, and NYU. Sight reading is a huge component of his program. It definitely gave him an edge for his lab band placement. He felt his improv was more important for guitar, but this isn’t a generalization for other instruments. If you have any questions , please pm me. He LOVES the program. Finishing up freshman year and I can’t say enough good things about his experience. The COM is large but the jazz program is very personal.
We visited and toured Belmont and he didnt apply for those two reasons. He works ALOT in Dallas. There are plenty of opportunities to gig, record, and while he isn’t religious…the school posts church gigs and they pay really well!
I’m so glad your son found his place at UNT! I really appreciate your insight. It sounds like the sight reading might be more important for placement after being admitted and his improv and playing skills more important for the auditions. Which would be great because that will give him a little more time to work on it. Also great to hear that UNT students are playing in Dallas. The opportunity to gig and perform outside of school is also super important to him, so he wants to be in or near a large city.
We started before junior year with a list of about 10-15 schools (a good mix of jazz and contemporary), did camps, tours, met with staff on visits and had it down to about 6-7 he applied to…If you have any questions please feel free to pm…it was a long but such a fun process…It really helped him make the best decision for himself
Thanks everyone for you help and suggestions! Compmom, I will look into those programs. I’m not certain, but I thought jazz and popular music were quite separate for most of them, with very little crossover. I will investigate though.
I haven’t posted much on here, but Ive been watching and collecting information since 2016 when my first child applied to college. I don’t know how to PM or tag people, so if someone could tell me how that would be great
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