Musikhochschulen. State funded German music universities. Institutions at which one studies for four years (not three), training to become musicians, performers and teachers. In recent years, the selection of courses has expanded to include Tonmeister (sound engineer), contemporary music and jazz. Being at the heart of Europe, the cradle of western classical music, many flock to Germany’s Musikhochschulen, hoping to inherit the tradition and maybe even catapult themselves to classical music success.
I was one and now I am here. But how did I end up here?
Six years ago
“I know this professor, I can introduce you to him.” Ms. Schmidt (pseudonym) said, “I can prepare you for the auditions.” She was a professor at the Hochschule für Musik Stuttgart, where the likes of Nicolas Hodges and Florian Wiek are faculty members.
I felt my chest constricting, even thought the lights in the room were brighter. There is someone who will help me, I thought. That night, I searched online, how to get into music universities. You just have to be better than everyone else. At least, that was what the guides claim. That was how it was in Singapore, in the UK, in the US, wasn’t it?
Half a year later, I received a thick envelope. DINB4. In all 18 years of my life, I had never received any mail of this size, let alone weight. With the envelope in my backpack, I rode the tram home, took the elevator eleven floors up a complex. No one was home. Unlocked my room. I rushed to my desk, sat down and took the envelope out.
22/25. Amidst a sea of German sentences, I saw these numbers. Are these scores? They seemed to be. I had scored 22 out of 25 at the Hochschule für Musik Stuttgart. However, there was an accompanying line which said that, despite passing the exam,the Hochschule was unable to accommodate any more new students at this time.
I rang the doorbell and Ms. Schmidt answered. I had traveled to her private residence in Tübingen, an hour away from Stuttgart, for a private lesson. She was willing to take me, a Malaysian kid from the island of Borneo, as a private student. I had one more lesson before she pointed out to me that lessons with her would cost 80 euros.
“Normally, I charge more. But because you are so young, I think 80 will do.” she said, “Is the price okay?” I said yes. She said “You can transfer this lesson’s fee to this account”. She proceeded to recite her 22-character IBAN code.
I transferred the sum. Already, I felt like my kidney was punctured. I sent her an email saying that I could not continue taking lessons. There was no way I could afford it. She never replied nor did she fulfill her promise of introducing me to the other ‘key’ professor.
Audition day came. I expected to see her face in the jury but, as large as the panel was, she was not there. I would later find out that she had already retired.
Tradition
Sitting down with a close friend I met at several auditions, I asked how he was doing. It’s common for auditions to connect young musicians. They share the same goals after all.
“You have not contacted anyone?!” he asked. He meant professors. It wasn’t likely that I would get a spot, he told me. Why did you have to contact a professor before an audition if all you needed to do was to play well? At that time, I didn’t really get what he meant.
But now I do. In Germany, where the freedom to study music is great, the freedom to judge is even more so. Juries, sitting at auditions, are often polarized bodies, sharing radically differing opinions. The score on the official results notice, which one may or may not receive, is arbitrary. What matters is the existence of a previously built connection. If you had one of those, your chances were higher, even if your scores weren’t so.
Somehow, my friend knew that part of obtaining a place to study at a Hochschule is contacting professors, arranging a meetings or trial lessons and playing for them.
It turns out that there are professors at bigger cities who use this tradition to manipulate students who are not aware of this unwritten procedure. Some professors even demand that you take lessons for at least a semester, paying up to 200 euros a lesson. Otherwise, you just can’t be considered.
Even then, this would not guarantee anything. Recently, I met a bass singer, who took private lessons with a professor at the Hans Eisler Hochschule in Berlin for two years. A spot in Berlin is one of highly coveted in Europe. Met with promises of being accepted into the class, he continued paying. Like me, he was 18 at that time.
After failed auditions, it became clear, he was not a prospective student. He was a cash cow.
Breathless, I walked down the stairs. My eyes felt dry. My nose closed up in the cold. Swearing under my breath, I did one thing I rarely did. Sitting next to a flower bed at a train station, I called up my mother.
“I missed the connecting train.” I said.
People living in Germany will laugh. Long distance trains in Germany are infamous for being late. But how was I to know? I was a boy on a budget. I woke up at 5 that day to take that train to an audition. The route included a 15 minute transit.
“It’s alright,” she said. “You did what you could.”
Hearing my mother told me that it was okay, when all my life she had expected only the best results from me, I broke down.
The next day, with all my belongings in a suitcase , I stood waiting at a bus terminal. Time go home. My phone rang and, though normally I did not pick up numbers I did not recognize, I took the call.
“Hallo? Am I speaking with Samuel?” a high but clear voice said. I confirmed. “Ja! I just wanted to ask, are you going to take the spot?”
I was confused and he could hear it, so he introduced himself. “You passed the exam. I have a spot in my class. Do you want it?”
Counter-tradition
All audition procedures have some kind of scoring scheme. They differ from Hochschule to Hochschule and, though mostly arbitrary, serve as a bureaucratic way to weed out students who just don’t make the cut. However, there are also places small enough where, even if you had no connection with the professors, you stood a chance if you played well enough.
Admittedly, I was told that I got a spot not because I played well enough, but because I was interesting enough that one professor decided to give me a shot. As a requirement of the exam, pianists are expected to play a classical sonata. Usually, students are advised to play safe. Pick anything from Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn! All my knowledge coming from my own patchy research, I picked a Schubert sonata. And a late one at that.
In many places, if you have genuinely prepared well and know what you are doing, even though your chances of admission may not be as high as those who are just as prepared as you and have connections, you will still be met with positive looks. This can open crucial pathways in the future.
As I did my audition for Masters in Contemporary Music in Essen, I knew nobody there from the faculty. The only thing I knew was my repertoire (Lindberg and Ligeti) and my craft, which I prepared with all sincerity and with the conviction that I was made to play contemporary music. Just one week later, they had asked if I wanted a spot.
I had quite the luck, only nine auditioned for the course (compare this with the more than 300 yearly applicants, who apply for piano in Berlin). Still, no Hochschule, especially one with a celebrated history like Essen’s, is just going to let you in if you were just half decent.
Vorspielkultur
Even knowing what I know now, I don’t fully condemn this connection-building prerequisite. This audition before the audition.
On one hand, it is reckless and irresponsible of professors who abuse their power to manipulate students, especially foreign ones, to eke out fat sums of cash to pad their pockets. My view of a meritocratic system in the arts was completely shattered. I have heard of blind auditions in the US. Trial lessons existed in Singapore, but as an official part of the audition. But I have never heard of Vorspielkultur until I started my studies in Germany.
I have heard people say that I should have known what I was getting myself into. While I cannot defend the decisions that my 18 year old self made, among which is to commit to studying in Germany, I also cannot expect anyone to believe that an 18 year old would be rational enough to know how a complicated system works.
Still, I am thankful for the experience. Not because it taught me many things, but because I would still gladly seek out professors before applying for any course. In the arts, we do have one privilege, and it is that we can seek out whoever it is we want to study with. This is the true appeal of studying in Europe.
In this system, I can do research on the professors and contact those who I am interested in working with. I actively sought out the current professor I am studying with and became convinced after the first meeting that I had to be here. No further meetings were necessary.
Truly, there is no substitute to this system, which has evolved on its own to become a strange machine. Yet, I believe systems can still be created for the protection of the students. Some way to make sure that professors grant at least one meeting before an audition, just to make sure the chemistry works, but at the same time, also prevent them from demanding that the students pay up for subsequent meetings.
The fact that I, currently, can pursue a Masters, is thanks to one man who decided to give a boy, who played the piano strangely, a chance. I hope for a system which recognizes teachers like these. It is also thanks to my parents, who came to terms with failure, which, in turn, allowed me to commit to decisions, despite circumstances sometimes being overwhelmingly against you.
