<p>The New School for Jazz & Contemp. Music is great–we know several musicians who are there and who love it. They do give merit money and, if you win some of the awards out there, they increase the merit money. They give up to $100,000 to some Downbeat winners. It also encompasses more than Jazz–as does Berklee–which may fill your son’s Rock requirement. The Liberal Arts requirements (we hear) are very manageable a both schools.</p>
<p>Steve M. I’m afraid at this point, we’re trying to knock schools off the list, rather than add them on. And my son, ever the optimist, would like to have a list of only four!!! Can’t even seem to convince him he should apply to Cal Arts, which is fairly close and would enable him to stay with his rock band.</p>
<p>But yes, New School is very high on his list, so I’d love to hear any impressions your friend may have. A truly astonishing young musician from S’s high school (has already toured the world playing jazz, is on a label, and would seemingly not even be going to college) is there and enjoying himself so far (but he’s not a guitarist).</p>
<p>My son has no need to “study rock” in school, though. Indeed, his school music focus has been jazz since he was 11. Although he’d love a varied college program, he’s comfortable with the idea of a strictly jazz program - at the right place. He’s got a stick up his butt about the size and range of talent Berklee. He wants to land somewhere more competitive, where the playing level is already “weeded out.”</p>
<p>The list as it stands today, btw:</p>
<p>USC
UCLA
NYU
New School
Miami Frost
New School
SUNY Purchase
NEC
Berklee
Wesleyan (LAC option)
Bard (LAC option, since jazz is not in the conservatory)
Cal State San Diego?
Cal State Northridge?</p>
<p>Recently removed from list due to potential impossibility of audition schedule, low interest, location, or general “stick up butt”:
U of Denver Lamont
U of Colo Boulder
Oberlin</p>
<p>Regarding taping and DVD’s:</p>
<p>Final Cut is the software to use for MAC’s.</p>
<p>I record separately the video and the audio.</p>
<p>To help in the editing process, have the student say something like “Take <number> <1 second pause> <name of=”" song=“”> <1 second pause>" then begin. That way, when you are editing, it is easier to match up the right video and audio tracks. With the pauses, it is easier to edit them out of the final production. For audition CD’s, I like to keep the name of the song in the track.</name></number></p>
<p>The video and audio will be slightly out of synch. One could be a fraction of a second longer than the other by the end of the song. I usually split the difference (start a fraction of a second early, and end a fraction of a second late. It is not noticible. It is easiest to see when you look at the audio wave forms. You will be trying to match up the wave form from the Video with the one from the Audio. Once you have them matched, you can then cut out the audio track from the Video.</p>
<p>Your Sony video camera is fine. You might need a Video Capture device in order to transfer the video to the computer.</p>
<p>You should be able to use the Mac to record the audio. You will need a good external mic, and whatever video capture device you use should be able to capture just the audio.</p>
<p>Thanks, Steve. Your son’s list is similar to my son’s. We just did the recordings and now it is on to applications. Thanks for your good wishes and all the wonderful info.</p>
<p>We have now recorded three times. Once in a studio, where teacher was not pleased because of the deadness of the vocal sound for a classical voice. And twice in the church, where we ended up with “white” noise but a definite richness of tone. Plus the DVD in the church looked a lot better than the studio which was covered with reflective windows and various recording equipment. I think I am going to live with a little white noise in the background. Otherwise, the clarity of the sound is great. I’d like to hear the answer about sending the DVD prior to the audition in case of bad weather, etc. I see that a couple of conservatories will take CD or DVD. I was going to elect to send the DVD unless there is a down side to that.</p>
<p>Just a link originally posted by SJTH that may help a bit <a href=“Tune up your Tryout - JazzTimes - Music Major - College Confidential Forums”>Tune up your Tryout - JazzTimes - Music Major - College Confidential Forums;
<p>One note: I think a previous poster meant Premiere Elements, not Photoshop Elements.</p>
<p>POTO Mom,
You brought up an interesting point about the “flattness” of a studio recording for a classical voice audition. I can easily see how a voice teacher might object to that “dry” audio, but I’m surprised that your studio engineer could not have offered any one of many reverb and echo options that can reproduce almost any acoustic environment - including a large, open concert hall. Your audio recording could certainly be remixed and opened up, if the performances were equal or better to that of the church session. In addition, there are “white noise” digital signal processors available that might clean up some of that background hiss, too.
I can only speak from a jazz studies/university music department point of view - but the DVD auditions worked out great for my son at every distant school and better than one live, in state audition where an illness caused him to give a sub-par performance.
Best of luck to your young musician</p>
<p>Thanks! The studio engineer offered to add “hall sound.” We had to record one additional song for an upcoming competition so we just recorded everything again. Of course, I have paid the accompanist again. On the white noise, my editor reduced the hiss prior to the song and post-song. He had a little trepidation about doing it during the singing. I guess when the mother is standing over you with a whip, you get a little nervous. HA. I’ve sent the DVDs to her first choice schools and will consider using the studio recording for the CDs.</p>
<p>Thanks to surfing this forum, I just purchased the new zoom Q3 video recorder, which has H2/H4 sound (Zoom digital audio products) and decent (not HD) video. Pretty amazing little camera. I’m planning on using it to video my two sons’ concerts, instead of the dang flip camera that has horrible sound. It even comes with a foam screen hat. Just did a test, and the sound is amazing. It always bugged me how bad the concert sound was when I used our other video cameras.</p>
<p>(Not sure we’ll use it for prescreens, though. I think a videographer friend is going to record w/external mic and cut them together for us.)</p>
<p>I bought a Canon FS-100 camcorder (if you shop around they’re starting to fall into the $250 range) that records to a high-capacity SD card and has a mic port. I was able to borrow a mixer and three mics from musician friends and just fed what came out of the mixer into the camcorder. I couldn’t have been much more pleased with the result.</p>
<p>I made each of the songs a separate file and, using Magix software, I could rip the audio track from the video recording. That allowed me to tailor each CD to a given school’s requirements.</p>
<p>Don, what you’re talking about seems doable but just way time consuming for me with my own work schedule. My son could do it, but he’s overwhelmed with school, college essays and gigs. </p>
<p>Oh, if only my husband were a bit technical (like it seems “all the other dads” are).</p>
<p>Don’t feel too bad about hubby’s tech savvy, jazz/shreddermom. Just ask Mrs. 9992 about my carpentry skills.</p>
<p>I’ve been reading these posts and still feel overwhelmed by the need to make good quality CDs and DVDs for upcoming piano auditions and competitions. I’m thinking of upgrading my 5-year-old Sony digital camcorder for something in HD, buying a good quality external microphone, and using a computer to record it somehow. What about those Zoom H4N? would that simplify the process yet still have the quality needed? I’m not very tech savvy. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>alohagail - Canon makes an HD version of my camcorder called the VIXIA HF200. It also has a mic port. Tigerdirect is advertising it for $549.</p>
<p>It’s pretty hard to find a camcorder that costs less than the full professional models that have them anymore and it’s a lot easier to just record both audio and video into the same destination than to sync them up afterward.</p>
<p>aloha, the Zoom Q3 has the same sound quality as H4 (not sure what the N is), but also has video. It’s a little camera, but the video is as good as our pre-HD Sony. And the sound is amazing. Just got it on Amazon. Still think I’m gonna use a videographer (a grown up, not a kid) with an external mic, though. Then let him cut the various song needs of different schools.</p>
<p>Interesting. We recorded in HD but I was told by my editor that when you burn the file over to the DVD from the computer, it won’t be in HD unless you have some really expensive high end software. Is that true?</p>
<p>I was also wondering what is the quality of the video on the Zoom Q3? Does it have the same video flexibility as a regular video camera? I have a Sony Hard Disk Drive recorder that takes great video with a high level zoom but it is not compatible with my Mac (ugh!!). I am looking to replace it with something that has the same video capability, good video zoom, but high quality audio also (without spending a fortune). Any recommendations?</p>
<p>I have not demoed the Q3 myself, but everyone I know who has played with one says that the video quality is the pits. Basically, it seems to be a cheap webcam kludged onto one of their audio recorders. Fixed 640x480 pixels, 30 fps with no optical zoom (ironic, considering the name of the company) and, given the resolution, you would not want to do much digital zooming.</p>
<p>I hear that Zoom is working on a version with much better video specs, but it is going to be several months before it is available. Until then, a decent video camera with an IEEE 1394 port and a stereo audio input, plus an H4 or one of its competitors would probably be the low cost, high-quality solution.</p>
<p>In your case, since you already have the Sony, you may wish to look into a video converter box that would let you connect it to your Mac, or even an inexpensive PC on which to do your editing (if the Sony is already PC compatible.) Either of those could be had for about the cost of a Q3.</p>