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Graduate Mentor Study

Study Guides

Bass Drums Piano Guitar Saxophone Trombone Trumpet

COMP Exam

The Comprehensive Exam takes place over 2 exam session days typically each February: one session for the Excerpts portion and another session for the Historical portion. The exam criteria may vary somewhat per instrument. Consult your private instructor for details.

  • Excerpts Session
    • Review a set of leadsheets containing only written music (no title, composer, etc). Identify possible composer, era, genre, recording, significant performance, and other criteria as specified
    • Choose two compositions from a list of selections provided. From memory, write out the melody, chord changes, and one chorus of an improvised solo on a separate manuscript page, for each.
  • Historical Session
    • A list of 100 mentor artists is presented for your instrument. For each performer, specify facts, such as the era and genre(s) of Jazz to which they belong, their birth/death dates, significant ensembles, notable compositions, albums, stylistic tendencies, and other criteria as specified.
    • Outline the jazz history of your instrument, performance practices, main innovator of each era, pertaining jazz repertoire, and other criteria as specified. Also name important instrumentalists who helped shape the instrument for each era previously specified.

Semester-Based Preparation

The graduate study guide is designed to prepare students for their respective Comprehensive Exams over time under the direction of their private lesson instructor. This study should commence upon entering the graduate program. Your private instructor may customize this study as they choose.

Each week entails the study of three artists, out of 33 for each semester. By the end of the third semester, students would have then studied 100 artists, as needed to take their exam during their final semester.

In general, it is necessary to retain at least the following for each artist:

  • Full Name
  • Genre/Era
  • Birth year and location
  • Death year
  • Styles famous for
  • Ensembles known for
  • 3 transcriptions from artists of your choosing, each semester. Each one must be;
    • At least 36 bars in length, or
    • 3 choruses of a Blues solo

Students are expected to independently prepare and present each semesters’ required work to his/her studio professor. As a portion of your lesson grade for each semester, the following is to be submitted to your studio professor no later than the last day of lessons or on your semester jury exam:

  • a written historical summary of artists studied, and
  • a PDF copy of the latest written transcriptions