Playing with capital: Inherited and acquired assets in a jazz audition

• Introduces the concept of music capital.
• Performs a specific MCA on jazz applicants and show how the space of jazz contesters is structured.
• Distinguishes 4 groups – Insiders, Outsiders, Inheritors, Underdogs – and reveal their success rates.
• Discusses the relationship between uncertainty and artistic selection.
• Stresses the role of inherited and acquired music capital in elite jazz auditions.

A common dream among the youth is to become a successful musician. By surveying young aspiring musicians trying to enter a prestigious jazz audition, this paper examines assets and dispositions involved in the formation of a music field. In the study we build on Bourdieusian sociological theory and method in order to map out a space of jazz contesters and characterize the group(s) seeking to enter. Our findings, based on a specific multiple correspondence analysis performed on 211 applicants, suggest that the space of jazz contesters is structured by three important factors: (i) the total volume of music capital, (ii) commitment to the (professional) field of practice and (iii) the familiarity acquired through previous music socialization and training. Using clustering techniques, we further distinguish four groups among the applicants – Insiders, Outsiders, Inheritors and Underdogs – and reveal the success rate of the groups. We find that the acquisition and enactment of field-specific symbolic assets is of particular importance for elite music admissions, while at the same time the sizeable number of musically affluent candidates competing for a small number of places turns the audition into an event underscored with considerable uncertainty.