TheRiddler

My Dad is a band director (almost 30 years now) one of his first students he taught was a young kid by the name of Tommy Freer. Years later, he is now the timpanist with the Cleveland Orchestra. In an e-mail conversation, my Dad told him I started taking auditions, he passed on this advice:


"Just tell him to practice auditioning seriously. I've taken 12 auditions in my life and won four of them and have been a finalst eight times in a row now. There's a definite science to it. You have to practice auditioning in every detail down to the clothes you're going to wear on that day! Most people might do one "sort of" mock audition before they go to the real thing but it usually turns into a "let me play some things for you" situation. I practice auditioning three to five times a day for three weeks before in a hall, using a screen, videotaping the whole thing, wear the clothes I'm going to wear, have a proctor take me from the warm up room down to the hall....blah blah blah....every detail is recreated to the last detail...over and over and over again...and low and behold when the real thing comes up it feels like no problem, nothing strange, nothing intense...it's all kind of comical because you've done it so much and so accurately and authentically that it's totally nothing...you can actually have fun playing under pressure this way! I also relentlessly use video and mini disc to record when I'm practicing. Try turning on a Dr. Beat to your excertps and see how solid your time is...if it doesn't sync up...you HAVE TO fix it. Listen a second time, check just your rhythm, a third time and just check your pitch and accuracy, a fourth listen for the big picture. Gotta be methodical about it."

I really dig what he has to say... hope you guys take some good out of it!