My Berklee Audition (very long and detailed)

[JacobyLong]

Currently removed until further notice. Sorry.

[jmac]

Thanks for sharing. Best of luck. Let us know the results.

[Goatee220]

Very nice review. It's nice to get a little insight into what goes on at Berklee.

[Band Dad]

My son auditioned at Berklee at the beginning of December, and he made some of the same comments that you made. But your description of the process was much more than my son shared with me, so I'm glad to hear from someone else how things might have gone.

I'll bet you did well. Best of luck.

[FunkyMan]

A wonderful story! such a prestigious institution, you look like a very talented guy, i wish you the best of luck! But I've always had a doubt about Berklee: They only accept musicians who already have extensive knowledge of harmony and music? I mean, they don't train musicians from scratch?

Or this situation is only for those who want a scholarship? forgive my ignorance! Thanks

[Staccato]

You survived! Thanks for the recap, too! When do you think you'll hear their decision?

[JacobyLong]

Originally Posted by FunkyMan

A wonderful story! such a prestigious institution, you look like a very talented guy, i wish you the best of luck! But I've always had a doubt about Berklee: They only accept musicians who already have extensive knowledge of harmony and music? I mean, they don't train musicians from scratch?

Or this situation is only for those who want a scholarship? forgive my ignorance! Thanks

Ignorance is not your state of mind at all.

From my indirect knowledge from current students, Berklee does in fact teach you from scratch. Reason being, the institution understands the possibility that an individual can be both be extraordinary musician and player without any knowledge of reading music and understanding theory/harmony. However, the competition of those types of players must be considerably harder than those who have taken the steps to learning the basics. Furthermore, they undoubtedly trains every person from scratch. In their own words, they realize everyone auditioning (if any) will not be balanced in all the variations of being a musician, and a goal is to equalize the already existing skills as much as possible. My opinion is; If anyone was perfect going in the there, they wouldn't be going to school in the first place. The only way to get out of that would be testing out of those courses during the placement testing, which could also save someone a boat load of money in the process. I should hear back March 25th, according to the emails. Thanks everyone for the support!

I do ask of everyone though, if you know personally or see anyone with questions about the audition process at Berklee. PLEASE refer them to my experience, and to ask any questions.

[Joe Clark]

I just started going to Berklee in January. I know how you feel about the whole audition process. I was a wreck afterwards. Pretty much ruined a perfectly nice weekend in Boston with my own self-loathing, haha.

I've got to say though, during my audition they didn't really push too much advanced theory. I didn't spell out any chords. If my recap is correct, I played my prepared piece, bombed my sight reading, played a blues w/ piano accompaniment, played a couple of modes and arpeggiated some chords.

I really feel for you right now, I was in the same boat in August. As long as you can play, I wouldn't worry about affirmative action, and frankly I think that was a bullsh*t comment. Part of what makes the school so great is the international diversity. I've heard stories from international students that trump anything of the average, privileged white kids. People that worked insane jobs for several years in order to come to school here.

Also regarding the question of theory knowledge of entering students, they are pretty willing to teach that from scratch. When you get in they have tests they use so students can test out of Ear Training, Harmony, Music Technology, and Writing Skills.

Good luck, hope you get in.

[JacobyLong]

Originally Posted by Joe Clark

As long as you can play, I wouldn't worry about affirmative action, and frankly I think that was a bullsh*t comment. Part of what makes the school so great is the international diversity. I've heard stories from international students that trump anything of the average, privileged white kids. People that worked insane jobs for several years in order to come to school here.

I am not sure if I offended you in any way at all, but no where near was that my intention. I completely understand a large portion of the experience is the massive amount of diversity, both playing and meeting people who you would probably never meet anywhere else. Saying that, my example of possible reasoning for being declined by no means suggested any racial prejudiced against myself or others. More of, the true reasons being completely and forever unknown. My tone must have come off completely wrong than my intentions, and I apologize.

[Joe Clark]

No offense taken at all. I'm just saying at the end of the day, you'll get in if you worked hard and played well. Even if it wasn't your best. You figure most entering students are 18 and don't have a ton of audition experience. The adjudicators know that. They've seen thousands of audition. Also, in talking with a financial aid advisor, I found out that the acceptance rate last semester was 15%. I'm sure it fluctuates, but I know they've been working on getting rid of the "Pay to play" reputation. I've witnessed a lot of legitimate talent, but also realize that it's not a school chock full of virtuosos. Again, good luck.

[Band Dad]

Is a 15% acceptance rate considered low? I wonder how many people apply in any given year.

Anyone with scholarship info at Berklee? So expensive.

[itswac]

There are a number of scholarships private endowment scholarships that are available to entering Berklee students.

You can view their list here

They also have a large sum of money allotted to the World Scholarship Tour and the Berklee Writing and Composition Scholarship for Entering Students (formerly the BEST Scholarship).

You can get more info on those scholarships and a couple others here

My understanding is that the World Scholarship Tour is, in addition to providing global opportunities to musicians, generally for finding exceptional players/instrumentalists while the other scholarship is generally for writers, performers, creators of music.

Both of those scholarships require separate auditions to the application process. As ridiculous as it is, because of the subjective nature of a musical audition process, it is possible to earn a scholarship and NOT get into Berklee.

I had a teacher who was on the World Scholarship tell me about a sixteen year old who came in and didn't know how to read, write or improvise music. They asked her, "What can you do?" and she answered "I write songs". They asked her how many she had written and she said "over 100". She played a few of them and they were great. In the end, they gave her a scholarship.

[JacobyLong]

Yes, Berklee scholarships appears to be a very tricky business. They have given 14 year old kids full rides before...

Thanks again everyone!

[SelenaBassGirl]

best of luck to you! let us know how it turned out!

[J. Crawford]

Shoot, no chance of me going to Berklee! Only thing I can do in that whole post is have perfect grades in high school.. and maybe play a few of the major and minor scales.

Good job, hope it works out for ya!

[rappa29]

Sounds like you did well! Good luck!

Interestingly, when I went there, I don't recall my audition process being that intense. Of course this was 17 years ago! I can barely remember the set list from last Saturday's gig!

I don't recall having to recite modes or scales or arps or spell chords, etc, during my audition. I do remember performing my pieces which were both classical and thinking, "I'm dead meat." in the Jazz heavy environment like Berklee. I learned through my years, there were ALL KINDS of different musicians from different walks of life. So it was all good!

I went in as piano being my primary instrument and Music Synthesis\MP&E dual major...which I ended up just finishing with Music Synthesis.

I started there Summer of 93 and graduated 1995.

My years there pretty much made me the musician I am today. Great times!

[GM60466]

You'd be hard pressed to find a better full-time school. Good luck. Maybe take a summer course at Fur Peace and have a chance to study with Jack Casady.

G

[BassBrass]

If only they had a course "unlearning what I learned at Berklee" we more...basic... Boston musicians wouldn't have to do as much deprogramming. Berklee is Great if you want to be a music educator or if you are the one out of ten thousand who will become studio musicians in a musical city (like LA, NYC etc) or the one in a million who become touring jazz artists. THAT'S why they quiz you on your intentions. But it's a good way to spend your early 20s as long as you don't take it too seriously. Creativity is a whole other kettle of fish.

[DrewinHouston]

Originally Posted by Band Dad

Is a 15% acceptance rate considered low? I wonder how many people apply in any given year.

Anyone with scholarship info at Berklee? So expensive.

85% of the people who apply think that 15% is a low acceptance rate.

[Band Dad]

That's pretty good, Drew