I am new to College Confidential and have been pouring over posts in the music forum tonight. There is so much valuable information here, I wish that I had found it sooner.
My D is a senior and hoping to major in VP. She is doing her prescreen recordings next week and for some reason, this is stressing us out! Does anyone have any last minute advice? Thank you so much!!!
You did not say what set up you are using for the prescreens. The best advice I can give is to allow for as many “takes” of each song as necessary. We paid DD’s voice teacher to supervise it. He selectd the order she sang, how many times she sang one and the pacing. He then chose which ones to submit to each school. Also, trust that she can sing and relax. (hard as that is). Support, don’t hover 
You are in for many years of prescreens and auditions. The pre-screeens are just so they can figure out if she can sing. The audition will be for admission.
Thank you Singersmom07. We are recording at D’s voice teacher’s studio. I have a friend who will record and has a good mic.
A glass of wine or beer each night. For you not her. She’ll do fine.
My D submitted her first pre-screen last week and we did basically the same thing as @Singersmom07 . She practiced a few weeks in advance and then recorded the videos in her vocal coach’s studio, 2 takes for each song. I bought a tripod for my digital camera which worked out well. She introduced herself along with the song title and artist for each song. We sent if off, fingers crossed for feedback and invite for live audition!
Equipment Tip:
We just bought a Rode VideoMic to use with our normal camcorder (my still camera in video mode) and it’s great at about half the price of buying a Zoom Q4 (much less than a Q8)
I really didn’t want the stress of it and went looking for someone to do it all for us. There is a local school / studio that was advertising to do audition tapings. However, normally, they produce music videos and studio recordings for artists original work and also offer private lessons. So, they are telling me the vocals will get recorded separate from the video. I made it clear that the video had to be unedited an unaltered. They said that is fine, no problem, etc.
I’m sure it will look / sound great, but do you all think a pro studio recording like this is a bad idea? It doesn’t seem like that’s what most of you are doing.
Thanks.
@dbandmom, we went with a professional recording studio. my D, her voice teacher, the accompanist and the recording engineer all went into the studio this past week for 3 hours. the vocals can also be lifted and used if a certain conservatory or university doesn’t want the visuals. my daughter attends a conservatory pre college and they highly recommended that we do it with them. we also did young arts this way last month. we can also use the video recordings for upcoming competitions and/or summer programs she’s entering.
in other words, you do what you can and no one way is better. my husband and I both work in the music industry so we felt strongly that we wanted a professional recording if we could somehow afford it. it worked out well for us and we feel fortunate. in the past we have also done our own recordings in a teachers recital/ lesson studio and D has been quite successful with those, too.
@dbandmom when presented with choices during the application and audition process,do what is comfortable and affordable for your family and particularly your child. Professionally recordings are allowed. You’re not required to do it yourself. Many use professional studios so it’s fine. Good luck!
We not only had the prescreen recorded professionally (lucky coincidence - my son’s guitar teacher is also a recording engineer) but hired a few of the conservatory prep teachers as the jazz ensemble! it was worth it. My son really learned so much from the experience and was very proud of the result. We did not attend the recording and were actually out of town attending an 80th birthday celebration.
We did not end up doing a professional recording, I hope that does not put D at a disadvantage. We called two schools last week and both said they did not expect professional that an iPhone recording would be fine. Fingers crossed that this is true…
@sopranosings: If the schools your D is applying to said that an iPhone recording would be fine then believe it’s true.
this is such a stressful time for students and families. i worry about everything as well! I ask loads of questions and I have to trust in the information I receive at some point
The culture may be very different between vocalists and other musicians, so what I say below may only apply to instrumentalists. However, my daughter, an instrumentalist, has passed every prescreen for conservatory auditions. She has never had a professional prescreen recording. She’s done it herself using consumer-level electronics, a room with good acoustics, a good accompanist. When she was younger I helped out on the technical end by pressing buttons and converting the recordings to the right media, and so forth.
Her teachers have never been present during recording (it’s hard enough to arrange lessons, they are so busy) and have never viewed or listened to the recordings–not since she was 12 and applied to a national radio show program. Her then-teacher did come to that recording session, which was done in a hall in her music school. After that, always DYI, no teacher around.
She has also used some recordings/videos for prescreens. Her conservatory, which was also her precollege, does not allow taping in recitals, so for $100 or so you could get the recital recorded. Starting this year, they record for free. But there is no engineer, no soundcheck, just someone pushing the buttons. If the recital recording turns out well, there is no reason not to use it, although with an audition recording you often make a few takes and a recital is just one shot.
To be honest, I’ve felt nervous about this, knowing that many families spend thousands on professional recordings, but so far it has not been an impediment. It seems as though I’m now on the opposite side of the fence than in the other thread where I was criticized for being “naive” in saying that an audition committee will not overlook a nervous or flawed audition if they can sense the student is talented and well-taught. But a prescreen is a different matter. It is only a look to see who gets a shot at an audition. It’s not the first audition round. In some schools the prescreens are not even necessarily viewed by the faculty for the same instrument.
By contrast, for high profile competitions, a professional recording is important. I know that many potential contestants will have their prescreens heavily edited by sound engineers to produce a flawless recording. But college auditions and competitions are different types of auditions.
Of course YMMV, and you should do what you are comfortable with. But I don’t want students or parents reading this to think that all is lost if they don’t shell out thousands for prescreen recordings.
My concern was the exact opposite…I was afraid that a pro recording could be looked at as possibly being altered or edited somehow. As in, it was a bad idea to do it that way.
FWIW, the pro recording will cost us less than a Zoom Q8 and in addition to shooting a one angle, unedited unaltered prescreen, they have offered to shoot multiple angles and add reverb, harmonies, etc to a second video copy for us to have for YouTube or just a keepsake for us. For me, I went pretty basic on D’s senior pictures, so that we could do this - “senior video” - instead. Also, my D is very interested in the recording process (interested in commercial music or music industry college programs) so I figured this will be a good experience for her as well.
I worry about everything and ask lots of questions, too. It’s just who I am. Honestly, as much as this site is helpful, it has given me a bit of an inferiority complex. We have not taken the same route as (it seems) many people on here have. So, I feel like somehow we’ve been doing it all wrong! My D told me I really need to stay off the internet - LOL!
@dbandmom - I understand your last paragraph so much.
Another thing to consider when you’re on CC is that vocalists and instrumentalists will often have different challenges. For example, an instrumental jazz prescreen will require an ensemble which can be tricky to balance in a recording. So filter through what is useful to you and trust the choices you make.
@dbandmom and @goforth I hear your concerns. I didnt know about this site until my d was entering grad school and by then it was more on her shoulders. I remember thinking I dont know if this would have been good for me. Here are a few comments about my journey to calm concerns.
At xmas of her jr year I went to the library (yes, remember those) and took out the fiske book to learn about schools. It was time to start thinking about this. Yep I was going to get ahead of the game.
We did a little tour of the NE at spring break visiting a few totally inappropriate schools and missing opportunities at good ones.
The first time we met a teacher (bc in the NE I figured out we could do that - after I left) was bx jr and sr year - well actually late august - I don`t know what we were thinking.
We didnt ask ask for a sample lesson (I had only learned a little obviously) just a meeting. I went in to meet the teacher with my D. I thought it might be wrong but wasnt really sure. Still am not sure. She seemed to like me haha. She hinted my daughter could sing for her but I thought well thats kind of gauche so we didnt take her up on it. Oops again.
My D never did a summer program as I didn`t know they existed. Well I had heard of interlochen but I just thought it was too expensive.
My D finally asked for a sample lessons from a teacher at her first audition school. She met with the head of the dept for 5 min and she told her she was fine. After that we were too exhasted with the whole process so we never did that again.
I did intervene on the pre screening however when the original recording in a cinder block basement with high school equipment sounded tinny. We went to her music school and I thought I was very extravagant at the time. I didn`t tell anyone.
However my D had been in the music theatre scene in our metro area since 10. She had many good teachers helping her with repetoire, school recommendations etc. I thought we were set…and we were. She got into every VP program (not all MT however). So keep in mind you can do a lot wrong and your child`s talent will still come through.
And Ill repeat that. Its about your kids talent …not you getting it all right. If it was about that my d still wouldnt be in college.
^ bingo
@bridgenail - your post is probably worthy of a solo sticky.