you know what’s weird? we’re all STUCK in our instrument tribes. we talk to people who play our instrument, we learn from teachers who play our instrument, and we never break out of the box. it’s always been like this. during my musical education, i never used to talk to oboe players, violists, or french hornists... only percussionists.
that means that we've been developing methods for auditions internally, without exposure to the many other perspectives out there. we might have developed some really amazing things - things that oboe players, violists, or french hornists could really use! but also, we are probably missing a bunch of things. i would love to know more about how different instruments approach audition preparation, because there’s just so much to learn.
the more you think about it, the old system doesn’t really make sense.
your audition committee isn’t going to be exclusively made up of people who play your instrument. in fact, the opposite is much more likely. during my audition for the MET orchestra, there were 13 people on the panel, and only 4 of them were percussionists. that means that i could have gotten ‘no’ votes from every single percussionist/timpanist and still won the job!
so that’s why i created an all-new facebook group. it’s an instrument-nonspecific group where musicians of all types can come together and discuss auditions. i’d love it if you joined. in fact, i’m going to be on there all day answering questions, chatting, and discussing everything about auditions.
it’s called auditionhacker: a place to talk about auditions.
here’s the website one more time:
see you over there!
-rob
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i've worked with hundreds of musicians on audition preparation. and nothing - NOTHING - has been as effective and life-changing as when they start self-recording the right way.