Music Composition Auditions and What to Expect

[@saadhaddadmusic]

So you’ve passed the pre-screening progress for your composition audition. Now what? Here’s how to prepare for your audition and what to expect. Score shown in video: Marcos Balter’s “Wicker Park”: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oJCok4RoeLabpck&ab_channel=ScoreFollower

[@ErickAleixoMusic]

Auditioned last week. Your videos were a tremendous help!

[@saadhaddadmusic]

Yay! I’m glad to hear that!

[@Jwellsuhhuh]

thanks youtube for recommending me this 4 months after ive submitted my undergrad portfolios and received all my decisions already

[@saadhaddadmusic]

Hopefully some positive decisions!

[@apolace7242]

I have masters auditions coming up for Rice, Juilliard, CCM (where I did undergrad), Peabody, and Curtis (they still haven’t announced prescreening results though so maybe not them). All of your videos on portfolio and auditions are extremely useful and I’m glad you’re doing them! My biggest struggle is ear training stuff. Due to genetics and ear damage sustained by working with cargo planes, in a car factory, and warehouses (through my undergrad), I have a very hard time matching pitch and hearing individual pitches in a chord. what’s the best way to work on that? You should make a video on ear training!

[@saadhaddadmusic]

Wow congrats on all those auditions coming up! And curtis has a masters program now for composition? This I didn’t know. Re: ear training, there are a lot of great videos on that topic already on KZbin so I didn’t think to cover it, but it might be something I do in the future. Re: your condition, do you have any sense of relative pitch (rather than “identifying notes in a chord”)? That would be more useful I would think (and is what I have, I’m not necessarily good at identifying individual pitches either, especially without context). That all being said, your ear training ability I don’t believe will be the biggest hindrance into getting into a program, especially if your portfolio is strong.

[@apolace7242]

@@saadhaddadmusic i do have a decent sense of relative however once there are 3 or more pitches in a chord, I have a hard time identifying which intervals they are up from the bass. I may book a lesson with you to talk strategy about these interviews as well as to learn what sort of questions to prepare!

[@saadhaddadmusic]

@@apolace7242 I’m happy to do so of course - either way, you’re on the right track with all those auditions. Those are a lot of great places!

[@jeffreyhartmusic]

Excellent video, Saad! Thanks for the tips!

[@saadhaddadmusic]

Happy to do so! Glad they’re useful!

[@muse7204]

Thank you for uploading this video! I felt like this video is made for me😲😃 This video is really for me. It'll be so helpful for my audition, I'll keep that in mind. Thank you so much~! ^ㅡ^

[@saadhaddadmusic]

It seemed like perfect timing for you! I'm glad that it's useful and see you soon!

[@Labratas123]

Thanks for your help,I have already got an offer from a good university 😢

[@saadhaddadmusic]

That’s great! Congratulations 🍾

[@furhound3993]

Thank you for this video! I was not able to find this quality content anywhere else. By the way, I have already passed my prescreening for Juilliard precollege. Just wondering, do you have any recommendations for who I should study with there? I mainly compose music for orchestra but I tried looking through all the faculty's works and I'm still unsure which composer I should study with 😂. With that said, your video was really helpful and I will definitely keep your tips in mind for my audition coming up soon🙏

[@saadhaddadmusic]

Congrats on making it past jyard prescreening! I really can’t recommend a teacher without knowing you or your music though. They’re all fantastic and you will learn something different from each of them.

[@malcolmjenkins571]

Through what method would you recommend that I bind my pieces?

[@saadhaddadmusic]

Your local print shop will have a way to do it, but I have an alternative method that’s better long term I will show in a future video