Hi and happy thanksgiving! As we roar into audition season for our ‘19 kids, I wondered if the veterans had any advice? Things you’d do differently? Tips for the road?
We’ve got S’s EA audition at Berklee on 12/1, then a six week break and six auditions in a row starting 1/11 through 2/16. Did you do that many? More? When did you start to hear? Did you get financial offers? Were you able to drop any or did you go through with them all? How did you handle the missed school?
S has planned to do six on-campus auditions in one single trip over a span of 9 days if he passes all pre-screens. He’s going to miss half of his IB mock exams, but fortunately, his school is accommodating and allows for make-up exams after he returns from his trip. Hope he can manage his super tight schedule for both auditions and exam preparations.
Wondering if anyone has done 4 auditions in 4 different states (in S’s case travelling will be about 1.5 hours by air in between) on 4 consecutive days? Will it be manageable in reality?
@Compojazzmom , it’s possible, but not if anything at all goes wrong…weather, air travel delays, illness, etc., not to mention fatigue! It would leave very little time for anything besides eating, sleeping, traveling and auditioning, so definitely no trial lessons or sitting in on classes. Is this kind of schedule necessary? Is there a contingency plan?
Hello all and Happy belated Thanksgiving! We had a houseful here including D home for the week for the first time since dropping her off in August. It’s been great.
To answer some questions, @akapiratequeen the only things we would do differently are more because of the benefit of hindsight. D did get into every single college where she applied. Some were long shots on merit money and ended up with low offers as expected. Funny enough we threw the New School in late in the game and honestly didn’t expect her to get enough to go and were really surprised when she did. I never knew that appealing an appeal was a thing but it is there and got her an additional 14k from her original offer in appeals.
Spreading out the auditions as much as possible would be advisable. The audition and travel fatigue is real and you really can’t anticipate the snags that can happen with travel. Sickness too for all you parents of vocalists! Bring travel humidifiers and push the immune boosters and travel with a scarf around the face!
We could easily have dropped a few off the list and had her apply to maybe 5-6 real contenders but you just never know. Best of luck to everyone! I’ll be watching with excitement as your kids get accepted and offers!!
@Compojazzmom - we just did three consecutive days of college tours for our aviation daughter - within about a 3-4 hour radius. By the time we got to our last one (a 2 hour plane ride) - we were so bushed that we couldn’t get up at 5am to make the 3 hour drive - so it got left off. It’s wasn’t a top 5 for her so we didn’t feel so badly (although you never know). My only concern (for you) is that you won’t have time to “smell the roses” and meet the cat (the Frost one).
Can someone please wake me up when the pre-screens and apps are in? Our daughter completed one - with 5 more to go (although thank goodness the New School is humane and is the only place that doesn’t have a hard Dec. 1 deadline so that one might slip a week).
Our daughter was home - so I literarily was up all night with her filling in app info, her practicing (yes, we did end up renting a bass which of course now she adores and wants to keep - dear God). Transcripts requested. I think everything is done - except the recordings which are supposed to happen on Sunday (God willing any place is open - she forgot that it might be hard to get into any school on a holiday weekend). We have a possible church?
I think the real issue with all of this is that the audition circuit is a marathon. It started with Young Arts, then Spotlight LA (she’s a semi-finalist), then essays, practice and more practice and then pre-screens and then the audition tours. When did it get so complicated? She’s only applying to 6 schools - so I know some of you have it much worse - but still!
I have to applaud (sarcasm here) her Arts School for scheduling their holiday concert (with 4 new original tunes to learn and play) for 2 days before pre-screen tapes and apps are due. Are you serious??? Let’s just shovel more on!
I keep telling her that the pre-screens aren’t as important as the live auditions - but she is pretty sure that I’m wrong.
Thanks all for listening to me vent in my sleepless haze. I know it will all work out in the end, but the journey has not be fun so far.
Ah, a contingency plan…thanks for the reminder. We’ll definitely think deeper into it after being notified of all the pre-screen results. We’ve considered doing the auditions in 2 separate trips but decided to keep the interference with S’s school work to the minimum. What a dilemma!
The comment about missing school made me remember to remind parents that if your child attends a large public school there might be attendance requierments that can mess up your child’s chance of graduating. Our son missed so much school his senior year due to auditions and other music commitments that he barely graduated. If he ended up missing one more gym class he might not have graduated. So be in touch with your child’s counselor and make sure your child is in touch with them about attendance issues. In many large public schools there is little wiggle room even if your child has a good excuse.
Feeling the stress along with y’all. @tripletmama, we let our son drop out of an honors band with rehearsals/concerts in December. It just became too much. He’s only got two prescreens and will be making the recordings on Monday afternoon, hopefully in time to get them processed and uploaded before Thursday night. Then leaving for Boston Friday morning.
I waver between worrying that he’s not ready/practicing enough, to being proud of his accomplishments, with everything in between. It really helped me to hear an experienced parent saying the prescreens are mostly to make sure he’s at the right level — if that’s true, and as long as they are taking jazz saxophones this year, I feel like he’ll at least be a contender.
I also learned that, while stressful in its own way due to medical issues and logistic problems at home—as well as his own ambivalence about the extra work— it was totally worth it for him to do Allstates. His playing improved more in being around top players than I would have imagined possible. By seeing what’s out there he was clearly spurred to expect more of himself.
So now the rubber is about to hit the road. I don’t know if he’s fully ready for this first audition (there’s always room for more practice and he can still be rough around the edges) but he’s the strongest he’s ever been overall. He has his sights set realistically and knows he’ll need merit aid to go to his top choices. The only thing left is to go through it.
I feel like we’ve waited in line for a year and we’re finally boarding the roller coaster. Of course, roller coasters scare me to death and I just wish it was over! I think how much more practical it would be for him to get a business degree. He could always play on the weekends.
But then I overhear his practice and it feels like my heart is bursting. I remember the honking of the recorder, then the clarinet, and then the squawking goose calls of his first saxophone…all leading to this glorious river of sound. No matter what happens, I couldn’t be more proud. Now it’s one day at a time and I want to enjoy every minute.
"…He has his sights set realistically and knows he’ll need merit aid to go to his top choices. The only thing left is to go through it.
I feel like we’ve waited in line for a year and we’re finally boarding the roller coaster. Of course, roller coasters scare me to death and I just wish it was over! I think how much more practical it would be for him to get a business degree. He could always play on the weekends.
But then I overhear his practice and it feels like my heart is bursting…No matter what happens, I couldn’t be more proud…"
All of THIS, @akapiratequeen! So beautifully stated! We’re still waiting in line for that roller coaster, but the line is moving a little. It’s thrilling (and terrifying!) watching those in front of us board the ride and take off! So excited for all of you! Wishing everyone energy, clarity, diligence, and a little luck in the coming weeks!
The roller coaster metaphor is perfect! I’m sure your son will do amazing and find the right music home to thrive @akapiratequeen! He’s lucky to have suppprtive parents cheering him on. I can’t wait to hear about all the unique roller coaster rides! Lol-very scary but exciting time for all of us! Fasten your seat belts!
We decided to celebrate Thanksgiving in Irvine this year so we could connect with our daughter. Our long term vegetarian has gone vegan and she has started back with road cycling (something she started in 7th grade). An interesting development is that music was an artistic outlet for her but now, with music being front and center of her education, she is devoting off-time to writing, drawing, cycling and other pursuits.
One issue that has been interesting to watch is the relationship with her new teacher. The teacher is the main reason she chose UCI. However, It started rocky for her as she was used to working with a very encouraging and supportive voice teacher. She had worked with her previous voice teacher for five years and the relationship was very nurturing. She really “grew up” with her former teacher. Her new teacher is pushing her to excel (in a good way) but this was something she had not experienced before. The feedback has been positive overall but they are clearly preparing her for the criticism/rigors of being a professional musician. While the start was rocky, she seems to be settling in and believes she made the right choice for a teacher, studio and university. She occasionally tells me she is not going to be a singer. I say “okay, what else do you have in mind.” Later, she tells me of some new piece of music she is excited to be learning or extra work in music she is doing for the “fun of it.” I’ve learned just to say “whatever you decide is fine with me” and let her figure it out.
She has been given a solo with the Chamber Choir and is excited about that. Her Italian is coming along well. One benefit of a small program is that her voice professor arranged for her to sit in unofficially with the piano class. So, she is starting to learn piano “on her own”. She dropped the Aural Skills class as she really needs the “foundations music” class that many of the singers take in the spring to prepare for the general music sequence.
Overall, this is the happiest I have seen her. Totally, worth the rollercoaster ride. There may be a precipitous drop in the near future but I will take this nice, steady, climb while we can.
@ifpparent - Reading through old threads. Did your S choose Thornton? My D is applying BM percussion, and Thornton is definitely among her top choices so far. Crossing fingers that she will make it through the prescreen.
@BearHouse - so happy to hear that your daughter is thriving. You certainly can’t beat Orange County!! Wish we would have considered it when we looked in LA (we ended up trying out San Diego - but I think that OC might have been closer to our daughter and maybe a good fit). Congrats on the solo. And have fun in LA for the holidays!
@BearHouse , sounds like she is making good progress! S18 reports that he is improving quite a bit recently. He feels he is starting to get the hang of the things he and his teacher have been working on. For example, S18 has always had issues with tension in his jaw. He and his teacher have been working on dropping his larynx when he sings. He is getting much better at that. He even showed us. As I watched, he adam’s apple dropped about a whole inch! So weird. He has a really long neck, which he is told is a great physical advantage for a singer. He has finals this week, goes on a Florida tour with his a cappella group for a week, then he will be home next weekend. Good luck to all your kiddos on their finals!