Jazz audition materials for the upcoming school year are now available at the links below. Please download the materials for the instrument you wish to audition on and carefully read through the Jazz Program Course Description (also found within each pdf file), audition materials, procedure, and scoring. Auditions will be held before and after school during the first week and a half of classes. Students will need to sign up for an audition time via a link posted below.

Important Jazz Audition Resources

Exercise 1 - Maj/Min Key Bossa

MajMinAllKeysBossa.MP3 is the backing track for students to practice their major and minor scales along with. It is designed to making playing scales more enjoyable and productive since the accompaniment will help develop good tone, intonation, and phrasing.

Exercise 2 - Maj/Min Key Bossa Sax

MajMinAllKeysBossaSax.MP3 is the same backing track with the addition of Mr. Roothaan playing the major and minor scales in the form of "jazz thirds" on tenor sax. Students should copy the simple melodic pattern that is played by the saxophone, which is just playing thirds over the major scale, then the minor scale, repeating, and then modulating up a half step through the 12 keys. The pattern played by the saxophone utilizes essential jazz vocabulary employed by many great jazz artists in their solos.

Exercise 3 - Jazz Vocab (Blues Play Along)

Please play the chart Jazz Vocab along with the piano play along supplied. After you have played the chart for a few days, try playing it from memory, without looking at the chart. By memorizing the chart, you will be learning the scales and arpeggios that fit with the  chords in a standard 12 bar Bb blues song. These scales and chords are performed in a way that provides ready to use jazz vocabulary, and will give you "jazz language" that can be used over many chords and parts of many songs that are played in the repertoire of jazz. Take your time and enjoy the feeling of jazz!

Exercise 3 PDFs