double bass player looking for a college fit

College Majors Music Major
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<p>Rosin is a very personal choice and entirely a matter of taste. Fortunately, it does not cost all that much to buy a new one and try it out for a week or two. My daughter thought she liked Carlsson's until she tried Pops, and that's about as big of a change as you can make.</p>

<p>As pcanon said, Rice is very hard to get into. On double bass it is nearly as hard an admit as Curtis because they have two great teachers, a fairly small conservatory that only takes as many basses as they need for ensembles and a price tag that is $10K or so less per year that most other top music schools. You really need to be in the top handful of players nationwide to get accepted into one of the bass studios there. If you are going for acceptance into the conservatory there, you will want to have the best tape you can possibly produce. Make sure it meets all the requirements listed on their web site. </p>

<p>If you want to study another subject at Rice and take lessons from a grad student who is sure to be really good, that is another story. You don't need a tape at all if you are not applying to the conservatory. From what I have heard, double majoring is problematical there, but perhaps pcannon can give us a more informed report.</p>

<p>Unless things have changed in the past couple of years, I don't think you need to do a tape for CMU unless you are unable to do a live audition there. (And you should do a live audition at the school unless it is totally impossible.) In fact, Rice is the only school I know of that has a pre-audition taped round for double bass (very common for violins, cellos, flutes and singers, but not for double bass.)</p>

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<p>UCLA has a BA in music, potentially with emphasis on performance, which presumably could be part of a double major. It offers no BM.
Bard Conservatory is not likely to be a realistic option unless you're also applying to Curtis, Juilliard, or Colburn and have a serious chance of acceptance-- it's really, really selective. The college is another matter, though, you shouldn't really have trouble getting in there.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the info on Bard, fiddlefrog. It seems that people are starting to sit up and take notice of their progrram. A couple of years back when they were just getting started, they were a tough admit but not as tough as they apparently are now. Back then, they even extended their application deadline to try to get more qualified applicants.</p>

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<p>hmm.. maybe I'll stick to pops .. </p>

<p>I don't plan on applying to any music conservatories like Curtis or even the studio at Rice (if it is of the same caliber). I'm really more into receiving lessons from a quality teacher.</p>

<p>So basically, I'm applying to schools based on their academic credentials and fit, but trying to cut down my list or lean more towards the colleges that have better music departments or readily available resources for double bass players (which I am finding is VERY rare).</p>

<p>I still have to send in audition tapes to the other colleges I'm applying to (wash U, Pomona, Macalester, etc), and i've only made one tape so far (last year). Any advice or suggestions are appreciated!</p>

<p>=]</p>

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<p>Some recording tips:</p>

<p>Leave yourself lots of time when making tapes. If you are doing it at home, don't put in marathon sessions just before the deadline. </p>

<p>Read the college websites very carefully for the requirements at each school and realize that you do not have to send the exact same recording to all of them.</p>

<p>If you are having someone record you, consider doing it in a largish space with nice acoustics rather than in a dry studio with reverb added after the fact. Try to find someone with experience recording classical music rather than someone who records rock or pop music all the time.</p>

<p>Most places want tapes from bassists to be unaccompanied, even in the case of sonatas or concertos that would normally be played with keyboard or orchestra. If you do use an accompaniment, pay a little more and hire a really good one.</p>

<p>Make several takes, even if you think you nailed the first one. Tapes are held to a higher standard than a live audition because the listeners assume you will use the best of several takes. You can't do that unless you have several takes to pick from. </p>

<p>Be very critical of intonation, dynamics and phrasing when selecting which take to use. In general, a very musical performance with a couple of slips in technique will generate more teacher interest than a technically perfect performance that is boring.</p>

<p>Select different pieces that show off different aspects of your playing. The Kouss Op. 3 will do nicely for technique. Find a soulful slow movement from a Baroque, Classical or Romantic period composer that will allow you to demonstrate musicality. A technical slip will be judged more harshly in an Etude than in a concert piece, so pick one that you know you can nail rather than one that is just beyond your reach.</p>

<p>If you get tired or tense in your playing, it is time to stop for a while. (That's why you don't want to try to cram it in just before the deadline.)</p>

<p>Some people find that they do their best playing in front of an audience. If you are like that, ask a few people to come hear you as you record but make sure that they can be quiet during the session.</p>

<p>Before you send in the tape, get several people to listen to it. Ideally, these are people whose musical opinions you trust and who will be totally honest with you.</p>

<p>Review the tape one last time for conformance to requirements before sending it in.</p>

<p>NEVER give ANYONE your only copy of a recording.</p>

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<p>BassDad, your idea to play in front of a little "audience" when you record is such a good idea!</p>

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<p>Jen,</p>

<p>If you are interested in Mac then I would look at Lawrence University. You would have all sorts of music availability plus your academics. My son chose it over schools with great music reputations. Music is a huge part of his life but he is getting a double degree, BM and BA. He is going into his second year and loves the place. Although he had a teacher at a summer composition school who was a graduate of LU, he had never really heard of the place before, it didn't sink in, until someone wrote about it on this forum. He wrote to them and then visited.</p>

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<p>BassDad, the app deadline was extended this year. You're right that they were looking for more qualified applicants, but by qualified, they don't only mean strong. I was accepted at NEC and IU, but didn't even pass the prescreening round at Bard in their very first year!</p>

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<p>Interesting, fiddlefrog. From what I heard, they did not get either the numbers or the quality that they had hoped for in double basses a couple of years back when my daughter was auditioning. </p>

<p>One thing that concerned us was that Bard did not yet have a full symphony orchestra. Had she gone there, she would have not been able to play much of the standard double bass literature outside of rep classes for at least the first two or three years. They would certainly have had a string orchestra and a chamber orchestra, and the higher strings would have plenty of opportunities to play in quartets and such, so I am not surprised at all to hear that those instruments were very competitive from the get go. </p>

<p>Bass players are more dependent on larger ensembles for their bread and butter, and the level of competition is not quite the same as it is for violins and cellos, particularly once you get beyond a select handful of players. I'm sure that Bard attracted some very good bassists and that they will certinly get more as they fill out their sections, but most of the bassists with whom we compared notes at places like Curtis, NEC, BU and Oberlin were not applying to Bard that year for many of the same reasons.</p>

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<p>That makes sense, BassDad. Perhaps the same is true for winds?</p>

31

<p>I would suspect many factors vary from instrument to instrument and even from year to year.</p>

<p>What might be true for violin might be different for double bass or in the winds for flute very different than basoon.</p>

<p>Also some years seem to produce big crops of great players and some years there are relatively few.</p>

<p>I dont know how you get a good feel for these factors.</p>

32

<p>There you go, a new career opportunity for our children when they graduate, "Music Major College Application/Audition Advisors!" They can scour the different schools and departments to determine what happened last year in terms of acceptences and expected graduations in the following years and make estimates on available spots for the next year. And they can sell this infor and advice to help parents who are in great angst over the whole process.</p>

<p>What the heck, there's a bunch of them working this angle for the Ivies and other really competitive LACs. Why not music majors???</p>

33

<p>A lot changes from year to year, from school to school, and from instrument to instrument, but there always seem to be way too many flutes, sopranos, violins and cellos for the available spots.</p>

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<p>But they take what 10 times as many violins as flutes. :-(</p>

<p>Far too many kids start in flute and violin.</p>

<p>There are summer camps that specialize in audition preparation. They may well have counselors with that kind of information as part of the camps. I have not yet looked into them deeply. After the madness of January investigating camps will go to the top of the list.</p>

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<p>I don't think too many start on voice or any instrument. Learning to make music well is its own reward. Would that more children would get started actively making music rather than passively consuming whatever comes out of their iPods. I think the problem is that, of the kids who do start down that road, far too many have unreasonable expectations about where and how far it will go. Only the most extraordinarily talented and driven will be able to make a living as performers, but a great many of them could enjoy singing or playing with other talented amateurs.</p>

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<p>I know my son loves his music & it may serve him well in the business world but he wants to make money so I have a feeling that push come to shove, it will be an MBA for graduate school or some variant thereon. As far as I am concerned he can do whatever he wants. BUT, I love listening to him play. I love it and I have always supported his studies. And you never, never know until it's all played out. I find it fascinating to watch the process from the point of view of a musician's mom.</p>

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<p>BassDad not too many kids start singing or on instrument, the distribution is just poor. No reason to have so many people playing the same instruments. If they knew how much easier the path is with a different choice they might spread the numbers over more instruments and more bands and orchestras would not be without certain instruments in certain years.</p>

<p>Most kids that do well on one instrument probably could have done just as well on another if they had started at the same time and worked as hard. Having 10-20 kids start middle school on flute and nearly as many on clarinet when one or two start on oboe, 2 or 3 on horn and none or one on bassoon is a negative on many levels. Not as familiar with strings but I would suspect 90% start on violin and then are moved later for various reasons to other strings. They say if you can play violin decently you can be a good celloist, etc. and it may very well be the best way to start everyone, just seems wrong.</p>

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<p>I think there are various reasons why kids gravitate to some instruments and not others. Some instruments, like violin, clarinet, trumpet and flute tend to get the melody line and many kids like playing melody rather than a harmony or bass line that they do not recognize. They also tend to be a reasonable size and weight and are much more easily carried around than a bassoon, a horn or, heaven forbid, a double bass. These popular instruments, along with the cello, also tend to be the high profile instruments in the orchestra and attract a lot of attention and have tons more solo literature written for them than a bass trombone or English horn. </p>

<p>Some instruments, like horn and double reeds are very hard for beginners (and anyone else within earshot), and not many kids have the perseverance to stick out the first year or two. (I think teachers sometimes discourage kids from starting on these instruments for that very reason.) Some instruments are more expensive to play than others and some just do not seem as "cool" as others to a youngster deciding what they want to play.</p>

<p>My experience is that some kids can do well on just about any instrument and some have to find the one that is right for them. Perhaps the latter group could do as well on another instrument if they started early and worked hard, but it is easier to work hard on something that you enjoy than it is on something that you do not. Personally, I would much rather see too many kids playing violins, flutes and clarinets than see a bunch of oboes, horns and bassoons gathering dust in a closet.</p>

<p>Another problem with trying to ration out the instruments from the very beginning is that it is not always easy to tell who will do well several years down the road on the flute, say, and who should be guided toward the contrabass clarinet. (No slight intended; some of my best friends are contra clarinetists.)</p>

<p>My daughter did indeed start on violin and was an indifferent student for four years, playing in the middle of her section in a not-so-great school orchestra. In eighth grade she switched to bass and something clicked. Four years later, she was successfully auditioning at conservatories. I am fairly certain that would have been next to impossible if she had started with a less popular instrument and then wanted to switch to violin or flute.</p>