Hello! I have been lurking on this site for a few months! There is so much valuable information here! I searched the forum and saw that this question is asked every few years. My son, a junior, plays multiple instruments and has finally settled on bass. Unfortunately, at this point he only plays electric. He will start lessons on upright bass in January, which I do not think will not give him enough time to get ready to audition on upright. So, the question to the think tank- what schools will allow audition on electric bass. Here is what we have so for: Berklee, Belmont (commercial music), UNT, Miami, The New School, and USC. He has e-mailed a few other schools, but has not heard back from the professors. Any thoughts would be appreciated!
That’s a really good list to start.
I wouldn’t email professors, however. I would go right to music school admissions and I would call, not email. You’ll get the answer in a few minutes.
I believe the Hartt School allows auditions on electric bass.
S and I emailed the UNT jazz bass professor twice - once two years before auditioning and once more a year after that. It is very safe if you ask questions that are about the program and its expectations. The info we got was actually useful and boring at the same time - have good timing and tone, know what jazz sounds like, prepare on the keyboard and theory so that doesn’t slow you down when you arrive, test out of classes if possible to get them out of the way. We never found a jazz bass instructor unwilling to reply - but were careful to keep the questions “answerable”.
If your son is a junior, he has a year to prepare. This is not so bad. He might not get to everything that some other folks do, but it would be a reasonable situation. He’ll want to play a lot and get around and make sure his sound is heading in the right direction and keep an eye on healthy posture and left-hand form and all that stuff that a good instructor will help with. Having experience on electric bass with jazz theory already started will be very good. My S started that way, maybe with a 6-12 month lead on your time-table. Maybe go to a summer camp for jazz/bass this summer, too. S had a separate classical and jazz instructor for a while, which can be a good idea, too. You’ll not want to be a total stranger to the bow at some point.
I should also add that is S decided he had started a little bit “too late”, he was OK with taking a gap year to work on that and then audition again.
My son has a friend whose mother was posting on these forums in the past (not sure she is around these days). Her son was an electric bass player who like your son started on the upright his Junior or Senior year (I can’t remember). He ended up attending Hart Conservatory in CT. Hart Conservatory has a great Bass staff and this particular Bassist got a great conservatory education there.
Thank you all for your comments! @GoForth- I was hoping you would comment I’ve read your journal and your experience has been very helpful! @ScreenName48105- you would be surprised- he has asked music school admissions staff at both a college fair and on tours and several could not answer the question if he could audition on electric bass. I don’t think the professors are unwilling to reply. I know they are just really busy! We will definitely check out Hartt!
The summer camp idea is definitely on his mind. He went to a camp last year for jazz improv for trumpet. He might go back to that one for upright because there is no audition. I wonder if he would be able to go to UNT’s workshop with Lynn Seaton- not sure if he would be far enough along.
To clarify, I wasn’t saying that one shouldn’t email professors in general, only with respect to audition requirements. Regardless of his experience at college fairs and such, I would still call the music admissions office.
I have a lot of ideas of what I (well. not me, but somebody) would do over the next year if I were really serious. Even before the upright playing starts in January. I would make sure not to schedule hard classes in high school. Would drop all activities unless it clearly augmented college-level music prep, perhaps including dropping band if needed. However, it would be good to be in one or more jazz bands to get used to playing with them. Your bass audition may include a drummer drifting off time, for example, and if you play a lot, you will run into that. Listening a lot to jazz, transcribing songs, being progressive with music theory and jazz theory, playing on the keyboard, sight-singing, sight-reading, auditioning for certain bands, getting local gigs, teaching others music, audition to attend regional college jazz day events - all of these activities I have seen S do, and they all blended in very well at college.
There are many freshman bassists at S’s school now. They each have developed with different flavors. Some are more into funk and electric bass. Some are stronger sight readers who can sub easier. Some are better classical/upright players. There is one who is stronger on electric than S, so S takes informal lessons from him, while S gives informal upright lessons to him.
I can say more. Much of it may be in the journal, but that is a long read for most people. I assume of course that at least an hour or two can be used everyday for focused learning and practicing. If there are no idle days between now and then, it seems doable. You can also rent an upright bass while you wait on getting one yourself. We paid $45 per month for one. Maybe even rent one now and get one beginning lesson now to work on over the next 2 months.
Thank you @ScreenName48105, @StacJip, and @GoForth! I appreciate your comments! He is currently in two outside-of-school bands where he is the bass player- unfortunately not jazz. I will see what he and I can find for more jazz centric opportunities. He goes to a small, very academically rigorous high school. Therefore, his class requirements are somewhat set out for him. He is planning on taking AP Music theory next year. He is in the jazz band ( trumpet) and rock band (bass) at school. There is no regular band, just jazz band or orchestra. He is planning to play both trumpet and bass the rest of the year and hopes to switch to bass next year. He is in a select jazz combo on trumpet at school, too. He is auditioning for Mid-state on bass in a few weeks.
If desired/applicable, at that Mid-state audition, he could talk to any of the other bassists that he thinks is cool and get their contact info and find if there are any cool places to play or if they sometimes need subs or who their instructors are, etc.
Great idea!
Thank you. In my mind, given the information we have and assuming all unknowns are not unusual, I would be in the state of mind not to waste a single day or opportunity. Like the example above, you will want to maximize what is going on around you. Your timeline allows for little slack in my opinion. If you do allow slack, you can still pursue bass-hood and you might get into some of the schools you listed, but several of the peers will have come in already studying with a notable zest.
I had assumed that he wanted to apply to a popular music program and just saw (duh…) that your title says “jazz”. Even if a school lets him audition on electric, I think he’s going to be at a disadvantage if he can’t say that he’s proficient on upright if he’s applying for a jazz studies program. One exception would be Berklee – they won’t care since you don’t declare a major on application. But if your son is a junior, I think there’s time. You might be amazed how much he can mature musically in a year at this point in his career. I wouldn’t choose or limit schools based on whether they allow auditions on electric just yet, but focus on getting proficient on upright.
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While I totally get the reasoning behind this advice, I’d say it could really depend on the programs you’re targeting–and the merit dollars those schools might offer (assuming that matters in your case as it did ours). The academically challenging schools often offer big dollars to kids who do well in demanding classes throughout their senior year, and some don’t offer any talent merit in certain music programs (and minimal, token talent merit in others). In our case, those dollars were worth the continued academic commitment. My kid chose between four offers, and one was entirely talent-based merit, two were a varied combo of talent and academic merit, and one was entirely academic-based merit. It had everything to do with the individual schools. I also presume some schools liked his long-term commitment to and leadership in certain sports. As I see it, the music talent will speak for itself at auditions…but the “other stuff” speaks to the whole person, especially to any schools with holistic admissions.
With
(1) the valid point from @ScreenName48105 that it would be worthwhile to focus on the upright and likely audition on that and
(2) the truths added by @YertleTurtle about where scholarship dollars would come from,
here are my thoughts:
(a) how important are scholarship dollars
(b) at each place, will more dollars (if needed) come from academic merit or music merit
© will you waiver back and forth if the audition will be on electric or upright - it may confuse you and over-complicate your school search matrix
(d) are you really wanting to make a living such that going to college for jazz bass will be what you want
It is hard to know the scholarship probabilities, but there is some general knowledge out there for some places.
Out of our sampling of 5 schools last year for jazz bass (Michigan, William Paterson, SUNY Purchase, Frost, UNT), we detected the most dollars were coming from music merit, but the academic merit could help, too.
For example, for UNT, you need to be somewhat good to get in, but mostly, the scholarship from the college of music will be $1,000. The greater dollars would come from the academic side. On the other hand, if you are NM finalist, you get a full ride, so you wouldn’t need to overkill from there. Plus the tuition is so reasonable in the first place, maybe it is affordable enough to just focus on playing.
I felt at Frost that your music will be number one, but adequate academics are nice to have. At Michigan, they assigned some dollars to music and some to academics, but S was no superstar (in CC terms), so we think the music ruled. At William Paterson, they assigned money in both categories.
we decided not to pursue USC because hearing that most money would come from being a top-most academic achiever. We know a full-tuition friend just starting at Berklee, but the music talent and accomplishment is very high for that person.
Anyway, this is a lot of detail - we don’t know you parameters. Maybe if possible let us know:
You want to make a living with the bass
College cost is an issue
You feel like taking the plunge of auditioning on upright (it is not “essential” to, but it is very common). If you just exuded the essence of jazz but had only learned to express yourself on the electric, they can consider that you would need to learn the upright, but you would have a lot to “say” once you learned it, so that might be OK.
Hi! Thank you @GoForth, @ScreenName48105, and @YertleTurtle for your input. Yes, merit money (talent or academic) will be important. We will not qualify for need-based aid. He has a solid B average, but it is on the way up this year. As I mentioned, his school is considered very rigorous and regularly sends kids to the Ivies and highly competitive academic colleges. I say that to say I don’t think he is likely to get a lot of academic aid, but I am hoping the reputation of his school can help get him in to some schools even with a lower gap. We do not have his PSAT yet, but he will not be National Merit. He is taking the ACT in February.
He wants to play, write, record, and produce music for a living. His main focus is on playing and performing- bass is his favorite. (Although he is in his room playing guitar right now). We recently toured Indiana and Michigan. He loved Michigan and really liked Indiana. Could not get an answer about possibly auditioning on electric. He might have to just do what he can on upright a year from now if he wants to apply to a school that will only allow auditions on upright. It is hard to know what to do. I know some schools will let the student audition on electric with plans to learn upright too. (so far UNT and Miami are what we know for sure).
I think auditioning on upright will be good in that you’ll need to be getting the finger callouses built up anyway and all the technique stuff down and decide if you like standing or sitting for now. A lot of the jazz theory and musicality can be shared between instruments. I feel antsy that his upright lessons won’t start until January. It bothers me, as an optimizer looking for ways to “win”. I can’t escape saying that.
An interesting thing at UNT, at least last year and before then, is the audition video is not a pre-screen. It is a part of the audition. The audition is video + live. So, I would guess you could video on electric and go live on upright if you wanted those extra weeks/months in between to improve on the upright. Make the UNT video sort of as late as practical, since he will improve noticeably each month in the next year. The question and answer has certainly been published, even here on CC that the electric bass audition is possible, and I believe they tell the truth, but upright would be inevitable (and fun, too). You would still need to be sure that you really knew what jazz was supposed to sound like and reflect its feel in your playing with great timing - I don’t think you can just be too relaxed about putting in the effort to get the results right on the electric bass. There is always another level of goodness that can be achieved, even if you can’t see it yet. Definitely do a YouTube search for UNT jazz bass audition and look at the spectrum. Some of them got in, and some did not. They don’t always say, but just take a look.
Just so it’s clear, when you’re talking about jazz programs at schools like UMich, Jacobs, UNT, Thornton, it’s not going to be his grades and ACT score that’s going to get him into the school, it’s going to be his playing. A 3.0 GPA and decent ACT score (>=24) will be sufficient. Again, while Thornton may say that it’s “OK” to audition on an electric with plans to learn upright, it’s likely to put him at a disadvantage when auditioning against other jazz bass players.
When my son applied, Thornton’s jazz program only had 60 kids, so could be as few as 8 bass players total, which means only 2 per class. If Thornton’s yield is 50%, they might only accept 4 kids for those 2 spots. That same year, Eastman only took ONE jazz bassist; they offered it to a friend of my son’s, who turned it down and went to Thornton. Eastman’s yield is pretty high, so maybe only offered to 2 bassists that year. These are the kind of numbers at the top programs that you’ve mentioned.