Guidelines for Audition

All prospective music majors must pass an audition on a primary instrument before being accepted as a music major or before registering for music classes.

Strings, Woodwinds, and Brass

1. One or more solos (approximately seven minutes). Piano accompaniment is optional but preferred.
2. Technical exercise / tonal development study (two to three minutes).
3. All major scales.
4. Sight-read music of average difficulty.

Percussion

1. Be prepared to audition on any three of the following categories (greater consideration is given to those students who have more than three categories prepared for the audition process):

Snare Drum (military or concert)
Mallet Instrument (marimba, xylophone, or vibes)
Timpani
Drum Set
Multiple Percussion

2. Sight-read music of average difficulty.

Keyboard

1. Solo literature

Piano: Music education majors selecting piano as their major instrument should choose music from three of the following categories. (At least one piece must be memorized.) Piano performance majors should choose one piece from each of the four categories. (At least two pieces should be memorized.)

•  Baroque: a Bach fugue, invention, sinfonia, prelude and and fugue, or suite movement.
•  Classical: a quick movement from a Mozart, Haydn, or Beethoven sonata.
•  Romantic: a work by Chopin, Schubert, Brahms, Liszt, Schumann, or Mendelssohn.
•  Twentieth Century: a work in impressionistic or contemporary style by Debussy, Ravel, Bartok, Prokofiev, or others.

Organ: Organ applicants may perform on piano if they have no formal training in organ. They should perform three selections on their chosen instrument. At least one piece should be from the Baroque era.

2. Major and minor scales, hands together, four octaves (pianists) or two octaves (organists).
3. Sight-read two pieces: a) hymn style; b) sonatina style.
4. Present a repertoire sheet listing compositions studied during the past two years.

Voice

1. Two art songs, or an art song and an aria (an accompanist will be provided or applicants may bring their own accompanist).
2. Melodies to be sung at sight (selected hymns, folksongs, etc).
3. Short melodies (five or six notes) to be sung after one hearing.

Composition

All prospective majors who wish to declare music composition as their principal area of study should submit copies of their original composition scores. Tape recorded performances would be helpful, but are not required.

Jazz Studies

In addition to the above requirements, jazz majors should demonstrate their ability to improvise over two contrasting jazz standards.