Berklee Audition

http://www.berklee.edu/wst/auditions/drums.html

I'm thinking about doing this, but I'm not sure what they mean by "standard repretoire". I'm familiar with the standard reading texts for more classical percussion, but what could I play for drum set? I'm not sure if it would be wise to play a snare drum piece or something like that, as it seems more geared toward contemporary studies and drum set. Maybe I'm just worrying too much.

Edit: I'm talking about the "prepared piece" section. Any suggestions?

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 12, 2005 02:06 PM: Message edited by: Cameron Mahoney ]</font>

What a great opportunity to direct this question towards Steve Hass (or any other Berklee graduates we have here)! They should be able to help you out.

I did this audition in LA a few years back. Actually got a scholarship too but ended up deciding not to go to Berklee. I used some Dave Weckl play alongs for my prepared pieces.

Alright, I have some of those, so I'll consider it. Would you mind disclosing how good of a scholarship you got? I don't mean to be rude, but money is a large issue for me; if I have to pay a lot of the difference, I probably won't go.

I got two scholarships from them... The Best Entering Student Talent (BEST) schoarship which was done by tape and the World Scholarship Tour (WST) done in person. In total I was awarded $10,000 renewable every year based on grades.

I was looking to go there for two years to just take all the music classes of a Bachelors degree and do all the GE at my local junior college. For the two years I remember the total cost (tuition, living costs, etc) being around $60,000. In my mind, even with the scholarships, the cost was not worth it when an education at a State college is a fraction of that price.

Wow, that is a lot.

So you must have done pretty amazing to get the BEST in addition to that. Congrats, even though it didn't work out.

Any tips? Should I pull out a lot of chops or just groove or find a middle ground?

I'm not even sure I want to go there, considering everything, but I do want to get serious about music, and I figured a lot is reputation and connections. I'm also looking at PIT.

I'd say for the most part I kept things on the simpler side. A big tip btw... When I was judged at the WST audition the guys on the panel were not drummers; Sax, guitar, and piano. I'm sure the last thing a non drummer wants to hear is a ton of notes. I played with them live to which was cool.

So were you the only one to get those scholarshipos? Like it's competative, and you won over everyone else? Or is it by instrument, or what?


Thanks for the advice. I think I'm going to play something from the Contemporary Drummer +1 CD like Again & Again (jazz trio) and maybe one of the rock or pop ones, to show versatility. I do really like the latin number, though. I also have some Dennis Chambers play along tracks and DWB tracks, so who knows.

I'm gonna make sure to brush up on all my styles too, and reading of course.

Is anyone familiar with Violent Ice Cream?

http://www.tapspace.com/vic.html

I have this book and am considering doing one of these solos as my prepared piece, but I'm not sure if it would be appropriate. It seems like they are more geared toward drum set than just snare or orchestral or marching stuff. I've never marched corps, but I'm pretty confident I could work my chops up to play one of these.

Zak... Can you give me some details on how to prepair the auditions..? I?m planning to make one...
Did they asked you to play a particular tune? Different grooves? Maybe a couple of jazz standards?
Any possibility to share the video you sent to win the scholarship?
Thanks!

Cameron...

I don't know if I was the only one to get awarded the scholarships in each specific audition. I would imagine that's not the case. I bet the scholarship committee has a yearly budget of what they can award and they spread out that money how they see fit.

I'm very familiar with Violent Ice Cream and all of Tap Space Publications. I was one of Jim Casella's students (the head of Tap Space) while performing with the Santa Clara Vanguard. I would say that type of rudimental display is not appropriate for a Berklee audition; not to say that learning that material is a bad thing though. I did sight read a little snare drum etude at the audition, but it was know where near the difficulty level that Violent Ice Cream focuses on. I think they were more concerned in the ability to sight read; not how many rudimental chops I had.

Now in order to do the live audition I had to send a tape first. On that tape I demonstrated the Percussive Arts Society 40 standard rudiments.

Juli?n...

I prepared two Dave Weckl play alongs and a variety of different grooves. Their repertoire requirements page gives a list of what you need to have ready. I think that link was posted earlier by Cameron. I also went prepared with photo copies of the charts and grooves for each member of the committee.

The tape I did for the BEST scholarship was an audio tape. Same thing for the application process for the WST audition. I don't have them anymore though, sorry.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 13, 2005 09:16 PM: Message edited by: Zak Morton ]</font>

Thanks for all the info, it really helped. [img]smile.gif[/img]

good luck Cam'ron [img]wink.gif[/img]

I really wanted to attend berklee but unless my parents win the lottery or i suddenly become 200% better at drums and get at least 50% scholarship, i wont be able to go!

Did you read Louie's review of Berklee? Just making sure... good insights.

That's the truth, SP.... [img]graemlins/cry.gif[/img] [img]tongue.gif[/img]

There's always other schools, I just thought I'd give it a chance given it's reputation.


Any link to this review, matricks?

Not sure about the link, let me check... it's an old one!

The overall idea was that the Berklee percussion facilities are less than ideal. I have heard the same thing from many different sources.

That's a shame. I hear PIT has real nice facilities, and lots of them, though. I have also been considering Drummer's Collective. Anyone have insights on any of these?

I heard great things about LAMA... check that out.

I've heard from a pro drummer here in Hong Kong that the collective is great. Although it is quite small, he says when he went class sizes were very small. Kim Plainfeld seems to be an awesome player, and i've heard he's just as great to teach.

As far as berklee goes, if your accepted and even get scholarships, you should already be pretty damn good. Berklee is full of amazing musicians who are likely to go into the business so more than for shedding, i would say berklee is for sucking up advice on the industry, to make friends and network, im sure if you ask any berklee grad, they have gotten jobs from alummi they attended berklee with. I mean Vinnie and Neil Stubenhaus were there at the same time, and i think steve lukather too. So there ya go.

My teacher said P.I.T had great facilities but has a problem with theft. He said that you share a drum lab with one other person and you have a locker to keep gear in. The labs are open 24/7.

I don't know about facilities at L.A.M.A. but thats probably where your going to get the best and most experienced teachers with Joe Porcaro and Ralph Humphrey's who were i believe the founds of P.I.T but started LAMA when japanese people bought M.I. I may be wrong, but this is the word i've heard. I mean i've heard some bad things about some teachers at P.I.T not being that good. But yeah, btw Sammy, if your reading this, what years were you at P.I.T. because my teacher said he thinks that he was in the same year as you, when i was showing the list of teachers.

BTW the teachers right now at Berklee for drums include Rod Morgenstein and Ed Soph. They were the ones featured on the latest catalog i got a month ago.

Cameron here is a good discussion: http://www.hostboard.com/cgi-bin/ult...ic&f=609&t=431

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 14, 2005 09:14 PM: Message edited by: S.P ]</font>

When I was at Berklee 93-97, I went on a U.S Scholarship. I'm not sure if this is the same thing or not though. It sounds very similar. This "tour" made stops all around the country for auditions. I auditioned at Berklee because I'm in CT. I recorded a tape with 4 tunes on it and sent it in to get a chance to aydition. Funk tune, straight ahead tune, brush tune and tune that went between styles. Sent the tape in, got asked to come in and for an audition. I played live with the Bass chair (Rich appleman) and the guitar chair (who's name escapes me) We played segments of the same tunes. I solo'd over the forms of all of them. they put some figures in front me too. Sight reading stuff. then I did the ear training thing too. I earned myself a good chunk of change which always helps!! Just be ready when you go in and just play. They are not looking for people to come in and blow chops over everything. They would rather hear music!!!

Here's Louie's review:

http://www.hostboard.com/cgi-bin/ult...c/f/609/t/3319

If I'm not mistaken, Tombo, & perhaps Blake, two of the longtime wise veterans here at HODhb, know a thing or 2 about the Drmr's Coll...

I've also heard many good things about LAMA [Los Angeles Music[ians'] Academy] here. Do a net search...

Some local big colleges have fine music programs for a fraction of those "prestigious ones'" costs...

For ex; in my orig hometown area of central / west-coast FL, there is USF college in Tampa, & Jeff Berlin's Player's School of Music right across the bridge from there in Clearwater/Largo, for example...

Also, do a "search" here in this site of "Berklee" & check the topics...

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 15, 2005 02:48 PM: Message edited by: got_a_match_grip? ]</font>

I suggest going to Steve Hass' board and asking him about this.
He left Berklee in '97 according to his site.
Also, I do believe there's no other school in the world other than North Texas, that offers the unique music business like atmosphere that Berklee does. Students at Berklee play real gigs everyday and get tons of playing experience. In LAMA classes you have to wait in line to play just like The Collective. And you play 1-3 tunes infront of everyone else and that's it. That's not a real experience. Berklee offers the real deal. Exactly what you'll be doing when you come out. It also doesn't hurt that everyone from Vinnie to Jeff Watts, Smitty, Steve Smith, Will Calhoun, Billy Kilson,..EVERYONE...went there. Well almost.
I say go and don't listen to people who have had a negative experience. School is what you make of it. And there's no better place to learn about contemporary music.

Quote:

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School is what you make of it

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">THIS, of course, is "it in a nutshell" on this subject.

But as tuition, living, & travel cost [AWA possibly location] is a large factor for many of your average folks, it is good to hear & weigh the pros AWA cons. Esp pertaining to access of practice facitlities AWA 1-on-1 lessons...

But still..."what you said." [img]wink.gif[/img] [img]cool.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 15, 2005 04:16 PM: Message edited by: got_a_match_grip? ]</font>

Some discussion on LAMA and The Collective here:
http://www.hostboard.com/cgi-bin/ult...609/t/3470/p/1

Apart from me, I know that HOD members jgadd, BryanV, cjbdrm and shockediddle (just last week) went to DC.

for my scholarship audition i just went in and played a solo that showed some chops and ability to create dynamics etc and weaved through all styles that were on the sheet....latin styles, jazz, rock, funk etc.

the audition was very short - sight reading was very easy, the guys were very nice and i had a quick jam with one of them who was a guitarist - we jammed to one of the bass lines on "turn it up and lay it down" which had some drum breaks.

the main thing i thought at berklee was they wanted to know your reading but mainly stylistic capability. i played quite badly in my placement audition but got a high score due to me simply being able to go thru the motions

Quote:

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Originally posted by mAnOfMaNyKiTs:
When I was at Berklee 93-97, I went on a U.S Scholarship. I'm not sure if this is the same thing or not though. It sounds very similar. This "tour" made stops all around the country for auditions. I auditioned at Berklee because I'm in CT. I recorded a tape with 4 tunes on it and sent it in to get a chance to aydition. Funk tune, straight ahead tune, brush tune and tune that went between styles. Sent the tape in, got asked to come in and for an audition. I played live with the Bass chair (Rich appleman) and the guitar chair (who's name escapes me) We played segments of the same tunes. I solo'd over the forms of all of them. they put some figures in front me too. Sight reading stuff. then I did the ear training thing too. I earned myself a good chunk of change which always helps!! Just be ready when you go in and just play. They are not looking for people to come in and blow chops over everything. They would rather hear music!!!

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Were the tunes you played from a play along, or with a group of your own? Was the ear training playing rhythms or recognizing tones and harmonies? I have basic ear training down, but nowhere near the perfect pitch type of people. I can replicate most rhythms, though, by ear. Sight reading is a strength for me, too, but I'll be sure to prepare just in case. Thanks.

Thanks for the help and experiences, guys. [img]biggrin.gif[/img]