Frequently Asked Questions Here is a list of questions that have been asked in the past. Some have been paraphrased to better serve the general purpose of this list. OBTAINING CONTEST INFORMATION 1. Where do I look for Savler Contest updates? 2. I'm not a CAMTA member. Can you put me on your mailing list for a brochure and application form? 3. I can't open the PDF brochure and application form on your website. Can you e-mail it to me? APPLICATION PROCESS AND CAMTA MEMBERSHIP 4. I would like to enter my child in the Contest but our teacher is not interested in it. Is it okay for a parent to apply directly? 5. What are the age requirements for each level? 6. I'm from outside Illinois and one of my students expressed interest in your Contest and referred me to your website. Would you suggest that we apply? 7. I'll be joining CAMTA soon. Can I avoid paying the additional non-CAMTA member fee to enter students in the Contest? 8. I'm a member of MTNA, Illinois State MTA, and a local MTA which is not CAMTA. Do I still have to pay the non-CAMTA member fee? 9. Are there benefits to becoming a CAMTA member, other than the lower fees for entering students in this Contest? SCHEDULING AND MONITORING ISSUES 10. I signed up a student who cannot participate in the Contest due to another commitment. Can I get a refund of the application fee? 11. My student did not get the requested time and therefore he or she cannot participate in the Contest. Can I get a refund of the application fee? 12. Can you schedule my students during my monitoring assignment? 13. I was going to monitor but something came up and I won't be able to be at the Contest. Can I send a substitute? REPERTOIRE AND PUBLISHED MUSIC 14. There are other competitions that provide their required music for the judges. Why does the Savler Contest require students to bring published scores? 15. Must I use the edition mentioned in your repertoire requirements? 16. Is it acceptable to bring in printouts from a compact disc or a file that was bought on the internet in lieu of actual print music? 17. I've been told by my music store that a certain piece is out-of-print. What should I do? 18. I made many marks in my student's score and some marks are in ink. Need my student purchase another copy of the score for the purpose of this Contest? 19. I have a student who cannot reach an octave in a piece, but is able to play everything else. Is it okay to substitute a single note for the octave? 20. Can I add trills or other ornamentation to a piece? 21. I believe strongly that a piece my student is preparing should be played with repeats. Is it okay to observe the repeat signs? 22. I would like to make some suggestions to be considered for future repertoire selections. May I send a list to you? AUDITION PROCESS 23. Is there a dress code for the Contest? 24. Can my student warm up with a scale? 25. Do the two pieces have to be played in a certain order? 26. Can my student use a foot rest or pedal extender and am I allowed to help set it up? 27. My student is very young. Can I or the student's parents enter the room with the child? INFRACTIONS AND OTHER NUISANCES 28. I witnessed someone breaking the Rules of the Contest. What are you going to do about it? 29. There were auditions for an opera going on next door to where my student was playing. The student found this very distracting and it affected his or her performance. What's the deal?

OBTAINING CONTEST INFORMATION 1. Where do I look for Savler Contest updates? Updates are announced at this website and also in the CAMTA newsletter. We may also send an announcement via e-mail to teachers of applicants. 2. I'm not a CAMTA member. Can you put me on your mailing list for a brochure and application form? We do not maintain a mailing list. You will have to check this website from time to time for the latest brochure and application form. An e-mail announcement list is being considered for the future but it may only apply to CAMTA members. Consider becoming a member of CAMTA. 3. I can't open the PDF brochure and application form on your website. Can you e-mail it to me? No, because we would have to e-mail you a PDF file, which would, of course, give you the same problem. Contact us to have the necessary documents sent to you.

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APPLICATION PROCESS AND CAMTA MEMBERSHIP 4. I would like to enter my child in the Contest but our teacher is not interested in it. Is it okay for a parent to apply directly? We generally discourage you to enter your child behind your teacher's back. Most teachers have a good feel for events like this one and are able to come up with a fair assessment of what is best for their students. Find out why your teacher is not interested—there may be a convincing explanation. 5. What are the age requirements for each level? Even though the four levels of the Contest are categorized according to the difficulty level of the repertoire requirements, a student in any grade level through High School Senior may enter any one of the four levels. This way, an older beginner could compete in an easier level, and a young prodigy could enter a higher level. Traditionally however, student ages are generally directly proportional to the level of difficulty. The median ages of the four levels are about 9, 11, 14, and 16 respectively. 6. I'm from outside Illinois and one of my students expressed interest in your Contest and referred me to your website. Would you suggest that we apply? Our Contest mainly attracts students from Chicago and surrounding suburbs. We do on occasion have students and/or teachers from Southeast Wisconsin and Northwest Indiana. Teachers outside of these areas are encouraged to look for events sponsored by their local or state Music Teachers Association. If your local chapter does not sponsor such an event, maybe it's time to start one! Not already a member of Music Teachers National Association? Click here for more information. 7. I'll be joining CAMTA soon. Can I avoid paying the additional non-CAMTA member fee to enter students in the Contest? You can, but until we get confirmation of your membership from the CAMTA Membership Chair, your application will be considered incomplete. Join CAMTA as soon as possible and let us know when you do. 8. I'm a member of MTNA, Illinois State MTA, and a local MTA which is not CAMTA. Do I still have to pay the non-CAMTA member fee? Yes. However, you can avoid the extra fee by adding CAMTA to your MTNA membership (you would pay CAMTA chapter dues). 9. Are there benefits to becoming a CAMTA member, other than the lower fees for entering students in this Contest? Most definitely! CAMTA sponsors many wonderful programs and events throughout the year, including a lecture/discussion of the Contest repertoire. Some CAMTA events are only open to members. There has been some debate at board meetings about whether to restrict participants of this Contest to members only, but we believe that no student should be excluded from participating in one of the most important contests in the Chicago area. By keeping the doors open, we hope that those who are not familiar with CAMTA can become acquainted with a small piece of this organization and decide to come aboard. CAMTA also publishes a newsletter which provides members with, among other things, the latest news about the Savler Piano Contest. Please visit CAMTA's website for more information.

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SCHEDULING AND MONITORING ISSUES 10. I signed up a student who cannot participate in the Contest due to another commitment. Can I get a refund of the application fee? No refunds can be given once the schedule is complete. We have to hire judges according to the number of students participating, and even if the student was scheduled at the end of the day, since there is a contractual agreement between the Contest and the judges, as soon as the schedule is complete, the application fee is "used up." Once you submit the application fee, your students are committed to participating. You should make this very clear to both the student and the parents before applying. 11. My student did not get the requested time and therefore he or she cannot participate in the Contest. Can I get a refund of the application fee? First, it is important to understand that we cannot guarantee any scheduling requests. We will do our best to assign the requested time frame, but scheduling heavily depends on several unpredictable factors that are well beyond our control. It is expected that participating students keep the entire day (at least 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM) available for the Contest. Again, once the scheduling is complete, we cannot issue refunds. 12. Can you schedule my students during my monitoring assignment? We might be able to, but keep in mind that you are not allowed to monitor a room your students are assigned to. Rooms may be far apart so if it is your intent to be with your students when they audition, you may want to request that your students be assigned as close as possible around your monitoring assignment instead of during. For example, if you select 12:30 to 2:30 PM as your monitoring time, request "2:35 PM or a little later" for your student. 13. I was going to monitor but something came up and I won't be able to be at the Contest. Can I send a substitute? The short answer is no, unless you can find a CAMTA teacher to fill your place. Remember that parents and students are not allowed to monitor. You can also send in the extra monitoring fee(s). Your students will be disqualified if we do not receive the monitoring fee(s) in time or an appropriate substitute does not show up to monitor for you.

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REPERTOIRE AND PUBLISHED MUSIC 14. There are other competitions that provide their required music for the judges. Why does the Savler Contest require students to bring published scores? Those competitions that provide their required music usually require students to work from a specific edition. We like to give teachers themselves an opportunity to select from a variety of editions according to their tastes. While it is true that we mention certain editions in the repertoire list, these are simply there to help the teachers and we have absolutely no preference of one edition over another. In other words, there are no specific edition requirements. When a student brings his or her own copies, judges can evaluate the performance based on what the student learned from rather than what he or she should have learned from a different edition. Having said that, judges may suggest you use a different edition but will not penalize a student for this. Also, it is impossible to have wonderful music without the help of music publishers and retailers, so this published score requirement is partly to discourage illegal copying of music. 15. Must I use the edition mentioned in your repertoire requirements? No (unless it's the only one published, of course). See Question 14 and answer above. 16. Is it acceptable to bring in printouts from a compact disc or a file that was bought on the internet in lieu of actual print music? Yes, as long as you can prove your copy of the music is completely legal (not knowing the legality of your copy does not make it legal). Most printouts like these will carry some sort of copyright notice. 17. I've been told by my music store that a certain piece is out-of-print. What should I do? Let us know as soon as possible. We'll research the status and may even need to assign an alternate piece in its place if it is a required piece. 18. I made many marks in my student's score and some marks are in ink. Need my student purchase another copy of the score for the purpose of this Contest? Not necessarily. Marks made in the score do not have to be erased as long as the printed music is clearly readable. If your marks impede the legibility of the music then you or your student may want to consider obtaining a clean copy. Some teachers leave a clean copy of the score at the front desk for two or more students to share during the contest. However, teachers and students are solely responsible for any items of theirs they leave at the desk. 19. I have a student who cannot reach an octave in a piece, but is able to play everything else. Is it okay to substitute a single note for the octave? If you feel that the judges would reasonably understand your alternative solutions (redistributing a chord due to physical limitations, correcting misprints in the score, etc.), then go ahead but be sure to mark these clearly in the score. 20. Can I add trills or other ornamentation to a piece? If you believe it is stylistically correct to do so and in good taste, then yes. Keep in mind though that a judge who does not agree with your decision may penalize the student. 21. I believe strongly that a piece my student is preparing should be played with repeats. Is it okay to observe the repeat signs? If we do not specifically state that you must take the repeats in a piece, then don't. However, you may mention this to the Contest Chair so it could be considered if and when the piece is used again in the future. 22. I would like to make some suggestions to be considered for future repertoire selections. May I send a list to you? By all means! We are always looking for appropriate pieces to include in our repertoire requirements. Our repertoire committee meets every summer to discuss pieces to include in future contests. If you would like to be a part of this selection process, please contact us.

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AUDITION PROCESS 23. Is there a dress code for the Contest? No, but it doesn't mean you can wear anything you want. Even though the auditions happen behind closed doors, judges consider it to be a serious performance. Therefore, it is best to choose your outfit accordingly and include bowing as part of the performance. Avoid jeans, shorts, cut-offs, casual wear, running shoes, and sandals. For the Honors Recital, winners are required to wear semi-formal clothing. 24. Can my student warm up with a scale? Yes. However, we ask that the student keep their warm-ups brief. Judges may stop the student at any time. 25. Do the two pieces have to be played in a certain order? Not at all. The student may play the two pieces in whichever order he or she deems most appropriate. 26. Can my student use a foot rest or pedal extender and am I allowed to help set it up? Yes and yes, but you are not allowed in the room during the audition itself. Please be careful when setting up your equipment, for you are solely responsible for any damages to the instrument caused by your foot rest or pedal extender. Don't forget to take it with you after the audition. 27. My student is very young. Can I or the student's parents enter the room with the child? No. The judges will do their best to be as friendly as possible to the students. If you feel it would help, you can guide the student to the piano and set up the bench, but you must leave before the student begins his or her audition.

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INFRACTIONS AND OTHER NUISANCES 28. I witnessed someone breaking the Rules of the Contest. What are you going to do about it? Most teachers and students who participate in the Contest are hard-working respectable individuals who firmly believe that honesty and fairness are part of the game. The fact is that there will be the occasional bad apple and unfortunately in most cases, not much can be done about it unless we have material evidence of infractions to the Rules and Regulations. Still, we would appreciate your letting us know of anything that you feel should not have happened. We do maintain a blacklist of such incidents, and we reserve the right to bar any teacher on that list from participating in future Contests. 29. There were auditions for an opera going on next door to where my student was playing. The student found this very distracting and it affected his or her performance. What's the deal? We do our best to find the most ideal environment for everyone, but given the time of year and the size of the Contest, situations like this are almost inevitable. Other students competing in the same level probably had to deal with the same thing. Instead, when preparing for the Contest, work with your student on concentrating while playing so that no matter what happens, he or she is likely to succeed. This sort of training will be practical in many other situations.

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