There are obviously a whole lot of issues with Chance Me Audition (CMA), a new topic to be defined shortly, so let’s see if any positive ones could be harvested out of it that would aid our student auditioners. This is a topic about whether anything positive could develop or how to positively move forward with an idea like it.
We have seen plenty of chance-me threads about a students odds of getting into a college, given their GPAs, SATs, ECs, etc. As awkward as those can be, there are quite a few of them. Many folks don’t like seeing them. And so forth.
So, the CMA would be a single video showing a best reflection of where a student is currently at, as if they were submitting it for a pre-screen. The video could be shared to some volunteers who would give feedback. Are these volunteers a panel of CC people? Is it an outside organization staffed by volunteer professor or students? S and I have viewed a few videos sent to us, and there was a sense that something meaningful could be said about whether that is the kind of student that has been seen succeeding at some known places. Is this service already available (evaluation by Skype at https://toddcoolman.org/store), and we could make a list of services where you could be evaluated in the case where you just don’t know anything about where you stand?
It might help a student fine tune a video, but as an estimate of a student’s actual chances I do not see a great value. Audition results already vary so wildly due to the subjective nature.
Keep in mind, the audience could be people without access to other musical support. You know you can watch youtube videos and have ideas about the playing if you have seen a lot. The audience wiuld not be folks fine tuning for Curtis. There exist people who just do not know the full scale of things.
Actually, we did something like CMA on snarescience dot com when S wanted to audition for drum corps. The comments back were harsh and accurate and prompted us to seek a higher level of instruction, which made the difference in getting in.
I really feel like this is an area that isn’t dealt with that much. The whole video audition… and feed back from that. There are some institutions(NYO) that give the option of feedback, but where do kids fine tune their audition skills? and know what their weaknesses are? great idea
I also think this is an interesting idea. We relied heavily on our daughter’s voice teacher and her advice was very helpful. However, I was left with that nagging parental anxiety of wondering whether she was applying to the right colleges, too many, too few, etc.
I was very concerned with the quality of the videos we were sending out. There was no way to know if the sound/lighting were good enough. Ifn fact my daughter chickened out and didn’t send her prescreen to Oberlin, fearing it just wasn’t high enough quality. In retrospect, she should have applied - but we didn’t know. The prescreens were the most stressful part of the entire audition process