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Re: College tapes for non-conservatories

Author: tdinap
Date: 2007-09-01 05:52

I assume you're not going to major in music, but want to continue playing through college. (If I'm wrong, take all this with a grain of salt...)

I had this same problem when applying to schools two years ago; I'm planning to minor in music at Dartmouth, so obviously there was no audition requirement. I did send CD's with my apps, though. I just played the Adagio from the Mozart Concerto and the second movement of Hindemith's Sonata, both unaccompanied. Wherever I applied, they were pretty open about what to play; since you're probably not directly competing with others for spots in a studio, it seems that they just want to have a general idea of how you play.

In the end, I'd say pick your two best contrasting pieces or movements, and record in the best circumstances you can reasonably manage. If you have an accompanist easily available, go for it, but don't go and pay someone a ton of money to do it--you're spending enough in application fees and tuition. Same with the recording--I wouldn't use a Fisher Price tape recorder, but don't go and rent out an expensive studio. I was fortunate enough that my band director was willing to help in the recording, using an Alesis hard disk recorder with a very nice cardioid mike. I recorded mainly in a practice room at school.

Unless you send in a really bad recording, I don't think anything you asked about could hurt your chances. Looking back, my repertoire choices probably could've been a bit better, the playing could've been MUCH better, and the recording had some noise from keys and even one or two passersby. But I still got into two of the four Ivies to which I applied, so it couldn't have hurt that much. (Disclaimer: one of the Ivies I didn't get into was Yale.