TYLER, Texas (KETK) — Band workshops will be available for East Texas high school students on Aug. 26 and Sept. 16 for students preparing for the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) and Association of Texas Small School Bands (ATSSB) All-State Etudes.

These workshops are for 9th through 12th grade students who are auditioning for all-region, all-area and all-state competitions. There are two workshops in total, one focusing on jazz etudes and one is focusing on band etudes.

“An Etude is a study of something — it’s selected repertoire at the state level that then gets sent out to all the high school musicians in the state, and they have to prepare that for their auditions,” said Dr. Sarah Roberts, Interim Director of the UT Tyler School of Performing Arts.

The workshop on Aug. 26 will be focused on jazz etudes, with the large schools preparing for the TMEA etudes from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and the smaller schools preparing for the ATSSB etudes from 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. The workshop on Sept. 16 will follow a similar schedule with large schools in the morning and small schools in the afternoon, except it will focus on All-State Band instead of jazz.

The actual tryouts for jazz happen in October, where as the tryouts for all-state band happen in November.

The workshops will be held at the Center for Musical Arts at the UT Tyler campus where the students will work with faculty and professional musicians in the area. The workshops are free of charge, all you have to do is visit their website to register.