 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: missclarinetist
Date: 2005-08-04 04:10
Hey guys, just curious what your first college/pro audition is like. I only had to play the first page of my piece and was immediately accepted as a music major and given the best clarinet professor at the school. What pieces do you have to sight read? I was given a cut time piece in band literature to sightread. Do any of you have to sightread cut time in band literature for an audition into the orchestra? What were your experiences? I participated in the opera/orchestra production of the Elixer of Love. They held reauditions just to see if we knew our clarinet parts for the opera and for the next production. Do you guys have to do that while in college? Since there were many clarinet majors at my school, they had to rotate clarinet majors in an out of band and orchestra to give others experiences. Is that the same everywhere? Rotating wind players into band and orchestra just so that the ensembles would be balanced? What were your experiences about this?
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Author: diz
Date: 2005-08-04 04:35
I turned up, didn't have my music, the music stand on stage was way too low for me, bent to adjust it and dropped my instrument, then realised that I only had a shirt and my boxer shorts on ... then I realised that was a hidesou dream my brain inflicted on me on the morning of my very first audition.
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: Danny Boy
Date: 2005-08-04 11:02
I remember my 4 college auditions well, but two stand out for 'content'.
At Guildhall in London, you start off playing alone to a panel of 3 (Thea King, Julian Farrell and the head of wind/brass who's name I forget...) You can play anything from Uhl book 1.
It's the the unusual bit, the rest is done as a group, 8 or 9 applicants together in a masterclass situation. I was felt this was a little strange, especially as it was obvious they already had a pretty good idea who they wanted, and made us play first. There were three set pieces of which you chose 2, Brahms E flat 1st movement, the Prelude from the Finzi Bagatelles, or the first of Schumann Fantasiestucke. I remember being slightly annoyed that I was asked for the Finzi, when everyone before me had got Brahms.
I do remember the embarassment of one poor soul, who'd turned up with only a b flat to do Schumann, and didn't have their transposed piano part.
The Academy was different, and better (hence why I went there lol). The first audition was pretty standard, simply playing your chosen pieces (Weber 1 and Horovitz I think...)
If they liked what they heard, you were called back for another audition, this one was more extended. Transposition, orchestral knowledge questions, improvisation, chromatic scale from E and top A, tongued and as fast as possible (also got asked this at every subsequent scale exam...) and a duet with Keith Puddy.
Those were the days, can't believe that was nearly 5 years ago.
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Author: 3dogmom
Date: 2005-08-05 20:31
Brenda, I think you and I would get along just fine.
Sue Tansey
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Author: RodRubber
Date: 2005-08-06 03:11
First audition i took, BINGO, made it to the finals, and thus thought "this is gonna be easy!" Unfortunately, i didn't sniff the second round for about two years after that.
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Author: Iplayclarinet
Date: 2005-08-07 00:40
well, my first audition was to the Catholic university of America, it is a nice place and a well respected program..so naturally i was a tad nervous goin in....but i walked into a beautiful hall with lots of windows and it was a beautiful day so that seemed to lighten up the tension a bit. i played mozart and a few etudes and everything was going great. and i guess they thought so to because they said so.... but i didnt have to sight read or play scales oddly enough...mabye since i played well to begin with, but i was accecpted to the program even though thats not where im going now, but i guess it was a succesful audition for my 1st one
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Author: Robyn
Date: 2005-08-07 02:12
This wasn't my first audition experience, but it was a recent one. I had traveled a long distance to take a graduate school audition and came down with the flu while I was there. So I went in for the audition, feeling awful, but actually played fairly well. Unfortunately, halfway through my first piece, my cell phone rang...in my fever-induced fog, I had forgotten to turn it off. I played a little longer, but because I hadn't eaten anything, my stomach was empty and picked that moment to begin growling uncontrollably. And loudly. They could hear it across the room. We all had a good laugh about it, but I definitely learned a lot from that audition about what not to do.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2005-08-07 11:25
It's all in my Memoirs, soon to be published.
Bob Draznik
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Author: William
Date: 2005-08-07 16:49
Won the position of Solo Squeeker in my first fourth grade band concert.
(later audition efforts were not always so successful)
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