The whole regional thing should not be taken literally. Screwy things happen at the local level and in no way should anyone put any stock in it. At the state level, at least in Illinois , things seem to be run much better. At least in the classical division. I’ve seen some of the state jazz concerts and the talent level is amazing and a lot of fun to listen to, kid involved or not.
@jb1966 - The one instructor involved in the process said that sometimes you can have better music in a district than the all-state because of the regional balancing that occurs - if you had a really hot district. I thought it was an interesting statement - I have no opinion.
I think we struck it lucky this weekend. S tried a new jazz instructor (he has been without one for a few months), and it was awesome in a few ways, including that the instructor knows, at least to some degree, some of the professors at S’s target colleges around the country. The instructor decided that we could spend the next 14-16 months before pre-screening and auditions to work on the audition repertoire.
In our experience (jazz), the district audition can seem even more competitive than state, and certain districts are often more heavily represented in state. But the state jazz band is fantastic and even gets to play at Newport Jazz fest, sharing the warm up area with musicians like Bill Frisell.
I don’t know about the Jazz world, but in the Classical world some bizarre things happen at the local level. My daughter got seated behind a pair of kids that didn’t know what was going on and the conductor conducted over them to the middle of the section. It was really embarrassing and very obvious. At the state level my daughter sat first stand and both of these kids were back at 12th stand? One year the first chair at state from the previous year didn’t even make state at all the next year… right. So strange things happen at the local and I guess state level and it’s a good idea not to put too much stock in either. And yes, the IL state Jazz band , the years we saw them was fantastic!
@jb1966:
I totally agree with not putting that much weight on all state seating, the level of the program depends a lot on where someone lives, what state or region it is, and there from personal experience in high school and later on as my son got heavily into music was more than a certain level of politics and favoritism involved. In places where there are strong prep programs, all state may not represent the best of the best, in other states it can be very high level because in a sense, it is the only game around. When people ask me about all state or all region, my take is to go into it to enjoy meeting kids from around and about, enjoy being with kids their age and the performance experience, but that don’t necessarily expect it to say much about the kid’s musical ability or to be necessarily a high level performing opportunity.
What’s missing too is the home school kids because in a lot of states they don’t qualify and there are some very heavy players among them. Going down and enjoying being with kids who think like you and talking shop and making friends is so much more important than the seating. As the parents of a kid at state we had a lot of fun. Having our daughter end up a stand partner with the very same kid as she stand partnered with for the last four years in her private orchestra was really funny and we all enjoyed the moment. They move on and to different lives so quickly at that age why not enjoy the time you have together?
None of the elite players in my area were involved with state or regional orchestras.
Our youth jazz band leader suggested the regionals/states only with the comment that S would meet more people. I was “happy” that S got in at the regional level, even if it means nothing. It is also a pretty low overhead activity, being a couple days to be somewhere different, so maybe he’ll try it next year, too.
S continues his classical bass lessons, jazz bass lessons, youth orchestra, and open-mic jam night as a core regimen. Reminded musicamusica’s recent post (http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/1821879-downbeat-magazine-jazz-scholarship-article.html#latest), S says (I am trying to remember the right words) that he will focus on expanding his jazz repertoire using next semester’s study hall period to read/sing new songs melodies at school, and then come home and work on them on the bass.
This winter break, we will also be reviewing colleges with focus. To travel only a reasonable amount while hitting enough places to get a nice offer (full-tuition would be so helpful), I am thinking we might need to identify a small number of geographic centers (such as New York or a combo of Michigan/Ohio), unless a stand-out choice is somewhere out on its own.
I think you should be very happy your S got in the regional jazz band! Congratulations to him! And it doesn’t mean nothing…especially given he’s only been on upright a very short period of time. It is an accomplishment to be proud of, and an encouraging sign.
I don’t think anyone (at least not myself) meant that getting into region meant nothing, it does mean something, rather I and I think others were simply saying don’t use that to necessarily indicate your S’s playing level either in a positive or negative way,that’s all. I have had private conversations with music parents, whose kids were studying with really good private teachers, who had gotten into some pretty high level summer music programs, who were upset their kid either didn’t make all state, or got in but were seated low, and were worried this meant their kid wasn’t any good. Taking validation from all state or all region is giving it weight it might not deserve. Among other things, All State and such are known for politics, and I also know of cases where when they see a kid who obviously is way out there, the adjudicators deliberately seat the kid low, or in some cases I suspect reject them, because they have a chip on their shoulders against the top level students.
One particular case, friend of my S’s was/is a serious violinist (after the end of his senior year of HS, he won one of the major international competitions). His parents were school music teachers, and wanted him to be involved in his HS program, so he did. The teacher there, who is a friend of the kid’s parents, asked him to go out for all region, all state, as a favor (as sad as it sounds, it is how high school music directors can get attention and funding for their programs, to show kids in the all x groups). This kid, btw, was concertmaster of a pretty prestigious prep program top level orchestra…kid got into all state, but was seated at the back of the seconds, literally last stand. The teacher at his school was furious when he heard about this, and when he looked at who was doing the seating and such, he knew exactly what happened, the person running the show was one of these public school music teachers who was a bitter person, wanted to be a performer and didn’t make it, went the Music Ed route to ‘have a career’, and also in all state and such used it as his own personal fiefdom, where he deliberately set out to antagonize the elite kids who ‘dared to try out’ …there are a lot of public school music teachers who see the top level students as arrogant, or ‘want to knock them back a peg’, I saw that up close and personal at a music competition my S was in.
All I was saying is that all state and all region are performing opportunities and a great way to meet other kids and do some music, just not to take too much either way out of them. I would be proud of your son for playing music, and also that he took the time and effort to get into various performing groups, and hopefully enjoyed doing it, so it is not nothing, not all all, it simply is not a reliable way of gauging how good(or bad) your son is:) Or to use engineering terms (okay, dad, I hear you turning over in your grave!), using all state to measure how good a kid is would be like using test equipment without calibrating it first in measuring output in a bench test, that good or bad result is just as likely to be a false reading as a good one, and since with all state you can’t ‘calibrate’ the level or filter out ‘noise’, you can’t know the real value:)
@musicprnt - The engineering analogy about calibration is very good. I will say that given the uncalibrated system, it was more pleasant that S did make it in to regionals than if he had not, even if it were completely random. He said he messed up the sight reading because there was one measure of walking, and he played two, as the last song he played was still in his head, so he had to keep playing and plan out how he was going to blend back into the song without being abrupt. He said it took a while, but he kept playing and worked it out by the end.
The classical instructor brought up the topic of college at the last lesson. One of the places nearby that he thought at least had a complete program is DePaul. He said their aid might be worth gambling on. He also is aware of the UIC choice with the well-thought of instructor Stewart Miller, and then we talked in summary about various sized fish in various sized ponds.
Until winter break, I am doing most of the reading about colleges, so I thought I would review one at a time instead of looking at a spreadsheet of so many at once. I read about New School and Oberlin to start with. I was surprised how confused I was (compared to my reading of UNT) - in that there seemed like New School was kind of a hybrid of various schools. UIC was also strange as it seemed to have resident and classroom buildings scattered around in Chicago.
My son’s a HS senior and has been playing in state-level jazz bands since he was a freshman, as well as other audition-based ensembles and, honestly, we’ve never experienced the kind of drama/pettiness described here, especially one that involves parents and teachers. (Yuck!) It may very well be that we’ve just been oblivious to it but, if so, I guess we’ve been lucky. My son has had a low-profile teacher all along and hasn’t attended any prestigious pre-college programs. As he’s met pros through camps, masterclasses, etc., they’ve all been really helpful and encouraging; offering him lessons, to come and sit in on jam sessions, rehearsals, even shows. Maybe jazz is more democratic by nature. 
Go visit some schools and have some sample lessons. It’s impossible to get a feel for the jazz departments by reading about the music schools in general. For jazz, I would recommend having a standard or two that your son is really comfortable with; every teacher will say “so, play me something…” Make sure the head is memorized and correct (i.e. authentic). I think sight reading and theory is more of a priority in jazz than classical. My son is often asked if he knows the “circle of fifths” or some obscure jazz scales.
I do think it’s worth taking a trip to NYC and doing the rounds; it’s mecca.
In my state, some of the regional (and maybe all state) adjudication is done by paid college students who are music education majors. Some of them may be fantastic and others…
@GoForth, I think a trip to NYC is a good idea. We visited in spring of junior year and toured Julliard, The New School, Manhattan School of Music and NYU. But, even if your son isn’t sure about the whole “NYC as campus” thing, I hope he doesn’t rule out other smaller cities. I know I’m biased but I love my city - Boston!
We also really liked our audition trip to Oberlin, as well as the one to Eastman. The fact that your son has both a classical and jazz background will surely be helpful there.
@goforth:
The New School can be confusing because for years they had their Jazz program as part of the “New School” (actually “New School for Social Research” originally, I don’t know if they formally changed that or not to simply New School), but they also have the Mannes School of Music, that was pretty much everything but Jazz I believe. They have consolidated Mannes down on the 5th ave Campus at the north edge of the Village now, and I don’t know whether Jazz is now under Mannes or not. It is a very well respected program, the school is in a wonderful area (the old Mannes campus up in the 60’s on the west side was a nice area,but not the same as the village one), they have a lot of teachers and master classes done by world class musicians from what I hear, worth looking at. MSM has a very strong jazz program as well, I think both MSM and Mannes can give Juilliard a run for their money in terms of how good the program is, if not matching the name (Juilliard has a big advantage with facilities over the other two schools and has the magic name of Juilliard, magical in the sense that most people have heard of it:). NYU has a good jazz program (Lady GaGa studied jazz piano there, and she btw is an excellent Jazz pianist:) but I would hesitate to point you that way, NYU is extremely expensive and they are very parsimonious with aid, ridiculously so, and would likely be the most expensive of any of those programs because of that.
Thank you very much, @musicprnt - I am noticing very interesting distinctions now that I take time to study. I wrote MSM to confirm I got this straight, and they said you can pre-screen, audition and be accepted in electric bass and acoustic bass, but then you must choose only one as the primary focus. That is a different flavor than say UNT.
You mention a very important distinguisher for us: expensive+parsiminious = no. I don’t know the parsimonious factor for some of the places yet.
@musicprnt, The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music is not part of Mannes; rather, Mannes moved down to the New School campus in the Village and now Mannes, Jazz and Drama make up New School’s College of Performing Arts. There is not a lot of overlap or interaction between the classical and jazz programs.
Unfortunately, none of the NYC music schools you mention is generous with merit scholarships, except to the few top students in each entering class. For example, MSM tends to offer 50%-100% tuition scholarships to students who make Grammy Jazz Band in their senior year, but not much to others. @GoForth, for scholarship reasons alone it’s worth your son’s time to audition for the most competitive programs - Next Gen, Grammy, YoungArts, just to name three. Judges are subjective and it can be a crap shoot, but you never know, and - as they say - if you’re not in it, you can’t win it.
When our son decided he wanted to pursue a degree in jazz guitar performance, we told him he’d have to get a hefty scholarship. Basically, we felt that if he wasn’t “good enough” to get a merit scholarship from some program somewhere, then maybe he wasn’t “good enough” to make it as a performer. It sounds harsh, but so is the reality of being a professional musician. Also, there are so many music programs at so many different schools that every talented, skilled musician should be able to get money from somewhere. Maybe not from MSM or Oberlin or their first or third choice, but from somewhere. The cost of getting the degree is very important for us and our son. Student loans can cripple a fledgling performance career. Our son didn’t want any loans, and we’re in that group that doesn’t qualify for financial aid but can’t afford college costs of $65K/year.
As it turned out, our son worked very hard, got scholarships from every school to which he applied, and ended up at the school that was the most affordable overall, and he’s happy there. This was the case with most of his jazz musician friends - they went where they got the most money.
@GotThatSwing96 - I had the same harsh-sounding thought that you mentioned. I had another contemplation, as well, as follows. Aside from being “#1” in the world, what is best - to be
- the best player there, full-scholarship, thrid-ranked school;
- a mid player there, full-scholarship, second-ranked school;
- a lower player there, no scholarship, first-ranked school.
I was wondering if #2 was a sweet spot (like an engine power curve) where there is still room to grow, but you are still in the close attention of the instructor. If you were in case #3 would the extra goodness of being at the first-ranked school be mitigated by the extra distance you might be from the instructor’s view?
Scholarships aren’t necessarily hard to come by but full scholarships are extremely rare for music.
@GoForth, I don’t know that rankings are meaningful - or even exist - when it comes to jazz music programs, except that your son may have his own rankings based on where he’d like to go. From what I’ve observed, it’s important to find an environment where one can grow as a creative artist and develop technical and performance skills as well as one’s unique “sound.” That can be many different places. In jazz, ensemble experience is very important, so fellow students are as important as the faculty.
Most jazz programs are very small, especially at the “classical” conservatories. UNT and Berklee are large. I was surprised to learn that, at several of the “top” classical conservatories with jazz programs, there was only one instructor for my son’s instrument. So what happens if you don’t hit it off with that teacher or don’t particularly like their musical style? Conservatory jazz programs are based on the classical music model, but jazz is a different art form. I find it hard to believe that studying all four years with one teacher isn’t limiting for a jazz musician, especially once that musician has attained proficiency on his/her instrument.
Also, as others have mentioned on this site, location is key for many jazz students. I accompanied my son on his “audition tour” and fell in love with Oberlin. Alas, the lack of a significant jazz scene and the limited gigging opportunities pretty much nixed it for him. It’s hard to beat the big cities for performance and networking opportunities, and it matters less what school you go to. My son plays with jazz students who go to New School, MSM, Juilliard, and NYU - there is a lot of cross-pollination.