<p>As a violinist, I auditioned hundreds of times (or more! lol) and some auditions I had memorized pieces and some I had to take sheet music. So I have no idea about a regular jazz guitar audition.
For Berklee and Denver, S had several memorized pieces — and frankly, when he does jazz he improvs most of the time anyway, so naturally, no sheet music. But one of the auditions, don’t remember which, the instructions were to bring a lead sheet… which got us to thinking…
For a standard jazz audition, would it be 1. welcome 2. acceptable 3. a huge no-no — to bring a handwritten sheet with chord changes for the required pieces. Was thinking about the Real Book but thought that was probably forbidden…
He probably won’t even look at it, but we just wondered if anyone uses anything like that at all.
Thanks (and that was shellybean’s crazy question of the week. Stay tuned. I’m sure there’s more!)</p>
<p>I’m glad you asked that, shellybean. I was wondering that myself for next year.</p>
<p>The problem is that there isn’t a standard one size fits all answer for this, but in general, you are probably fine writing the changes above a lead sheet. Some teachers will even appreciate the effort in defining the chords for the solo phrases, but others will see that as a weakness of theory knowledge…unfortunately they won’t be wearing a sign that says which type they are…</p>
<p>If the changes are something like a standard 12 bar F-Blues, then I’d avoid doing so, but if it is some off the wall set of changes from some piece that is modern and not standard, it probably would make sense to give yourself some help as it would be better to play in key than to try and go without the help and be all over the place.</p>
<p>Shellybean, I would call the music department and ask. I had a couple of good conversations with folks when my twins were auditioning. I can’t answer your question specifically but it never hurts to ask by phone or by e-mail if the audition day information is not as clear as you would like. </p>
<p>Your son can bring a folder with his pages that can either be used or not, certainly can be used for practice.</p>