Hi! I’m planning on auditioning for Berklee college of music in late 2015 and I need some help regarding the improv, blues and sight reading section. Is there anyone out there who auditioned for Berklee with voice and can help me with some advice or examples? I’m a high school senior and I would really love some advice on how to prep for such a huge audition! Thanks
Hi I had my audition for Berklee on June 8. I’m singing too. The first thing is your prepared piece (I sang my original song)—you can only perform one prepared piece. After that, they continued to sight reading (they will give you 15 minutes to prepare your sight reading piece—there are 4 songs and you can pick one of them). My proctor played the piano and I sang the sight reading piece. After that, the proctor tested my pitch accuracy by playing some scales and asked me to sing them back. The last one is rhythm testing. My proctor made some rhythm pattern and asked me to sing it back while he clapped his hand to make certain tempo. That’s all… God luck with your audition
My daughter is getting ready to audition at Berklee and is really nervous. Her prepared singing piece is good but she really has no theory training and probably wouldn’t be able to do the sight reading part of the audition. Will this be a problem and disqualify her?
@mumkee-I won’t lie, it’s going to take points off for her of she can’t do it at all so she has to try. Sight singing is something that anyone can practice on their own, and needs to be working on well before audition season starts and all throughout the season itself. It comes naturally to some kids, but most have to develop the skill- do something when handed the paper, at least try, the worst thing is to panic and not open your mouth at all, or cry, please don’t cry.
It’s OK, the very FIRST time, and only that time, in this case, after attempting it, for your daughter to say that she’s really new to all this but she will be working on it and learning how to do better. And you know what? She will do just that because it won’t be new to her and she won’t be as nervous. Oh, and she can ask, in this case, for her first note, and I’m really hopeful that the accompanist will at least play that for her, or let her find the note and play it for herself. Wishing her good luck!!
PS- My daughter was terrible at it the first couple of times (Ack! that seems like eons ago!) But now, she can step into any situation, and often has to when she’s subbing as a soloist, and gets handed a piece of music for a cold read, and off she goes! It’s the same if she’s on an MT audition- then they get just a few minutes to learn the segment, all sight reading, cold. So, you see, it’s a very useful tool to have in your arsenal!
thank you! I know she will sing really well and do the other parts. she has a couple more weeks to work on her sight singing but I’m not feeling very confident about it. Good advice though and I will pass that on to her.
Hello @mumkee - First of all @Mezzo’sMama said all the right things above. But just so you know - I remember pleading with my daughter the summer before auditions to practice sight singing just “10 minutes a day.” (Haha - right - that didn’t go anywhere.) She didn’t audition at Berklee, but she mentioned at her auditions that they usually started out with something kind of easy and then had a more difficult selection to try. There are some fun apps that your daughter can use to cram for this a bit and gain some confidence before her auditions and she’ll be surprised at her progress. Good luck to you both!
I think I answered you in a different thread, but for what it’s worth, my son studied his HS senior year with our state university’s professor in his instrument, i.e. someone who is in the position of evaluating music school applicants, and he threw in a lot of sight-reading exercises the few months before audition season. He would just give my son a stack of music, of all difference genres, and tell him to sight read through them all. You don’t have to know a lot of “theory” to sight-read, but it’s definitely a skill that you can practice to improve.