Application

First Study Composition Students

Your Composition submission should consist of:

• A short introduction
  Please tell us something about what inspires you, the music you enjoy listening to, favourite composers and styles of music and any other information that is relevant to the way you approach creative work.

• A Portfolio of your Composition work
  Applicants should submit a portfolio of three compositions, including a score of each piece and recording if available. Please include short written introductions, outlining the ideas and stimulus behind each composition.

• A recording of two contrasting pieces on your 2^nd Study instrument (10 mins max).

If you are selected for a live audition you can play the same piece or choose to play a different one.

For your 2^nd study instrument, please follow the video recording guidance for first study instruments.

Your video submission should consist of:

• A short introduction (2-3 mins max) featuring a little bit about you, the importance of music in your life, why you wish to come to Junior Academy and what you hope to achieve in the future.
• A Recording of 2 contrasting pieces (10 mins max)

If you are selected for a live audition you can play the same two pieces or choose to play different ones.

All recordings must be recent/current.

Your pieces can be recorded with an accompanist if you would like, but it is not expected. Please do not use a backing track.

Each piece should be recorded in one take.

Please see notes at the bottom for file types accepted and maximum file sizes.

If you have mistakenly recorded at too high a quality and the file size is too large to upload, you can split the file at a sensible place in the performance and clearly label your files (e.g. Lily Chivon Part 1 , Lily Chivon Part 2)

How to Record

A smartphone, tablet or similar device is perfect for recording your audition. The video quality is better than most camcorders, provided the device is placed at an appropriate distance from the performer – around two to three metres is ideal.

Ensure that the panel can easily see the working part of the instrument or person (i.e. Lips and fingers for a brass player and both hands for a string player).

Ensure that the lighting is sufficient as poor lighting and unsuitable placement of the camera/microphone are the two most common problems when filming an audition. Prop your device up on a music stand or book, or get a cheap tripod and an iPhone clip. Always record with the device in a horizontal position ('landscape' format).

The audio quality is more important than the video quality for your audition recording. If you are making a longer recording, mp4 format will have a smaller file size, making it easier to upload.

It is good to record in a room without too much reverberation (echo). Try to find as quiet an environment as possible. Turn the TV off, turn off computer notifications, silence your phone (use airplane mode), close all the apps that are running at the background, and shut the windows. Nothing kills a self-tape more than car alarms or sirens!

Try some test recordings first, to see if it is better to have the phone in a different place in the room.

Usually the microphone is on the back of the phone, point that towards you for the recording. You can check this in the phone’s user guide, normally this is available online. An external microphone for your recording, if you have one, will help improve the quality of the audio.

Make sure you have plenty of space on your phone, for example you may need to download photos and videos onto a computer or into cloud storage.

Watch your recording before uploading to be sure there were no technical problems.

But most importantly please remember that the audition panel are not assessing the quality of your recording, only the quality of your performance.

Notes on File Types and Maximum file sizes from Acceptd (our online application provider):

Acceptd supports a majority of file types, shown below:

• Video: MPEG, MPG, MP4, OGG, MOV, AVI, WMV, M4V, VOB, FLV
• Audio: MP3, OGG, M4A, WMA, WAV, AAC, FLAC
• Images: JPG, JPEG, PNG, GIF
• Documents: PDF, PS, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPS, PPTX, XLS, XLSX, OPT, SXW, ODP, SXI, ODS, SXC, RTF

Below are the size limitations on each type of file:

• Video: up to 4.8 GB
• Audio: 750 MB
• Images: 500 MB
• Documents: 250 MB

Lastly, here are a few helpful troubleshooting tips when uploading media:

• If using WiFi, try switching to a wired Internet connection by plugging into a router. Sometimes Wifi in general can be an unstable connectivity.
• We suggest using Google Chrome as your browser as it works well with our site.
• Be sure not to navigate away from the page when you are uploading as this could cause a file to not fully upload.
• Once your media is uploaded, it will start processing. Once the processing has begun, you can navigate away from the screen.