Berklee College Admissions Requirements

[Jazz+]

"We expect you to have knowledge of written music fundamentals; have at least two years of formal private instruction on your instrument; a diploma from an accredited secondary school; and, for degree candidates, satisfactory scores on either the SAT I or ACT.

 

We want to know that you have been playing your instrument a sufficient amount of time, and have attained an understanding of techniques relative to your instrument and your chosen styles of music.

 

We take seriously the opinion of teachers and music professionals and ask applicants to provide a letter of recommendation accordingly."

[Angelo Clematide]

anybody here who fulfills this requirements?

[Jeff Klopmeyer]

So... what's the point?

 

I went to Berklee for a little while. The entrance exam was, from my perspective, fairly simple. I was not (and still am not) a good sight reader, but the exam is really basic.

 

If you have basic musicianship and theory, a few years of lessons, and a lot of cash, you're a strong contender.

 

I ended up with a bachelor's in music from Cal State Dominguez Hills... not nearly as prestigious as Berklee as far as music is concerned, but I got a good, solid education there, thanks to good instructors and a desire to learn. You can achieve that nearly anywhere.

 

- Jeff

[Sven Golly]

Originally posted by Jeff Da Weasel:

So... what's the point?

I'm wondering the same thing as well...

 

Cheers,

SG

[monstermusiker]

Yeah, no biggie. They let (almost) anyone with money in:) I was there 3 years (dual major) and met people who couldnt play their way out of a bag if their life depended on it! And I met really great players there too.

 

You planning on attending Berklee?

And, I totally agree with Jeff, which school you go to does not really matter that much, your determination and willpower is what matters.

 

Regards, mm

[marino]

Originally posted by Angelo Clematide:

anybody here who fulfills this requirements?

I find this kind of teasing stupid and childish at the extreme.

 

I feel you owe us all some apologies.

[Angelo Clematide]

I excuse myself for this childish mark !!!

[Immo]

I had a trumpet teacher back in the day who played second chair New York Philharmonic at the time, and he told me he doesn't recommend any of his students to go to Juliard. If you're good at what you do people will notice.

[JimmyJimJim]

What's ur point jazz+? just that it seems ridiculously easy to get in?

[cnegrad]

Speaking from my own personal experience, Berklee's admission requirements are almost irrelevant. It's what you make of your stay at Berklee (or any other college) that matters. Sure, I'd see a percentage of immature people who completely squandered their time there. But there were also those who made good use of their time there, and it's brought them a long way. If I were to list my fellow classmen and women, no doubt you've heard of many of them. Berklee was well worth it for me. But in the final analysis, they are only a resource. The bottom line is your commitment to your art, and how well you decide to make use of that invaluable resource. If the purpose of this thread was to ridicule Berklee, you're far off the mark. Their track record speaks for itself. Berklee and colleges like it are just tools; used wisely, they'll get you where you want to go. If anything, I regret being quite as young as I was when I attended (16), and not taking even better advantage of all it had to offer. Man, if I lived in the Boston area now, I'd really love to take some more of the advanced classes...

[wes-ninja250]

I'm actually kind of surprised they don't make you prepare a piece for a jury audition. That's how the local university does things, and they are NOT a big music school! Also, the local school has stricter requirements for piano admission than any other instrument; I guess there must be a glut of pianists there. There certainly is an excess of their near homophone.

 

Wes

[area51recording]

I stopped in to the admissions office at Berklee once when visiting Boston and was suprised that when I asked about audition requirements was told there basically weren't any (this was sometime in the late jurassic period, about 1980). Later on after I opened my studio I did an audition CD for a student of one of my friends, who is a Berklee alum, who explained to me that Berklee has auditions for scholarship purposes, which is a good thing since i believe attending the school involves $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$....$$$$$$.

[Byrdman]

Originally posted by Angelo Clematide:

anybody here who fulfills this requirements?

These requirements are absurdly weak. You would have no chance getting into an Australian University with these - there you have to already be a fairly competent musician to get in. You do examinations throughout high school (though not as part of the school system). When you come out you ought to be capable of performing at high professional levels.

 

(Personaly I majored in Math instead - it was easier)

 

It seems to me that the entrance standards at some other US Universities are also much higher.

[GuitarPlayerFL]

Originally posted by monstermusiker:

Yeah, no biggie. They let (almost) anyone with money in:)

Absolutely. I attended in the Fall of 1980 and found out that one of my roommates had written his own letter of recommendation and did not know that there was such a concept as playing in a particular key before he got there. I'm not kidding.

 

I see no reason why it would be any different today...all colleges are hard up for money these days.

[Angelo Clematide]

well, i guess Berklee turn fully into a commercial enterprise. Most above sounds like you sitting nowadays in classes with people who should work at Walmart or so...

 

how you judge what you can learn in Berklee, when you make the full program?

 

has curriculum wise something changed in Boston since 1970?

 

Anybody went to NTU?

 

Is it true when people say NTU is the leading Jazz education faculty in the US?

[Krakit]

I went to Shenandoah college and conservatory of Virginia.

 

I failed my first jury audition. It was reccommended to me to try again with harpsichord. I did and passed my second audition this way.

 

I was easily the worst pianist in the school. I don't say that with any pride at all. However, I majored in composition and minored in harpsi perf. I don't think that I could have gotten away with turning that on it's head.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't get any family support for my choice of college (my father insisted that I attend Stonybrook). So when my savings ran out I had to drop out. I tried to support myself for a bit but couldn't pay the hefty tuition for a second semester.

 

I sure wish that I could have finished my education there.

 

Carl

[DafDuc]

I,m currently enrolled as a Church Music major at Madonna U. near Detroit, and have been there for a couple of years.

 

I was admitted without an audition, apparently on the basis of having been a music director at a local church for the previous 5 years, already having a degree (B.A., Economics), and having a piece published with one of the "big 3" Catholic publishing houses.

 

I can't pipe organ my way out of a paper bag. I'm a 100% pure fake style player, and appear to be utterly unable to make my fingers and brain do what is required of me. My prof has been patient and understanding and lenient, up to a point.

 

It's kinda weird - I'm quite successful as a church musician, but an utter failure as a classical player. Madonna's program is aimed entirely at classical players, but I'm somehow getting okay grades, and will probably complete within a couple of years. So the surface will look like I'm a successful church musician with a solid educational background, and the double disconnect - that Madonna's church music program has little to do with modern church music, AND their grades have little to do with actual success in their curricula - will only be apparent to those potential employers who really do some digging.

 

Or else it'll happen the first time a pushy bride asks for the Widor Toccata and Fugue, LOL...

 

Daf

[Michelle ggurl]

I like what Cnegrad said: it's just a tool. Like any schooling.

 

I majored in music for a time a San Jose State University -- not considered a big music school, eh? Well, I went there because at the time they had one of the top jazz programs in the country. I was double concentration in jazz and classical piano performance.

 

I burned myself out; I probably should have never tried to do both (some ppl can, but I wasn't a great sight reader, which can slow ya down ridiculously when trying to absorb 2 academic concentrations' worth of music). So I bailed and became a music minor. I eventually got a degree in something else.

 

Some of my alums in the mus. dept. have gone on to do great things. Sidemen for famous people and studio musicians and all that rot. One guy, a classical pianist, is a well known concert performer. Other people never did a thing with it. It's just a degree on their resume as they apply for jobs in the high-tech field or whatever.

 

I know other people who barely scraped out of high school (or didn't bother to finish) who've sold platinum records on major labels. Some of them don't know shit about music, except what they taught themselves to write and play their style.

 

So, it's just a tool. I think the biggest thing a school like that can do is put you in a place to make contacts, and, yeah, learn, if you have the drive and hook up and jam with others who have the drive.

[jfhyde]

I'm a graduate of Berklee, ummm, sometime in the last century. Berklee does admit almost anyone, but the dropout rate was staggering, I was told it was about 80% for the first semester. For me as a pianist it was horrifying to walk into my first ensemble and find 5 guitar players huddled around the small amp in the ensemble room.

I'm pretty sure this is where the joke about how do you get a guitar player to turn down originated....

 

John

[GTRBass]

I went there for 1-1/2 years before transfering to a University.

 

It used to be a rather snobbish jazz conservatory, and is now more like a cross between MI and Full Sail. It is not a Julliard or Eastman type of environment.

 

They tend to weed out the children from the adults within the first month of school. A huge number of people wash out.

[Jeff Klopmeyer]

Originally posted by jfhyde:

I'm a graduate of Berklee, ummm, sometime in the last century. Berklee does admit almost anyone, but the dropout rate was staggering, I was told it was about 80% for the first semester.

It's true. I was actually doing quite well there... I'd been learning/playing instruments since age three, and had a good amount of theory before i walked in the door, unlike many of my contemporaries.

 

But I left after a) my folks ran out of money, and b) I wasn't quite good enough for one of the small number of scholarships they offered.

 

My favorite part about Berklee? Being forced to practice 4,5,6 hours per day, every day. In a short time period, if only through forced attention to my instrument, my playing proficiency went up by 500%.

 

Again, it's what you make of it. Every school will only give back what you put in.

 

When I graduated from CSUDH, I had a 3.8 in my major, and a 3.2 overall, while working my way through school. Not too shabby, and it taught me that there's only one thing that leads to success, and it's called working your ass off.

 

Still true today, for me, anyway.

 

- Jeff

[David Loving]

I graduated from North Texas State - now University of North Texas - way on back a long time ago. I wasn't a music major, but I had enough music credits, lessons, etc. to keep me interested in finishing college with another major. The great thing was the "old" building with practice rooms and banged up pianos. The college of music is excellent. I loved it there. That time has helped feed my lifelong obsession with piano - now keyboards, organ, etc. But it all goes back to piano.

 

Check out the website : http://www.music.unt.edu/ and look at jazz studies.

 

...or you can just buy all the Dan Haerle instructional books and memorize them.

 

Yeah, North Texas is a great place.

[Angelo Clematide]

daviel,

 

is this the same faculty you graduated from:

 

http://www.music.unt.edu/jazz/index.html

 

http://www.music.unt.edu/jazz/

[David Loving]

Hi Angelo:

 

Yes, look what it's grown into. Stan Kenton bequeathed his book to North Texas. Woody Herman would come into town and hire a band for the road. What a great climate, that place. Actually, I graduated from that institution in 1967 with a BA in History, and many minors, one of which was music. So, no, I graduated from the college of liberal arts. I took courses and lessons from instructors/professors in the music school but did not major in music. They remember me now when they sell practice pianos and ask for donations! I bet virtually all of the faculty now was in grade school when I was there! NTSU, now the University of North Texas, was a lot smaller then; it's huge now. But it had an excellent reputation then as now. North Texas is my favorite university; I never tire of promoting it. I have always liked the place. I have a niece, singer, that we're trying to convince to go there for voice. I live maybe an hour away. When I am able to slack off on my law practice, as age advances, I am going back up there and chip away at a music degree. At least that's my plan... I play a heck of a lot better now than I did back then, too.

[Bartolomeo]

I've never been able to figure out whether to take Berklee seriously or not. I note that several KC'ers went there which improves my opinion of them markedly.

 

Most colleges I know about require substantially higher levels of preparation than Berklee. Basically they are expecting a degree of talent that comes only from more or less continuous private lessons and musical progress from an early age. There are auditions, generally in the sophmore year, before students are allowed to declare a major in music, and certain milestones must be met the following year to remain a music major.

 

Though I am not enrolled, I'm taking private lessons in organ from a prof one of these schools. Her standards are very high, and the material is difficult.

 

Conservatories that have no program other than music are even more demanding.

[Dave Horne]

Jazz+, you've been silent since your initial post. What's up?

[linwood]

That sounds right to me. One of my good friends was offered a job teaching there when we were young. He was and still is one of my favorite players. At the time he was working a small club, maybe 20 years old when this happened,and Gary Burton and Keith Jarrett came in and were impressed. Gary wanted him at the school. He probably wouldn't have been faculty, but maybe doing private lessons or something. But he could hang with the best of the best at a young age.my friend's Mom was his teacher and he was only a high school grad. That's cool with me, too.

(Oh, he didn't take the gig. he went on the road with F.Hubbard)

[GuitarPlayerFL]

Originally posted by Linwood:

One of my good friends was offered a job teaching there when we were young...(Oh, he didn't take the gig. he went on the road with F.Hubbard)

Berklee being located in Boston, I'm surprised you didn't say L. Ron Hubbard.

 

After my experience with Berklee, I would rather find a very knowledgeable private teacher and take lessons that way.

[cnegrad]

That's true, if being a fine instrumentalist is your only goal. However, I relished the constant access to big bands, as well as the extensive library of recordings and scores; not to mention the networking possibilities, music business courses, endless recording studio time, tons of performance opportunites in innumerable genres at the Berklee Performance Center, as well as lots of seminars from big name professionals. Berklee is far more than merely a place to learn to play your instrument.