<p>Oberlin is sending pre screening results...</p>
<p>I spoke to the Con office today; they were mailed on Friday (Vets Day) so they really didn’t go out until Saturday. Has anyone received theirs yet? Do they e-mail anyone or just send snail mail?</p>
<p>My D got an email (yes :)</p>
<p>My D did not get invited for a live audition to Obie. 
How disappointing for her first response from any school. We were surprised b/c she is first chair soprano 1 in her region and made it into TX All-State last year. Her pre-screen was not perfect but we felt it showed enough potential to get her to the live audition stage! Now I am thinking to do another pre-screen to get to her Dec. 1 deadline schools…Any thoughts? Advice?</p>
<p>I’m sorry to hear that I don’t know-- I suspect if it were me I would consider the same thing. Maybe you could have someone- maybe a teacher choir or voice teacher- review it and see what he or she thinks?</p>
<p>Did her voice teacher work with her on the pre-screen? When we did DD’s it was not done until he was happy with each song. She did more than each school needed and mulitple takes. He then selected which ones each school would receive and in which order before the CD was produced. We were totally in his hands, but he had sent others to high level programs so we trusted him. She passed all her pre-screens. If you have not done something similar, do it now and have the voice teacher or someone who knows what is required review or assist with a re-do.</p>
<p>We received an email acceptance on 11/10. My D did work with her voice teacher on the prescreen materials and she had a paid accompianist. </p>
<p>Sorry to those who did not make it … :(</p>
<p>GS-
prescreens like the live auditions are crapshoots in terms of who gets invited to audition and I would be careful to read too much into this. Among other things, sopranos are pretty common in terms of the mix of voice students from what I understand and schools may be auditioning a lot of kids for the few slots they have, so the cutoff level on the pre-screen is probably pretty high. For example, a relatively rare voice type (let’s say a male countertenor) might be able to prescreen and get in showing potential, whereas a soprano might have to have one heck of a pre screen. </p>
<p>I don’t know voice that well but Singersmom’s suggestion sounded good to me, that if you are going to submit for a new round of pre-screens, you may want to look at how you did the pre screen recording and work with the teacher to ‘tighten’ it up, my suggestion is have the teacher listen to the pre screen recording you sent to Oberlin and see if they can figure out what might have been the issues,and work on them.</p>
<p>Without speaking to this particular case, I think this highlights something I am hearing all over the place as more and more kids we know are in the audition process, and that is to treat the pre screen with as much effort as the live audition and if you aren’t happy with the prescreen keep working until you are happy. Basically, pre screens are like the liveer audition, they both are like sudden death overtime, fail and that is the end of the road with that school.</p>
<p>The other lesson is to assume that what has led up to the audition may or may not indicate how qualified someone is to audition. Things like All State/All Region, competitions won, etc, can indicate that a student is at a higher level then most, for example, but may not indicate how they stand in the pool of applicants per se. I have seen kids who were concertmaster of the NJ All state orchestra, for example, who I am pretty sure wouldn’t get into a high level pre college program, let alone a top conservatory (on the other hand, have also seen some fantastic students who were principles who would be suitable). Music is so damn competitive that the only way to look at it is to look forward and take the attitude that as good as a student plays, assume that there are a lot of other kids as good or better, and play Avis i.e #2 and trying harder;)</p>
<p>As musicprnt indicated All State/All Region may not indicate what you think. That is particularly true for singers. If that acheivement was done by becoming a good “blending” singer instead of a solo singer, she may not have demonstrated what the colleges are looking for. DD was rejected for All State her senior year after achieving a perfect Honors Choir score in the fall. They only selected the second tier singers in her school who blended well. None of them went on to performance majors. In fact many aspiring performance major singers do not do any choral work. </p>
<p>She should have a good teacher who has sent others to high level programs evaluate and guide her. As competition gets tougher, pre-screening is more like the audition used to be. And soprano competition is tough.</p>
<p>Hi All, Thanks for your advice! She actually has a very big voice. So that is not the issue. Choir directors are usually trying to hush her to keep her from over powering the choir. Her voice teacher was not at her recording and has not heard them. I am running them over to her today to talk to her about what to do. Unfortunately, her voice teacher is battling breast cancer right now which is complicating things further. She has a MM from a very good school and has had two students that I know of go on to vocal performance degrees but they were both boys…not a lot of her students have pursued that track. I think she may not have realized how important the prescreen is!</p>
<p>My D is reluctant to do another prescreen but I think we should record more songs and takes and pick out the best. We had used a recording studio b/c I don’t know how to record her or have the right equipment but there may not be time to get her back into that studio. How did the rest of you make your recordings?</p>
<p>Thanks so much!!</p>
<p>GS-
I am sorry to hear about the teacher being sick. If she is sick like that she may not have the energy to really help…I would suggest talking to her if she knows of anyone at a suitable high level you guys could use as a consultant with this? If you are planning to submit to further schools for December 1st you don’t have a lot of time to re-record and submit a pre-screen recording. It could be your current recording is decent and the teacher will tell you it should be fine for other schools and Oberlin was just one of those things, but if she feels there are things that need fixing having the help of another teacher might take a load off the current teacher. </p>
<p>As far as D being reluctant, I would tell her what singersmom and I said, that the pre-screen in many ways is the audition and she can’t count on ‘potential’ to get her into a good music program. I would seriously emphasize that the competition for almost any good music program is fierce, and as singersmom and others have said on here, Soprano is incredibly competitive, and any edge she can gain is needed, including having as best a pre screen as she can…</p>
<p>The other thing is, if your D is serious about going into performance, if you aren’t happy with the programs she got into, there are alternatives as have been discussed on this board. She could take a gap year and try auditioning next year after working on her technique, she could also potentially go to another school (not necessarily studying music) and study with a high level private teacher and then go the MM route (I can’t speak to how easy that is to do in voice, but I believe I have seen it mentioned on here as an allternate path).</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone for your advice…we will take it. Congrats to all who did get a positive response to their prescreens and best of luck!!</p>
<p>I"m presuming that the prescreens you are talking about here are for Early Review? The deadline for Regular Admission prescreens is December 1st, at least for jazz students. We sent my S’s off yesterday.</p>
<p>@GS707- please, do not read so much into the Oberlin thing and don’t take it as a “rejection”, per se. First, the school is known for picking voices that will fit into the productions they have planned for the next few years. Schools will also look at prospective applicants with an ear towards those they already in the program so that they can double cast. A teacher who might ordinarily want a student of a certain voice type might have a full studio or might be cutting back prior to retirement.So you see, it’s more than likely that this has nothing to do with your D personally, but more about the overall picture there.
Some years the applicant pool is just stronger than others and the sheer number of kids is just larger-something that happened in a big way several years ago- and you won’t know about that until the admit/acceptance numbers are firmed up in the spring.There are sure to be kids who were turned down by one program who are accepted by other equally prestigious schools- it’s capricious and you will go insane if you try to make sense out of it…
While it may make you feel better to have the recording evaluated when you begin to over-analyze things you’ll end up ill by the time auditions actually role around!</p>
<p>My D’s voice teacher listened to her recording and said she wanted to re-record her. We have just a few days to get this done. She said that the recording studio’s mic was so hot that it picked up every flaw and perhaps it was better to record in her studio using her mic and a laptop or ipod. She also said my D rushed some parts and had other issues with breathing, etc. she would like resolved on the new recording. </p>
<p>I am concerned b/c I don’t know how to put together a cd with tracks from our laptop. I am also concerned about how to do the dvd that is required by some schools. Do I buy a good mic to attach to my dvd camcorder or try to sync the video with the audio from the pc…help! I am over my head here! Are there professionals who will come to my home, church or her studio to help take care of this?</p>
<p>I know there a lot of people who understand how to do it yourself and they may chime in here. But I was not one of them. Granted, ours was about 5 years ago and technology has changed, but we hired a pro to come out to the church and do the recording. They knew how to place the mikes and how to take advantage of the naturally good sound the church enables for voice. We used the people who always recorded the HS concerts and they were very reasonable. DD’s voice teacher was there to make sure that he was happy with her performance. It usually took 2-3 takes but on one he was happy with the first one so it was 1 and done for that one :).</p>
<p>Whatever you do don’t try to sync anything- it is super difficult I’m sure and it might look like something is faked. If you can get a pro to video that’s great- especially if they can turn it around the same or next day. I don’t really understand how you did or are going to make the cd… IF you get a pro videographer ask if he/she can also make a cd from the recording- most people can’t do that well at home but it might be simple for someone with professional equipment. Just make sure you know you can get the cd and dvd right away!</p>
<p>I’m new here, so take that for what it’s worth… Sure, a professional recording would be great. But it is not necessary. My daughter’s cd recording was done at her voice teacher’s studio. He did have recording equipment - but nothing over the top incredible. We did not do a dvd - just a cd recording. I don’t want other people reading this to think that they can’t send in a prescreening recording because they have no ability to arrange or pay for someone professional to do it for them.</p>
<p>We also did not have professional headshots done - just a great close up that she had from something previous.</p>
<p>trumpetguysmom - Yes, early action was due 11/1. My D auditions in early December.</p>
<p>Thanks, Rosie, I had a moment of panic :).</p>
<p>S is applying for the dual degree program, and since there’s no benefit to applying early review if you’re doing dual degree (in fact it kind of muddies the waters, I think), we opted to have him just apply RD for both the College and the Con. Early Review isn’t really an early decision at Oberlin, it just means that you know earlier that you’re in the finalist pool, not that you’ve been admitted for sure.</p>
<p>Just a note, we did pay for the voice teacher to be there, just like a lesson. Her voice teacher did not have a studio and did not want to do it in the living room so we chose the church. Technology so much better now. If I were doing it now I would check friends or DD’s friends to see if anyone has the equipment and can it for you. Equipment is much smaller and much better now. DD is having a friend at school do her pre-screens.</p>