<p>I did not want to hijack the excellent thread about 20 20 hindsight.</p>
<p>But BassDad brought up a topic about his daughter's teacher deciding to start on audition pieces. I am not very music savy. But I do know that between HS competitions, auditions for camps, honors bands, etc. that much of my daughters lesson time is spent learning and perfecting pieces to performance level for thos events.</p>
<p>The question becomes at what point should the pieces chosen for those, take into consideration pieces she may need for College auditions. Is it too soon to do that now because of maybe getting stale on a piece? Or should, when possible, she be killing two birds with one stone and learning a piece that could be used at least in the recorded pre-audition process a year from now, when it can be worked in for another purpose?</p>
<p>I will be interested to hear everyone else's advice. This process is 100% brand new to me too, so I am not music school savvy either (although I'm getting there, thanks to all of you ;))</p>
<p>My DS is already working on audition repertoire, FML. He has two instruments (one which will require less prep, since it is jazz and more improv), and I don't know about any of the other classical instruments, but the repertoire for piano is intense, way too intense to learn in a matter of months or just during senior year. He is learning pieces, or movements, now and putting them away, and will come back for polish later. This was his piano teacher's recommendation, also to have pieces ready for practice lessons this spring.</p>
<p>Likewise for strings. My son the junior cellist already is learning pieces he may audition with--standard repertoire that will come back like riding a bike when he auditions next year. If you look at camps/competitions/college auditions, there's a lot of crossover, so why not start early?</p>
<p>My daughter's previous teacher always used the choice of rep as building blocks to audition for summer programs, youth orchestra, recitals, etc. Her current teacher is doing much the same, with more advanced material, which is certainly appropriate for college auditions. Right now, as a junior, she is working on some unaccompanied Bach and the first movement of Symphonie Espagnole by Lalo, a major concerto. She will use both of those to audition in January-February for summer programs for next year. She loves the Lalo, has already done the fourth movement and has a personal goal to learn the entire concerto (it's long...five movements). That's a longer term project that may be ready by the time college auditions come around.</p>
<p>But she and teacher are already looking further ahead: discussions about new rep are underway. Considerations include which pieces will help advance certain technical issues, what can expand her repertoire and be used for recitals, etc., what pieces she just loves and wants to master.</p>
<p>In any case, Bach and standard concerti are a violinist's bread-and-butter and will all come in handy for college auditions. And it's not too soon to be checking out the required audition rep guidelines. I think it was BassDad who advised getting out the ole' spreadsheet and working out a plan to see overlaps in requirements early on, so that you can develop the most efficient game plan for just what pieces will be needed for college auditions.</p>
<p>It was not until September of senior year that my D decided she was going to do auditions. By then she had plenty of other music commitments and needed to learn and practice music not related to auditions: school orchestra, State U orchestra one night/week, and Saturday ensembles and orchestra. She also had a very heavy academic schedule. All of these factors would make it difficult for her to have a lot of prep time. In addition, my D's teacher also had an interesting point of view. She felt her job was to teach my D to play and develop skills, not just to prepare for auditions. She said that she had seen students learn audition pieces really well, but still not develop overall skills. As a point of professional pride, she was not going to spend excessive time on audition material. As a result, my D did not select and begin prep until November. She had her first auditions in early January. Not being a musician, I have no idea how much time would be reasonable, but I am sure that was minimal, at best. We could hear a big improvement from her earlier auditions until those at the end of February and early March.</p>
<p>Yes I have heard the same from her teacher about developing her skills not just learning pieces. Fortunately she can handle all her other commitments like Band, Orch, musicals, ensembles, YO, etc by herself with rarely a need to consult her teacher and use up valuable lesson time.</p>
<p>I seem to recall someone on From the Top, maybe a violinist saying he learned a piece from scratch to performance level in a week. Did little else for that week. Daughter is never only working one thing but normally a difficult piece from start to performance level seems to very greatly from player to player and workload has a big influence I would guess.</p>
<p>Seems that some think you need to start your Jr year to work on a piece for college audition some seem to think early in the Sr year is soon enough.</p>
<p>Interesting about revisiting a piece previously learned. But there are so many important pieces that need to be learned and so many lessons to be learned from different composers and eras that revisiting has its own drawbacks.</p>
<p>Two to three months should be sufficient to prepare a piece for audition or not?</p>
<p>Check requirements. The student needs much more than a single piece.</p>
<p>Most of our kids are progressing rapidly. Starting a year early does not make sense, if they will be playing much more demanding pieces by audition time. I would guess Summer would be a good time to start on a portion of the audition prep and by Fall all of the major pieces should be at least selected.</p>
<p>I made sure that everything I had already worked on everything that I played for auditions, then I set it all aside until December, giving myself around two months until my first audition.</p>
<p>We did indeed make a spreadsheet early in the process that allowed daughter to identify a core set of audition pieces. It also helped in identifying schools whose audition requirements were different enough and inflexible enough as to make applying to both rather difficult.</p>
<p>Daughter wound up with a list of pieces that included a major 20th century concerto, a movement from a Bach cello suite, an etude, a baroque sonata, a late Romantic period solo piece and orchestral excerpts from a Beethoven symphony, a Mozart symphony and a Verdi opera. The concerto and the Bach had to be played from memory.</p>
<p>By the beginning of junior year she was working on some of the material that was less technically challenging and listening critically to recordings of the others. The concerto was the hardest and she started work on it by January of junior year. She used it to win a small scholarship in a local concerto competition in October of senior year and also as a recital piece (with piano accompaniment) for an honors-level music class in June of senior year.</p>
<p>In her case, I do not believe that the time spent was excessive or that she was only working toward auditions. Her playing in general improved dramatically over those two years and she was still learning new things, both in terms of technique and in terms of the audition pieces, right on through the end of auditions. I really think she needed that long to live with the concerto in particular. Memorizing twenty or so minutes worth of difficult 20th century music with lots of rapid double stop passages is not a trivial task. She might have been able to do it in a couple of months if she had nothing else at all to worry about, but she really would have been sick of it had she done it that way. Trying to learn that piece while also having homework, a half dozen musical extracurriculars, required service projects and all the rest of her busy schedule would have been totally impossible. Giving it over a year allowed her to learn a bit at a time and to become very familiar with not only her own part, but also the orchestral accompaniment and how the two fit together.</p>
<p>The right time to start is very dependent on the individual situation. In daughter's case, the first audition was in early December of senior year and she had a very busy eight weeks at Tanglewood the previous summer that did not allow her a lot of time to work on audition material. She also had to memorize quite a bit of material, which I understand does not apply in all cases. As is true for most kids, the time demands of her non-musical high school courses were considerable. I don't think she could have started much later and had time to get all of her pieces up to audition standards.</p>
<p>We also heard students who were playing audition pieces to a pretty high level by the end of their sophomore year of high school, who then took a gap year after high school to work with a coach and really get them in shape before auditioning. That may seem excessive but, if you are shooting for the top two or three programs, it can be a strategy worth considering for those who can afford it. About the only auditions that my daughter lost were to kids like these who had worked on their audition material even longer than she had.</p>
<p>My son worked for quite a while on his audition pieces. For cello, there was quite a bit of overlap in the audition rep. He ended up preparing the first movement of a major romantic concerto, a Bach suite, a 20th century sonata, an etude and scales. The sonata was the only thing that was not required by all schools. He played the concerto for competitions during the spring. He was able to learn a lot of technique while preparing for his auditions and all of it was standard repertoire for his instrument with the exception of the sonata. He chose his rep in the early summer and began working on it at his summer music program.</p>
<p>DS began learning standard pieces for his instrument in 7th grade. As he continued his studies, he added to his repertoire. When it came time to choose audition pieces (yes plural), he had a number of pieces from which to choose. <em>*He actually picked the pieces he enjoyed playing from the standard repertoire. *</em> And I think this starred sentence is VERY important. The student must feel comfortable and like the piece for auditions. Most schools required two pieces of contrasting styles...plus a bunch of orchestral excerpts. There was no school that specified only one solo piece...there was a lot of overlap. In one case, he had prepared a concerto piece and actually called the trumpet faculty because that specific piece was NOT on the list for that school. They said their list was suggested, not engraved in gold. The orchestral excerpts, however, WERE specific ones. DS began working in earnest on these pieces during the summer before his senior year. One piece was coincidentally our state All State audition piece. He came very close to memorizing the pieces as he really wanted to be comfortable with them at audition time. He too used some of these pieces for competitions during his senior year of high school.</p>
<p>As I think I mentioned I have researched the audition requirements for the top 15 or so on our early big list. I do know we are talking multiple pieces and different requirements for different schools. Some are very specific like Mozart Concerto D or G and some are less so like any Bach Sonata. Some are very casual like two contrasting pieces from different era. Some are the mix of the two. Then there are the third that want some Orch excerpts instead or addition to those. Some even have requirments for the pre-screening recording and additional ones if one makes the live audition.</p>
<p>And some of the pieces that fit, she has learned and performed. Obviously they would need additional work because she has improved and been playing pieces of that level for at least a couple years.</p>
<p>I was wondering if she should continue to work on pieces that could not be used for audition instead of killing two birds with one stone and only work on possible audition pieces. Teacher seems to think that she doesnt have to work on audition pieces yet, but I havent really brought that up, I always figure she must know what she is doing and I dont want to intefere.</p>
<p>Just seems logical to me like thumper said that if you need to learn a piece for a competition and have a choice, why not pick something you may need for an audition.</p>
<p>Teacher also wants to make sure my daughter has experience with as many composers and eras as possible and continues to improve as a player which isnt necessarily accomplished while learning pieces.</p>
<p>Your daughter's teacher is likely to be in a far better position than any of us to answer those questions. I think it would be appropriate to have a discussion with them regarding goals, both near-term and farther out. As the parent of a minor and the one who is presumably paying for the lessons, you have a right to be kept informed. </p>
<p>You will want to couch any questions in terms of a request for help or information rather than ask in a way that may seem to question the teacher's judgment. For example, do not start by asking "Don't you think my daughter should be working on her college audition pieces by now?" or "Shouldn't my daughter use this piece for the competition because it will also be useful for college auditions?" That just puts the teacher on the defensive.</p>
<p>Since you have not yet brought up the subject of specific audition pieces, you could show the teacher the research you have done. Mention when the auditions will start and ask their opinion of your list of schools. Ask which pieces might be good choices and whether they can recommend any particular recordings so that your daughter can start listening to them. Most likely, the teacher has the situation in hand, will understand your concern and explain any plans they have. Possibly, they may not have a plan, in which case the conversation should serve as a nudge in the right direction.</p>
<p>If they do not take the hint, you could say something along the lines of, "I'm sure you have this all worked out, but I'm a worrier and would sleep a lot better at night if I knew what to expect over the next year and a half. When would be the best time for my daughter to start working on her audition material? Is there anything we should be doing before then? What can I do to help?"</p>
<p>It sounds like your daughter has a very good teacher, but even the best of teachers can get caught off guard by rapidly approaching deadlines. If you take the approach of being a concerned facilitator and the teacher cannot or will not answer your questions, that could be cause for alarm.</p>
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<p>Since you have not yet brought up the subject of specific audition pieces, you could show the teacher the research you have done. >></p>
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<p>Actually...the STUDENT should discuss this with the teacher, not the parents. AND truthfully, the student should be doing the research. We discussed these things with our son and asked that he discuss this with his teacher(s) but we didn't do any of this for our son. What I am reporting is what HE did. The only thing we DID do was make a master calendar so we would know when the auditions were...DS even made the appointments for those. We made the airline reservations or drove. Some of what the flute parent is seeing is requirements for flute. There are a lot of flute players. My understanding is there is much less leeway in flute auditions than on most other instruments. AND in many cases flutes have to send a prescreening which is reviewed to determine IF an audition will be scheduled. One of DD's best friends (now at Juilliard) had to do these everywhere she applied and there were different pieces for the prescreening tapes AND then others for the audition.</p>
<p>Thanks BassDad for the recommended approach with her teacher.</p>
<p>thumper I wish she had the time to do most of this work herself. She is so busy this year in order to be less busy in her senior year. Maybe your child was just better at using their time. </p>
<p>You are right about flute, much more restrictive and difficult a road to hoe than other instruments. I kept researching requirements and finding the phrase, except for flute who must..... Then it would go on to pre-screening recordings or more detailed audition instructions. Too bad I was not informed enough to hand her a violin when she was 4. Or her band teacher on middle school didn't need a bassoon or something bad enough to pick her for that instrument. I have little doubt she could have accomplished as great a level of play on any instrument, why she ended up on the one with the longest odds. Don't pay attention to my complaining, I am just feeling a bit overwhelmed but what we are looking at over the next 18 months. And sad because I know between the competition and financial restrictions the odds of her ending up somewhere that will make her happy are almost insurmountable.</p>
<p>It is indeed best if the student takes the initiative on all of these things. A student who is obviously on top of things and can interact confidently with teachers and school administrators will make an excellent first impression and increase their chances of an offer of admission. In my experience, some students are better than others at this kind of thing.</p>
<p>Given the magnitude of the expenses and consequences involved, it is also understandable that mom and dad want to know that things are progressing as they should. If the parents are worried that something important is not getting done, then there needs to be more communication all the way around. Things could be going just fine, with both teacher and student assuming that the other one has told the parents everything they need to know. In that case, a five minute conversation could prevent the formation of an ulcer. Alternatively, things may not be going so fine, in which case somebody had better take the initiative toward corrective action.</p>
<p>Personally, I think that both the student and the parents should be well-informed. I happen to enjoy doing the research. That does not mean that I should be doing all of it, or even most of it, but I'm not going to let my kid have ALL the fun. If I happen to turn up something useful, I try to pass it along.</p>
<p>Try to relax and get enjoyment from the process. A talented and dedicated musician will find a program suited to their needs especially when they have the help of a dedicated and knowledgable parent involved. To say that one instrument is "easier" is probably naive since each one has it's pitfalls and difficulties. The one common theme amongst musicians is that they love their instrument and this love for their instrument has carried them through endless lessons, hours of practice, etc. On that day when they marched home with the instrument that they chose from their elementary school band director I doubt they came in screaming "I'm going to college for music performance!" Instead they say, "Mommie, look what I'm going play!" And learn to play it they did, to the extent that they can now confidently say "I've worked hard and I want to attend a music performance program!" </p>
<p>And, believe it or not, some people envy those who have to send in a pre-audition recording. It helps focus one's efforts earlier and helps avoid absolute no-win audition experiences. When DD auditioned at IU there was a young lady there who really wasn't close to having the experience needed to be auditioning at such a high-level institution. The etude she played came from a collection that DD had mastered during middle school. When this poor girl came out of the audition room she burst into tears since she realized that her audition was an exercise in futility and she was totally humiliated by it. A pre-screening recording and/or a well-informed parent helping out, would have avoided this ghastly occurrence.</p>
<p>Once again, take a deep breath, relax and try to enjoy. There will be many special moments during this process. DD and I already miss those special "Daddy/Daughter trips" out to auditions. Even during those stressful times, quality time alone with your child is priceless.</p>
<p>Thanks Zep. I am not nearly as stressed as my words might seem.</p>
<p>Best I can explain it is a jazz player once said when asked why he practiced the notes so much when he was going to improvise anyway. He said he had to know the notes better if he was to feel good improvising. Not sure that was a good paraphrase.</p>
<p>But I tend to feel better and enjoy uber planning and then am very relaxed and enjoy the real event and am very able to be calm for my daughter even when the plan needs adjusting in process. The only part that really stresses me is the waiting for results and I am sure that will be even worse in this process.</p>
<p>As far as the pre-screening, I guess looking at the glass as half full is the better way, not sure its a way I can choose.</p>
<p>I would not say one instrument is easier than another, that is a different debate. I would say the numbers stack up way differently for one instrument versus another and lowers ones odds significantly.</p>