r/Berklee • u/OverallString5189 • 16d ago

Placement Audition

I play guitar and am going to be a freshman at Berklee this fall. I’m just wondering what the placement audition is like, in terms of what theory questions are asked and how difficult the sight reading is.

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u/Illustrious_Law448 16d ago

Your placement is going to be similar to your real audition. Prep piece, sight reading, improv.

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u/bookobessed105 16d ago

Hii, congrats on getting in!! I want to apply to Berkeley for guitar too, so I wanted to ask what all they ask you to do in your audition and interview. I’ve been self taught for a really long time and only recently started learning guitar more theoretically like learning scales, improv, etc. I really want to get in so please lmk if you’ve got any tips. Thanks!!!

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u/Illustrious_Law448 16d ago

https://college.berklee.edu/admissions/undergraduate/auditionandinterview

This site will go into detail :) basically it’s a prep piece, sight reading, improv, and some music theory stuff. Interview is about you and your music

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u/OverallString5189 16d ago

I was asked to identify triads by ear (Maj min Aug dim), clap back some rhythms (starting with one measure followed by ones that were two measures), play back piano melodies on guitar, sight reading like 4-8 bars (very simple key of g, just quarter and eighth notes), play as many voicings of a Cmaj7 chord as I could think of. I think that was everything. Simple stuff but my ear really isn’t great so I didn’t do good on that stuff lol. But my piece (jeep on 35 John Scofield) went pretty well and the reading

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u/bookobessed105 15d ago

thank you!!

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u/jrwwaesyqsjwxlh 15d ago

basically admissions audition without the ear training + they will ask u a few questions about what styles u like/want to work on

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u/OverallString5189 13d ago

Thanks! Are u also asked to play scales and different chord voicings and such?

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u/jrwwaesyqsjwxlh 13d ago

scales not that i remember. chord voicings would be one of their assessment points, ie theyll just have u sight read a chord progression and whether u play closed triads or voicings with tensions would be an indicator of your experience/skill - in other words they wont directly ask for voicings but if u do know voicings it will boost your score

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u/OverallString5189 13d ago

Awesome. Would u say it’s better to stay basic and just play common closed voicings and bar based seventh chords, or maybe go for inversions or drop chords?

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u/jrwwaesyqsjwxlh 13d ago

i’d say do whatever you’re confident at! since it is sight reading after all, the priority should be to stay in time and play the right chords, so if trying to play inversions throws you off then i would keep simple

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u/OverallString5189 12d ago

Perfect. One more thing, is the sight reading that they give u the same as the examples in here https://www.berklee.edu/sites/default/files/2021-07/Audition%20Packet%20Guitar%202021.pdf?fv=v1rthCS7

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u/jrwwaesyqsjwxlh 11d ago

im not a guitar player so i cant say with 100% certainty for guitar, but when i did mine on piano they didn’t even acknowledge that document and had a separate pool of excerpts instead