Splicing pre-screen tapes

College Majors Music Majors
1

<p>My daughter was disturbed to learn that a friend of hers is splicing her prescreen recordings for her university/conservatory applications. Our understanding is this is not permitted.</p>

<p>I was wondering how common this is, to try to make it through prescreens by splicing and even altering the music with the assistance of a professional studio.</p>

<p>How many of these cheaters do the colleges and conservatories catch? There is apparently equipment easily available that can be used to detect splicing.</p>

2

<p>You can select which take you use of each song, so in that sense slicing is allowed. It does not have to be one long single take. But changing within the song is not allowed. If students cheat and try it, it will come out eventually. When there is no splicing in the live audition it will tell.</p>

3

<p>Yes, there is equipment that can detect alterations but schools are really busy and most won’t have the time to check for that during prescreenings. As Singersmom07 has indicated, there is no hiding during the actual live auditions!</p>

4

<p>My assumption is that applicants must record one piece all the way through without stopping, but that they can choose which recording they want to use. However this is disturbing, as students who do not cheat may lose the opportunity to audition because others are cheating.</p>

<p>I’m glad my daughter plays an instrument that does not require prescreens.</p>

5

<p>NEC specifically told us during our tour- unaltered played all the way through- they said they can tell…you can choose which take though.</p>

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<p>Certainly splicing is unethical (I have not heard of a school that permits or condones it). Ultimately though splicing is not nearly as helpful as those who do it, think it is. </p>

<p>Not only do the splicers have to perform a live audition which allows no splicing, but more importantly, the things that the prescreening faculty look for just can’t be fixed by splicing: e.g. good tone (for vocalists, strings and winds this is huge and many students just don’t yet hear/get the difference), consistent intonation (yes, splicing can eliminate those two bad notes, but most splicers aren’t aware of how consistently off their intonation is in all of their playing), intelligent and musical phrasing (splicing just won’t improve this and in fact is likely to result in some disjointedness which takes away from the overall coherence and architecture of the performance). </p>

<p>Typically people use splicing to eliminate obvious errors; but unless the error is near the beginning of a piece, it is unlikely to be heard, and if the faculty member does happen to listen all the way to the 9th minute of halfway through the concerto movement where the error occurs, they will have formed a judgement already that will be little influenced by the error. My son’s prescreens and live auditions all had glitches (for example, he had three memory lapses at his Juilliard live audition but still was admitted with plenty of merit aid–as with any performance, it is all about how you handle the lapses–his were in a contemporary work which none of the listeners had likely heard much (if ever), he covered well, continued playing without any rhythmic disruption, and he saw no reaction at all from the faculty and doubted that any noticed).</p>

<p>Yes, one take will have a better rendition of the terrifying 32nds in measures 122-125 and another will get those horrid leaps in measures 180 to 183 perfectly in tune, but for those that are at the level to gain admission even the bad renditions will be so much better than the best renditions of those whose prescreens are rejected outright, that there is no advantage to splicing out the bad renditions. </p>

<p>Whenever I hear a student (who is not already an international star) say that they played something perfectly, then I know that they are not a suitable candidate for the very best schools–they clearly lack the discerning ear that would hear all of their own flaws or inadequacies and that is required to produce music at a high level.</p>

<p>Music is not primarily about error avoidance or error editing. A performer with something profound to say and the equipment with which to say it will always be forgiven the occasional imperfection. Those with nothing to say and who have not bothered developing the technical, tonal and other types of equipement for musical expression, will never impress faculty no matter how error-free their performance is.</p>

<p>I doubt that many, if any, cheaters are directly “caught.” Somehow, I think that either: a) their playing is good enough that the splicing was unnecessary for them; or b) their playing is bad enough that the splicing doesn’t help it. We have all heard about splicers. I, like the OP, am curious as to whether anyone has ever heard of anyone being rejected for splicing (i.e. being “caught”).</p>

7

<p>Good post, violindad. The cheater I’m referring to probably falls into the category of being good enough that she doesn’t need the splicing. She apparently had only one take at the studio on one piece and made more mistakes than she normally does. What I find interesting is that she is apparently quite confident that she can splice and won’t be caught. She knows some of the faculty at several top programs/conservatories (stays with them when visiting the school) and I wonder if she’s been assured by the faculty that it won’t matter.</p>

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<p>From my prospective Violindad said what needed to be said, that merging takes (better word then splicing, most audition programs want a CD or DVD:) probably won’t help much, and if they think it has been tinkered with they will probably put the person on the reject pile. Violindad is dead spot on about nuances of intonation in playing, something I have learned about having little musical knowledge myself, I hear something I think sounds great in a master class or observing someone play with my son, and find out that the person had issues with intonation and such. It is something top students spend a lot of time with, learning to listen to themselves and pick up the issues. One of the problems I suspect with merging performances is that the differences might be noticable, because no two performances are identical, and if for example in one take the person had been flat in some section, and splices in a piece they liked better that was more consistently sharp, it is going to be picked up…</p>

<p>The point to be remembered is that they are listening to overall quality of the part they listen to ( I doubt they listen to the whole prescreen) and if it seems too perfect,they might get suspicious. Internationally famed musicians when they play make mistakes all the time, no one plays "perfectly’ in the sense of playing with perfect intonation on every note of every performance (computer could do that, not a human being), and especially with a student they might get suspicious. And if the faculty has heard this girl play and know her, even worse, because what she sends it might be well out of character for her. If she is really that good, then the her underlying quality will come out even in a performance she feels is so so, and I think she could end up doing the opposite of what she intends, make her less wanted by merging performances.</p>

<p>And yes, there is software that can analyze a performance and tell you if it has been merged together, even today where you can use sophisticated tools like pro logic and such to do the work, audio analysis software that is out there is incredibly complex and can pick up nuances and such that any such editing would leave…do the schools use this? I don’t know, it depends on how much weight they put on the prescreen.</p>

<p>As others have said, you can’t lie on a live audition and even in this girl’s case, where she ‘knows’ faculty at schools she is applying to, you can’t get around it, if she has a bad audition faculty who like her prob won’t be able to get her in if others object. More importantly, assuming she is able to get the prescreen recording into almost perfect shape, what will happen on the live audition? Will she be able to maintain consistent levels of play enough to convince the panel? All someone does by doing that IMO is make it more likely they will be disappointed, since the live audition is it.</p>

<p>Put it this way, I have heard stories from people I trust about using DVD’s and CD’s for auditions and kids who ‘cheated’ on them, and most fail their live auditions,at a higher level then the overall rate of rejection (like, if the normal accept to fail is 10% get accepted, a lot less of these kids made it in then that rate).</p>

9

<p>I’ve been thinking about this one, and I’d like to compliment woodwinds’ D for her ethical stance on the issue. I’ve just deleted a long, rambling screed that went from splicing to plagiarism to texting-while-driving to the banking crisis, and beyond…but the point I was trying to make was that it ultimately boils down to individuals standing up for their principles, whether or not some committee ever catches the cheater. Something as simple as the look of shocked surprise that I’m sure woodwinds’ D had on her face when learning of her friend’s plans could have an effect…whether on the friend or on others who were also in the conversation.</p>

10

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<p>Lol, stradmom. I was pretty shocked a few years ago when I learned that it is standard practice in our hometown for kids to hire a professional to record their CDs and edit them.</p>

<p>I had no idea, but apparently editing measure-by-measure is now the usual thing, at least for some people. Is this what you mean by splicing? </p>

<p>I used to work in a language lab in college and part of my job was to splice and tape together audio tapes using a razor and tape. I think these days it is done with high-tech, recording studio-quality equipment and computers. I don’t think they are adjusting stuff like pitch, but rather putting together a (so called) flawless piece out of a lot of mini-takes. We didn’t attempt anything like this, and learning about the practice afterwards made me (at least) feel like a naive yokel. But my daughter still got her auditions…</p>

<p>The kids I know whose audition recordings were created this way are excellent players, and probably did not need to spend the money (unless they were also using these tapes to prescreen for competition (?) </p>

<p>This is why I really prefer videotaped prescreens. The playing field is much more level.</p>

11

<p>Yes, by splicing I did mean that the recording studio edits the recording.</p>

<p>I recall now that my daughter’s first oboe teacher told me how he knew of students who were using a studio to edit their Tanglewood auditions.</p>

12

<p>I learned today from one of my daughter’s teachers that applicants routinely splice or edit their CD submissions, both for university/conservatory applications and for competitions and summer music institutes. This teacher also teaches performance at a large state university. We learned about this because my daughter is preparing to enter a national concerto competition, and he asked her if she wanted to splice her recording! He said it is undetectable, and that everyone is doing it. She will be at a disadvantage because she flat out said no. Her teacher said that in this case it would not be cheating because this particular competition does not specifically say that editing is prohibited.</p>

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<p>I have been told, informally and off the record, that in some national competitions with “tape” rounds, those who get to the finals often edit their pieces measure by measure.</p>

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<p>Well, I’m not surprised to hear that, but I’m pretty disgusted.</p>

<p>I guess then that my daughter will be eliminated at some of these competitions because we won’t edit her recordings. Fortunately there are many competitions, and she doesn’t have to do them all.</p>

<p>Perhaps this explains some odd placements at summer festivals. My daughter sometimes finds herself sitting behind players who she’s much better than, as they were placed by a CD audition.</p>

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<p>woodwinds, you and your D have my vote for “good people of the year”. Sometimes, you just have to do what’s right and let the chips fall where they will.
As for the editing measure by measure: that’s been common practice for years in major recording studios. Have you ever gone to a recital and wondered why the person you’re listening to sounds so different, or listened to a YouTube clip and compared it to a CD? It’s bad enough that the professionals have gone that route, but for the students to be told that it’s OK is disgusting. The answer to that would be to require DVD or visual recordings, and that doesn’t seem to be hard to make that switch. Any ideas as to why “audio only” is still permitted if there is so much “creative editing” going on?</p>

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<p>Neither my daughter nor I have a problem with professionals and others editing their performances for the purpose of selling their CDs. Often we think they don’t sound as good as live though. The notes are perfect, but some energy is misssing from the performance.</p>

<p>Editing a CD for a competition, or a pre-screen for a conservatory, is an entirely different matter. It’s cheating, and conservatories shouldn’t put up with it, tolerate it, wink-wink about it, or encourage their students to cheat themselves!</p>

<p>My daughter’s teacher did say they were moving towards requiring DVDs, or at least allowing them. But will there come a time when the DVD can be edited without detection?</p>

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<p>It’s a lot harder to edit a DVD because you need to line up the sound with the audio. DVD auditions always require single camera at a fixed distance-- that makes fooling around with splicing takes almost impossible. I agree DVD auditions are much fairer. As an added bonus, the adjudicator can be sure that it is the applicant herself/himself who is doing the actual playing. And they can also notice details about set-up and posture…</p>

<p>You know the possibly apocryphal story about the youth orchestra conductor who complained to the girl’s mother that the tape she sent in was actually a recording by Heifetz? The mom’s answer: well, she plays just like Heifetz, so what’s the difference?</p>

<p>These days professional recordings are easily detectible but there’s no way to tell, from an audio tape, if it’s a recording by you or best friend. </p>

<p>DVD auditions level the playing field in another way: most can afford the cost of halfway decent video recorder for a few hundred dollars. But the cost of recording time in a studio, and paying an engineer to splice, is prohibitive to many people. It’s much easier to make a DVD in a recital hall or church.</p>

<p>Anyone who decides to spend thousands on a professional DVD can still do that-- but they will be in the minority and their audition is going to look over-processed.</p>

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<p>Ivebeenthere, I appreciate your post. It is illuminating.</p>

<p>I disagree with the conservatory professor’s comparison to the SAT however. With the SAT, you choose which test you want to show the school. In the case of splicing or editing your recording, you are actually CHANGING your recording. The same studio that can splice part of one take with a different part of another can also “improve” your intonation.</p>

<p>The Heifetz story is great.</p>

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<p>I wanted to provide an update to my original post. In it, I discussed how a friend of my daughter’s had edited several (2) of her prescreens.</p>

<p>The friend made it past most of her prescreens and has been admitted to one conservatory so far. However, she did not pass prescreens at the two schools where she “cheated”. One school was a top conservatroy, the other, a safety.</p>

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<p>The other factor here is that even assuming someone can splice together a pre screen tape to make it sound better or otherwise “cheat”, what is the point? Unless that is being used as the audition, the fact is they are going to need to pass the audition, and if the pre screen was all trickery, what have they gained? In fact, as others pointed out, they could have someone else do a cd or tape/audio only recording, but what happens then?</p>