Please demystify the "Sample lesson" situation

kmcmom13
Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:23:36 +0000

My son is not a performance major, and the phenom of a “sample lesson” still assisted him enormously in his junior year - i’d say a 10. We had wanted to tour a particular som to get a feel for the music tech program, and the delightful department head (and teacher) phoned us after an email inquiry and invited us to sit in on a freshman and senior year studio – one was computer music composition, the other a rather experimental digital ensemble – the day before an upcoming audition day so that we could also benefit from
the tours.

It was a great fit for him, and really helped him later determine where he wanted to be, and why. I really liked the transparency of the process. I did not find all schools equally accommodating on PRE acceptance “sample lessons” but perhaps in this case this particular school was familiar with the ensemble/composition competitons/private instructors he’d had. In his initial request, he’d included (at my behest) a short summary of his musical background to date. I’m not certain he’d done so at some of the other schools, but at least two of them gave his work a listen (recorded) and invited him for a pre-meet.

So my suggestion when asking for a meeting pre-acceptance, eg in junior year, is to include regional or program accomplishments and background in the request letter, which I believe helps the teacher know it may be a fruitful session.