The Berklee Audition

Fade in…

I came into the building and found a chair in the waiting lobby with the rest of the applicants. My dad had traveled with me all the way from Monterrey to Mexico City and he came with me to the audition as well. He asked me more than once if I was nervous, but to be honest, I was in a very strange state of mind that I hadn’t experienced before. I had auditioned for a music school before, my current school at the time the conservatory Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey (ESMDM), and I remember back then I was petrified with stage fright, but this time, I was relatively relaxed with just the right amount of nervousness to keep me focused without spiraling down. I tried to distract myself a little to avoid listening to what the others were saying, but suddenly I was brought back to reality by a lady calling my name. The time had come.

Cut to: One year earlier…

I was doing my third school year at the ESMDM as a student for classical piano performance. Ever since I started, I knew that I would drop out by my fourth year to pursue a career in composition, more specifically, film scoring and/or songwriting. I knew for a fact that Mexico was not going to give me the education I wanted to get, so I started looking for schools in other countries. I knew about Berklee before, but I didn’t consider it an option because everyone told me it was this mythical place with an extremely low acceptance rate, that you practically needed to be a genius to get in and a huge scholarship to finance your studies. I, a mere mortal, would never make it there. But then I found out they had a bachelor’s degree in film scoring! Hear me out, a BACHELOR’S. Till then, I had only found  master’s degrees in film scoring. I remember sharing what I found with my friends, and we joked about me auditioning and studying there, and we would all laugh, because I don’t think any of us gave it serious consideration.

But the more I searched, the more I realized that Berklee was the only school that offered exactly what I was looking for. I also found out that they offered summer programs and found the Summer Songwriting Workshop. I talked to my parents and we all agreed it was a good idea for me to register. So I did, and I embarked myself on my first international trip alone, without my parents and without a smartphone (so no google maps, no apps...nothing to help me out other than a good ol’ rudimentary Blackberry phone).

Fast forward to the end of the workshop (if you’d like to know more about my experience there let me know and I’ll save it for another blog post!). I enjoyed my experience very much, I met lovely people, and by the last day I almost managed to find the room for my last lesson without getting lost (...little did I know, in the future I would still be getting lost during my senior year...SENIOR YEAR). I think at the end of the experience I realized that Berklee was just another music school. A very good school, for sure, that offered everything I was looking for, but thankfully all the idealization that everyone back home had built around it dissipated and I could see it as something achievable. It reminded me a lot of my high school back in Monterrey, which has an American education style/system. Attending the songwriting workshop before making the decision to audition was very wise and I recommend doing something similar if you’re considering going to Berklee. Sometimes you need to stop hearing other people’s well or bad intentioned opinions about what you want and just go experience it on your own terms. Then you can truly make an informed decision. 

I came to the conclusion that there were two paths ahead of me: dropping out of music school altogether and start learning film scoring on the job, or go to Berklee. 

Preparation montage

After filling out my application forms and spending hours scratching my head trying to figure out what the heck was a major, minor, liberal arts, GPA, etc., I finally made it to the actual guidelines for the audition. I needed to play a notated piece, improvise a 12 bar blues (which I totally knew how to do...not), sight reading (yikes), and to perform a series of exercises for rhythm and pitch matching. After the audition, you were taken to an interview where they asked you things like: what do you expect from Berklee, what are you bringing to the Berklee community, what are your career goals, etc. I also read that every single applicant is automatically considered for a scholarship. You can also apply to other scholarships but with my level of education back then, I honestly didn’t fit the profile for any of those, so I just hoped for the best.

I was starting my fourth and last year at the conservatory (the program is 8 years). I talked to my piano professor about my plans and asked him for suggestions for my notated piece (and kind of hoping he could teach me how to play blues...but of course not, this is a classical music school you dummy). He introduced me to a beautiful piece called Danzas Nocturnas by Luis Jordá. It was a perfect balance between a classical piece and something with a bit of a mexican flavor, he was sure the admissions committee would love it (and they did). He was so proud of my decision of continuing my studies in the U.S. that he told everyone at school that I was going to Berklee even before I auditioned. I freaked out of course, what if I didn’t get in? But that was how much faith he had in me and I’ll never forget it.

If you’re up for it, here’s me playing Danzas Nocturnas for my fourth year piano recital:

As for the blues situation, well...after a few failed attempts with very kind colleagues that tried to explain blues and improvisation to me, I decided to kind of not think about it and instead do a mind blowing performance of my notated piece. Later on, I had a very lovely talk with a Berklee alumni from my city. He told me he was in the same situation as me, he was a classical pianist with no clue on how to improvise. He advised me to just give it my best with the resources I had. I took that advice and finally had some peace of mind.

Besides all the paperwork you have to send, you can also send what they call ‘supporting materials’, meaning resumes, your music, concert programs, etc. I went all in and sent them EVERYTHING I had. I advise you to do the same, send everything! You want to make it easy for them to learn about you and to have a complete profile about you as a musician.

I also read that if you were interested in a composition related degree, you could play an excerpt of a piece of yours during the audition. So just in case, I prepared my song ‘Sepia’, which I had previously played at the Summer Songwriting Workshop and seemed to get good reactions overall.

Cut to: The Audition

My name was called, and I entered a tiny room previous to the room where I was to have the audition. There was an electric piano for me to warm up, and they gave me my sight reading materials in advance (thank god). The last minutes previous to a performance are the worst, because you’re tempted to play all your repertoire over and over again hoping it will somehow reassure you that everything will be ok (and then freak out when you make a mistake). What I did back then was just play the first bars of my notated piece, and when I felt I was getting into the zone I stopped and stayed away from the repertoire for good. Soon they called me back to transfer me to the audition room.

My audition was around lunch time. I remember this because the first time I met the professors they were ordering food. I immediately relaxed when I saw that both of them were in such a great mood, laughing and joking around, something I definitely didn’t see at my conservatory audition where everyone was quiet, sitting and completely stoic. After settling down they asked me to tell them a bit about myself and what I was bringing to the audition. I told them I was a classical pianist but that I was interested in composition, so I prepared the audition requirements but in addition I could also perform one of my songs. They asked me to play my notated piece first and then they would decide what to do next. And so, I played Danzas Nocturnas. 

Honestly, I felt so comfortable playing for them. I think they did a great job lightening up the mood, and I think that’s great because it helps to bring the best out of you. When I was done, they smiled and told me that was a wonderful piece. I was a bit surprised because I thought juries never told you what they thought about your performance. Then they asked me to play...the blues. While one of the professors prepared the backing track with the rhythm section band, the other explained that the form I was going to play was a blues in F major. I panicked...I had only practiced something in C major. I had the courage to admit to them that I didn’t really know how to play blues because of my classical background. To my surprise, they were very understanding. They said “oh, don’t worry about it! just improvise what you can on top of the track, here, these are the notes of the scale”, and one of them proceeded to show me the blues scale on the piano keys. I was SO RELIEVED. I improvised a little something with just my right hand because I didn’t know the chord changes. And then something magical happened as I improvised...I was actually enjoying it! and I think the professors could see that I started to flow with it. When that was done they asked me to play an excerpt of my original song. I played up to the first chorus and then they stopped me. I could see they liked it, and since now they knew I could sing, they decided to make the rest of the pitch/rhythm matching exercises with me singing. 

And just like that, the audition was over. They walked me to the door and I was back in the building’s lobby. I felt like I was walking on air.  They took me right away to the interview on the upstairs floor . 

As you can imagine, the interview was a cakewalk. I felt relaxed and the person who interviewed me was very kind and approachable. I don’t remember lots of details, but I remember mentioning I attended the Berklee Songwriting Workshop, that I wanted to major in Film Scoring, that I intended to enrich the Berklee community with the skills I would learn, etc. If you’re doing this, my advice would be to go prepared, but make sure that you’re being genuine. I think they see right through you, so be yourself and review the questions available in the interview guidelines.

Fast forward: A fateful night

Was I losing sleep over the suspense of the audition’s results? Not really, but mostly it was because I was dumb and didn’t take note on when the results were going to be available, so I guess I was just waiting for the owl with the admission letter to the musical Hogwarts. I remember I was practicing my piano repertoire at home late at night. I took a break and I don’t know why I went into one of Berklee’s Facebook pages and suddenly I saw people posting about having received their admission decision. I almost fell off the piano bench from the shock. I quickly logged in to the Berklee admissions portal, took a deep breath and checked the results…

...time stopped…

...I was going to Berklee. Time stopped for a moment. I walked into my parents’ room, my dad was there. I just hugged him and when he gave me a confused look I showed him the letter. Then, I remembered the scholarships, because I was pretty sure my plans would change without one. There was a tab to see the scholarship decision as well. I clicked and to our surprise I received the Latin American Tour Scholarship! That settled it, I was definitely going to Berklee.

End credits: A life changing experience

Growing up I didn’t have a dream school, I just planned my studies one step at the time. I’ve always been a bit dispassionate towards schools in general, but I’m glad I took a leap of faith to audition to Berklee. It changed my life and I’m grateful for all the experiences I had in those four intense yet wonderful years.

Well, I’m signing off for now. I hope you are enjoying my blog so far and please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below, I’ll be happy to reply and start a conversation. If there’s a topic you’d like to learn about let me know! 

See you next week!

Monica Lyrae
Composer, Songwriter, but not a Screenwriter