mazzrick

Chris,

I sympathize with you, I was Mike's roomate for 3 weeks in Las Vegas a few summer's ago. I'm just kidding, Bluts is a good roomate.
Ed, you have met me, you'll be teaching me at 4 tomorrow actually, but you can still buy me a beer anytime you wish.

Matt

Anonymous

Hahaha!! We have Vendetti and Blutman here! How are you guys doing? I'm glad you're on here since you both have loads of good things to say! How's it going up in NYC??

Brent

mikeblutman

Hmmm,

Brent, Matt, and Chris ... a nice mix of HS, undergrad and graduate friends here. Everyone in TM should listen to what these guys have to say about college auditions. They have all taken many and have been very successful in them. All are representatives from some prominent schools in North America.

Some questions for my friends mentioned above and all TM contributers:

1) Was it just me, or was it a really cool thing to have the undivided attention of some our favorite trumpeters when out on college auditions? For me, some of these auditions flet like I was playing in front of the Mt. Rushmore of trumpeters!

2) What role did adrenaline play in your successful and perhaps some of your less successful auditions?

3) Did you play any 'mock' auditions or plan special solo performances prior to going out on audition tour? I played a short series of 3 mini-recitals (about half-length) in addition to my senior recital (I chose to perform my senior recital in the fall rather than spring for that reason)prior to last winter's grad audition tour.

Enjoy tossing these thoughts around.

Mikey B

Anonymous

Mikey B-

Some really fine questions!

It was amazing to play in front of these guys at some of the finest music schools in America (or the world). My first one was with Gekker, and you know better than anyone that he has a way of relaxing the situation! He just wants you to make the best music possible. The Juilliard audition was the most stressful for me, but that's because I made it that way for myself by building up this huge mountain in front of myself. Playing in front of Gould made me really nervous the first time. Tried to mess with my head which worked that time, but not the second. Mannes was a differnet story. Penzarella and Smith were great to play for. The best audition by far! MSM was a terrible little room! Blah!

Adrenaline really played into my Mannes audition since it went so well. I'm really lucky that I've never had a problem with nerves. But yeah, the feeling of the blood running through your veins and a hightened sense of your surrounds is awesome. It's like I was so aware of everything that I wasn't at all and got totally lost in the music. Doesn't make any sense I know. Those are the times that we are at our best though. When the room becomes hazy and you lose yourself in every note you play. When the notes lose their individual meaning and become a line or a phrase. That's music!

I played a bunch of mock auditions for my teacher, friends, family, and imaginary judges. I think using your imagination is important in practice. Close your eyes, picture Gould, Mase, and Cobb sitting there and play your program down cold. No second chances. If you can't do that when you're alone, there's no chance of doing it when their actually there staring at you. It really builds confidence!

When my teacher at Peabody was taking auditions for orchestras, he would always pack his tails and whites so that WHEN he won the job he could play that night if they needed him. Now obviously that doesn't happen usually, but the confidence that knowing his tails were waiting for him gave him was enough to win a spot in a major orchestra. Come up with a trick that works for you!

Mike--can you talk about your endevours with arranging vocalises and other self motivation that you told me about? This stuff is what the cats winning auditions are made of! Jon Nelson told us in a masterclass that trumpeters who practice will play well, but trumpeters that are in the library studying scores and recordings all the time are the ones that will really succeed. Add to that arranging.

Ok, enough ranting for this post! Haha!

mikeblutman

Thanks for the detailed response, Brent.

Here's an attempt at the tough request you've placed on me. It's tough for me to put into words how much studying vocal literature has affected my musical development adequately ... it took us nearly 65 blocks walking through NYC a month and a half ago to come close!

Study and performance of vocal literature has encompassed a HUGE part of musical development over the past four years while at the Univ of Maryland. My interest in the vocal repertoire was primarily sparked by my frustration with the trumpet and music in general my sophmore year.

Chris Gekker influenced me to go see Ted Guerrant, a staff pianist and amazing musician at the Univ of MD. He subsequently spent a lot of time with me playing songs and talking about music and life nearly each week that semester. We must have played more than 100 songs in that fall semester! Through my study of vocal literature, I was able to discover a lot about myself as a musician and as a person. Prior to that semester, I wasn't using my interest in literature and other art in my music-making very much. There was a disconnect between my music-making and my general interest in other things that vocal music helped bridge. The study of text and music together really opened my eyes and ears to new possibilities.

You can start to discover the text through the composers' eyes by seeing how they reflect that text in their music. To then transfer these 'discoveries' to your performance of a purely instrumental version of the song (a trumpet and piano transcription in my case) it's a tall task to find the right sounds for specific lines of text. It requires great tone color flexibility on the trumpet. That's my favorite area of trumpet playing to explore, TONE COLOR FLEXIBILITY; the ability to change your sound on command ... different topic, different day.

So to tie this into the college audition post, the 'solo' for my Juilliard masters audition was actually not a trumpet piece at all. To nobody's surprise at this point in this posting, I chose a song as my solo. "I felt a funeral in my brain", an Emily Dickinson poem set by Aaron Copland was the song I selected. This was my "home run" as I referred to in an earlier posting on college auditioning. Playing songs, where my brain can be focussed on text and imagery (and therefore not focussed on nerves, tough entrances, tricky intervals or other trumpet bullsh*t) is where I am most effective performing.

I'll start a different forum discussion area dedicated to song transcription so we can stick to college auditions on this one.

Sorry for the dissertation,
Mikey B

ecarroll

MikeB,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for your thoughtful, detailed, posts. I look forward to more. Mark Gould on Mt. Rushmore . . . there's a vision.

MattB,

I stepped right into that one, didn't I?

The first round's on me,
EC

mazzrick

Mainly to high school seniors auditioning for colleges,

I agree that these auditions are probably one of the best opportunities for playing in front of the major players/teachers in the world, however, sometimes one time isn't enough. I found that taking lessons before (months before) the auditions was the most beneficial thing that I did. Of course this can be an expensive endeavour, especially over long distances, but I think it's worth the trip if it's driveable (although gas is crazy nowadays). In my auditions at NEC, Maryland, McGill, and Michigan, I knew the teachers from previous lessons/summer festivals, and I think that knowing them as more than just a face from a website relaxed me a lot.

Something that varies a lot school to school is the formality of the audition. At NEC, there was a four or five person pannel who barely spoke or interacted at all. I rememeber the audition was at 48 past the hour, and lasted exactly 12 minutes as planned. Meanwhile at Maryland, Chris Gekker was the only one in the room, had me play the first three lines of the Haydn and then stopped me. I had a lesson with him about two months before, and he said he already knew how I played and didn't need to hear more. Then we talked for about 10 minutes. Both of these auditions ended up being successful for me, and in both cases the teachers remembered me from more than just the audition. If you make the time to take a lesson, the teacher knows you're interested, and gets a better feel for what you can do than they do for someone who just auditions. Meanwhile, at CIM, where I'd never met the teachers, I felt less comfortable. Darling and Sachs were both seated behind me, which was a bit odd, and had me point my bell straight away from them. The audition turned into a mini-lesson and I think that had I traveled to Cleveland a month or two before the audition, I could have given myself a slight advantage.

Regarding adrenaline, I know that I need a long time to settle myself down, even all day sometimes. I think utilizing the warm up rooms to either settle down or pump up is key. As long as everyone takes control of what happens to them before the audition and talors it to what is best for them, they should be able to play the way they want to. Also, a note to auditioners, beware the theory/eartraning tests. Know when they are and make sure they don't get in the way, trust me.

As to mock auditions... SUMMER FESTIVAL AUDITIONS. There are tons of them, and most are free. The ones that aren't free... can be. I took a couple summer festival auditions and didn't fill out the application. The application was 60$ but the audition was free. These are great mock auditions, because they aren't really mock, they're real. Recording yourself as if you are playing an audition is great too. Do yourselves a favour though, don't let the first audition you play be for a top choice school.

So Mike writes dissertations and I write narratives, great!

Matt

mikeblutman

Mental and Physical Prep:

To start with physical, you have to be prepared for an incredibly intense short period of playing in one of these auditions (as with many professional auditions). We're talking about 10-20 minutes max for these auditions in most cases. The endurance required to play very well in these auditions is unbelievably different than playing a full-length solo/quintet recital (sprinter vs. marathon runner), or being in good ensemble concert shape (tennis player vs. baseball player?). You can work out your own athletic analogies if you so choose ...

Now to the often neglected mental side of things. First some book recommendations: "Psycho Cybernetics" by Maxwell Maltz, "Performance Success" by Don Greene (much better than his previous two I believe), and a host of books written by sports coaches (pick your favorites). Also, William Lucas' article from an ITG journal from 1999(?) is terrific. He really captures a lot of the mental and physical prep concepts a lot more refined than I will here (and from a broader experiece base than I have).

According to Dr. Maltz's research in the 1960's, our brain cannot distinguish, especially on the subconscious level, the difference between a real experience and a vividly imagined one. Why should your first college audition be your first college audition experience? Mentally see yourself performing your program (in both favorable and unfavorable performing orders) amazingly! Nail it 50 times in your head vividly with all of the nuance you want with the best sound you can imagine. "Look" at the faces of the people on panels you'll be playing for (pictures of faculty members are often available on the internet sites of the schools if you don't already know the teachers). Find a quiet place at a regular time a few times (3-4 times?) per week for several weeks leading up to the auditions.

For mental rehearsal, I recommend having your eyes open. There are physiological implications of having your eyes closed that are unfavorable to what we are trying to accomplish here based on a few articles I've read. Have your music open in front of you (unless you plan on performing your entire program memorized, which is fine also) and voice the parts as in a whisper while imagining the best sound in your head. If you sing as terribly as I do, hearing yourself singing the pieces is hardly a good experience! But, I can hear the pitches, nuance and a great sound in my head while voicing the rhythms aloud.

Leading up to the auditions, I stepped up my mental prep and actually didn't physically play my audition rep all that much. I tried to scale back on heavy practicing as much as my schedlued allowed and rather played in shorter spurts (5-20 minutes) at all different times throughout the day from early in the morning to very late at night sometimes. That way I was never caught off-guard when my body felt a little weird after coming off an airplane, sleeping in a motel (with who knows what distractions from next door ... motels get some interesting mid-week guests!), getting a less-than-ideal audition slot, etc. I was prepared to play well at anytime, anyplace, anywhere for that audition period with very little extended warm-up time. All I needed was a few seconds playing softly with a practice mute in or open to re-establish healthy response and I was all set to go (after an initial warm-up during my first session that day).

My point of view was, I have the musical stuff and technical stuff all worked out on my program by several weeks before the auditions. Why spend countless hours drilling it the week of an audition. Just get me there in good physical shape and I am already mentally prepared. It keeps the repertoire fresh and somewhat spontaneous also. You're more free to do things that you wish. I hope we don't get stuck in one way of doing things when we practice.

Enough rambling for this time around. I hope some of this info will prove useful to those taking auditions this winter. Let us know what worked and what didn't for you. What have other people done as far as mental prep work? Can you describe your process to us as I have above? Any disagreements with what I've written above? Let us know and tell us an alternate suggestion as to a better approach. I'm always looking for new tricks and different effective approaches!

- Mikey B

Anonymous

Mike,

Again, very nice post. I agree with everything you have presented here. It's really appropriate to find ways to rehearse the audition experience while not killing the chops. Imagry is a great way to accomplish this.

There was an article written by David Bilger a few years back that lays out how he builds up to an orchestral audition. He said that first he works hard on playing the trumpet well (through Clarke, Arban, whatever you choose). At the same time he's listening and studying the parts that he will have to play for the audition to cement interpretations and other aspects of performance. Then, when he feels at the top of his game on the trumpet, he'll work on the excerpts. By then it's easy though, because the horn is working great, plus the music is already in his head, along with the ideal sound that he wishes to attain.

Thanks for bringing up the idea of hearing the perfect sound in your head before ever being able to achieve it. Penzarella talks about this concept a lot. I believe they call it their "Gabriel." Only when you can hear the perfect sound that you wish to attain can you actually go about physically getting it. But once you have it in your head, watch out because it'll be a lot easier to get a great sound out of your bell.

Brent