Auditions: tips and focus for student

[Diana6]

What do professors look for in a student audition for scholarships? This would be for a non-music, fairly small yearly scholarship at a medium size university. This is a virtual audition for finalists.

They say that you should prepare a piece (jazz for this student), be able to play scales, improvise, and sight read. I guess the student provides the sight reading music. Should the scales be memorized? The audition is set for around 10 minutes (playing and interview), so not a lot of time.

Any tips or advice?

[cmcslide]

The professor will provide the sight reading music. The idea is to see how well the student plays music that they've never seen or played before. The prepared piece is standard, so is improvisation if the student is going to play jazz, and the scales are also very standard. The scales should be memorized. Preparation really shouldn't be too different from an audition for an all-county or all-region band, and 10 minutes sounds like a typical length for one of these at the undergraduate level too.

[harrisonreed]

I'm guessing they are looking for giving a scholarship out to play "jazz" in the front unit for the schools marching band? The premise seems strange, to give a scholarship for music to a non music student otherwise.

If it's for the marching front unit, charisma will be a huge factor they are looking at.

[AndrewMeronek]

IMHO ten minutes is more than enough - some of that time can even be spent asking questions. When I've had to evaluate students, I can tell how they play pretty much after about 4 seconds. Keep in mind I haven't even done that very much. The rest is just getting into the details. IMHO prepared excerpts is probably better than a full prepared solo unless endurance is a huge element of the audition. And the sight-reading can be short, too (one modest selection or a few shorter selections) as long as the sight-reading does its job: covering some different styles, techniques, etc.

[AndrewMeronek]

If improvising is truly an important element, part of sight-reading should include reading chord changes.

[Diana6]

I'm guessing they are looking for giving a scholarship out to play "jazz" in the front unit for the schools marching band? The premise seems strange, to give a scholarship for music to a non music student otherwise.

If it's for the marching front unit, charisma will be a huge factor they are looking at.

Colleges and Universities that don't have large numbers of music majors want to attract non-music majors to their ensembles. They want a mix of engaged students and offer smaller scholarships help keep them committed in the ensembles for four years. They have marching band and "ensemble" scholarships, open to all students. My son is not interested in marching band, but this school has various jazz ensembles in which he would like to participate.

So, this is a virtual audition...will they send a pdf of music for sight reading? They wouldn't want the student to supply a piece for sight reading, correct?

[BGuttman]

Sight reading means you have never seen the music before. I'd guess they will put music on his screen at the audition.