Auditioning for Music Schools: Tips from the Other Side of the Room

It’s early January, so for me, that means another season of listening to college auditions. Few things provoke more anxiety in young musicians than the prospect of only having fifteen minutes to (supposedly) secure your future. So from the perspective of someone who’s listened to a lot of auditions over the past decade, here are a few suggestions to help in your preparations:

1. First Impressions Matter. I’m going to give away a secret here. The vast majority of the time, I can make pretty accurate evaluations about a student’s musical abilities within the first ten seconds of hearing them play. Those ten seconds tell me if you have a good sound, musicality, if you can play in time and in tune, and what your major strengths and weaknesses are. The rest of the audition serves to either confirm or contradict those initial impressions, but the truth is that most of the time, my initial observations prove accurate.

Here’s the good news: You can practice for this! How many times have you started the first ten seconds of each of your pieces? It’s very easy—you could do it twenty times a day in the practice room and in front of teachers/colleagues/random people. Practice these initial impressions until they become so automatic that you can start your pieces in your sleep.

If you want to know how your initial impressions come across to others, record yourself. Listen back immediately and ask the following questions:

• How does it sound? Is my tone full, clear, and resonant? Listen to your most favorite players and ask “how is their sound different from mine?” 
• Is it musical? Would someone (not your parents!) pay money to hear you play this? Someone that doesn’t know your instrument or the piece? Again, listen to your favorite players and ask “what are they doing differently from me?” 
• Is it in tune? Put on a tuner or drone pitch and check for reference. 
• Is it in time? Put on a metronome and see where you rush or drag. 

2. Sound and Musicianship Are Your Primary Goals. Remember that you’re auditioning to study music—that automatically implies that you have a lot of growth and development ahead of you. I’m not looking for fully-formed prodigies in my studio. If you’re that good coming out of high school, you should be auditioning for jobs, not college! So I’m listening for potential as much as polish.

Two of the things that often take the longest to develop in young musicians are also the two things which will define you as a player throughout your career: sound and musicianship. These are way, way more important than being able to play the highest, the fastest, or the loudest. Make sure in your audition preparations that you are focusing on always playing with a great sound and always playing with compelling musicality.

The best way to gain musicianship is to listen to great musicians. Do you have a favorite player? Have you listened to her or him play many times over? Can you hear their sound in your head? If not, you’re not listening enough. Remember to listen to players on other instruments than your own. This can be a part of your practicing—listen for a few minutes in between playing passages. It gives you a chop break and helps to reinforce great concepts of sound or musicianship.

Finally, one of the best ways to work on these concepts is by playing fundamentals. Fundamental practice should probably be at least 50% of your practice time, right up to the day of your audition. If you need help on developing a great fundamental routine and figuring out how to practice i, ask your teacher. Or contact me—I’m always happy to give suggestions!

3. Select Repertoire That Makes You Sound Your Best. Really hard music played in a mediocre fashion is not nearly as impressive as anything else played well. Don’t try and game the audition process by picking music that you are “supposed to play” or that the panel “wants to hear”. Pick music that highlights your strengths and minimizes your weaknesses (of course, you are constantly working to shore up weak areas in your practice, but you don’t have to spotlight them in an audition). Make sure that you are always asking yourself “does this make me sound my best?”

Here’s an example of something I hear a lot. The Hindemith Trumpet Sonata looks easy on the surface—it’s not fast, the notes aren’t difficult, and there aren’t that many of them. But that piece requires tremendous endurance, breath control, and musicianship, traits which many young musicians haven’t yet developed. Virtually every year, someone chooses this piece to play in an audition for me. Most of the time, they don’t have the chops to make it through. Pick your repertoire carefully!

4. Finally, Ace The Intangibles. Going back to this idea that college teachers are looking for potential over polish, do everything that you can to show in your audition that you are the kind of student that will make their studio better. Here is a partial list of qualities that I love to see in my incoming students. The best students are:

• Curious
• Determined
• Hungry
• Team players
• Confident without being cocky
• Thoughtful
• Kind towards others
• Interesting
• Organized
• On time
• Enthusiastic

Without going overboard (or putting on a false persona), how many of these qualities can you show during an audition? There will undoubtedly be time to talk with the panel—this is your chance to show that you are the kind of student that they definitely don’t want to pass on. One further thing with this: you will certainly have an opportunity to ask questions about the program during your audition. Just like in a job interview, have a couple questions in mind to ask. Make them well thought-out, intellectual questions that you can’t find the answers to just by going on the university’s website!


Hopefully this is just a bit of useful insight into the other side of the university audition process. It’s not as scary as it might initially seem, and do remember that you are evaluating the school as well. So test out these tips in your preparations, try to enjoy the process a little bit, and as always, remember to breathe!

 

Alex Noppe 

Trumpet Professor, University of Wisconsin

miraribrass@gmail.com

Eternal Lessons

Today I was practicing a piece for an upcoming recital, and I decided to finally attack “that one little lick.” You know that lick, right? The one that just never goes exactly as you want it to go.

Before I share with you the [not so great] ways that I practiced that lick, let me tell you a little bit about the way I approach new material. When I learn a piece, I tend to have a process that I follow as I prepare for a performance. It’s kind of like peeling an onion; there are lots of layers!

My first broad brushstroke tends to cover learning notes and rhythms. I try to do this as quickly, correctly, and efficiently as possible. If I make a mistake, I stop and fix it before I move on. If I’m not sure if I played the right note, I check it against a piano. There is a lot of singing involved so that I internalize the new material.

Second, I find large phrase direction and shape. There’s more than one right answer in this step, so I tend to try out several ways to turn a phrase before I settle on my favorite. I make a lot of marks in my music so that I can pick up where I left off when I come back to the piece the next day. This step also involves determining where to breathe…and writing it in!

Third, I find smaller nuances that I want to make within each phrase. It’s around this time that I find little technical inconsistencies that I may have missed when I peeled off that first thick layer. And that’s where I found “the lick.”

[See my full list of steps for learning a new piece at the bottom of this article.]

You see, this particular lick is really difficult because the figure goes between eighth notes and triplets, and it has four notes in four different positions, but the positions are really close to each other, and in fact you have to play two different 3rd positions to adjust for tuning and, and, and…

Well, at least that’s what I told myself for the past week or so. That’s probably why I haven’t gotten very far with this lick.

So today, it was time to take care of “that one little lick.” (Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of other “little licks” throughout my recital program. But today was the day for that one.) What did I do first? The wrong thing: I didn’t make a plan. I just made a goal. My goal was to fix it. I had no idea how I was going to do it because it’s really difficulty lick because the figures goes between eighth notes and triplets, and it has four notes in four different positions, and….

All I had in my mind were the thoughts “this is hard, it doesn’t sound good, I need to fix it.” Somehow, I still fixed it, but only afterwards did I realize that I went about it backwards. My mental approach should have been more planned and more positive! I probably could have saved twenty minutes and some chop fatigue if I had taken a second to think about my approach.

That being said, this is what happened: I played it over and over. The same way. At least forty or fifty times. If I hadn’t made it clear yet, this is what NOT to do!

What was I doing? I was waiting for one of those repetitions to give me the answer. I was waiting for it to sound good so that I could capture that approach and sound, and then replicate that.  I was using the lowest level of problem solving: trial and error. Unfortunately, I was also practicing it incorrectly…over and over.

Nothing changed until something in my brain said “play it longer.” Aha! A style change! Imagine that!

I played it longer, and it definitely helped. Then something in my brain said “direct the phrase to the last note.” Aha! A musical change! Imagine that!

I played it more musically and it was instantly 100% better. You might even say it was fixed. Looking back, I realize that it only took me one creative thought and one repetition carrying out that thought to “fix” my technical problem. I wondered why I had just mindlessly practiced the lick fifty times. Why didn’t I just stop to think for a few seconds?!

And then the echoes of one of my teachers, Carl Lenthe, rattled in my mind. A musical solution to a technical problem. Of course. It makes so much sense. Why didn’t I listen to him more often? No, why didn’t I just do what he said more often?

I practiced the piece for about 45 minutes today, but I took away much more than that. I learned a very valuable lesson, one that I have learned before and forgotten, many times: making music and learning how to play your instrument is not a technical pursuit. Rather, it is a mental pursuit. You have to learn how to learn. You must learn strategies that guide yourself to improve efficiently and mindfully. That is the answer! Yes, we all have technical shortcomings that we would like to improve, but the first step is not finding out which exercise to play. The first step is knowing yourself, making a plan, and teaching yourself how to learn.

If you are an artist and you are trying to really improve, I strongly encourage you to take this approach. Really take a look inside yourself and figure out how you learn. Teach yourself to learn well. Listen to your teacher, because they are giving you the answers all the time. You can only benefit from them if you are ready to learn.

The other lesson that I learned (again) is to just try something different. If a lick isn’t working, you’ve got to attack it from all angles. If you’re not sure what else to do with it musically, start with technical approach variations. Play it slower, faster, lower, higher, louder, softer, change the articulation--anything that will pull you away from playing it the same, boring way that you always play it. There is virtually no benefit of playing something over and over again unless you’re doing it well every time (correct rhythm, notes, intentional musical direction, etc.).

I hope my practicing woes and triumphs will help you bring a new angle to your practice, even if it is to simply incorporate more intentional thought into your precious practice time. We are all busy people, and we owe it to ourselves to get the most out of our practice by planning, learning from our mistakes, and making conscious musical choices every time we pick up the instrument.

How to Learn a New Piece

Sarah

Beyond the Notes and Rhythms

I remember way back in my early days of the tuba, when I had to sit on two phone books to simply reach the mouthpiece.  I had recently joined a youth orchestra and was completely out of my element, in awe of the other young musicians around me.  They could play such fast notes and with such confidence.  At that point those fast notes seemed to equal greater skill, and man did I wish I could do the same.  As the next few years passed I grew….physically I could now reach the mouthpiece with one phonebook.  And now those fast notes didn’t seem to hold the same intrigue or interest.  I wanted more, but I didn’t know what it was.  In high school my teachers and mentors encouraged me to listen.   Listen to as many great musicians as possible.  I listened to tuba players of course, but also other brass players, string players, and most importantly, vocalists.  Singers like Luciano Pavarotti, Bobby McFerrin, Renee Fleming, and later groups like the Wailin’ Jennys, were and are captivating.  But why?  It wasn’t fast notes or stunning technique.  It was something else, something called musicality. 

I desperately wanted my own playing to have this mysterious element, I wanted to captivate people in the same way these amazing musicians were captivating me.  Initially I wondered if it was possible on the tuba, an instrument not generally recognized as emotionally moving, but after hearing other tubists like Pat Sheridan and Roland Szentpali (check them out if you haven’t) I knew this was more than possible.

It wasn’t until my graduate school, working with and listening to outstanding teachers and fellow students that I really began to discover and understand how to achieve this seemingly transcendent goal.  So how does one captivate their listener?  What does it mean to play musically?  And how do we as musicians go about that? 

Musicality Defined

Musicality is communication.  Communicating to the listener, whether it is other performers, a paying audience, or a family member listening to your practice session, what you are saying through your instrument.  This idea is analogous to language.  We take the fundamental basics of words, and string them together into sentences to express something we are thinking or feeling.  In music we take the fundamentals of musical language and express something we are thinking or feeling through our instruments.  Musicality is the connection; how we communicate our music to the listener.

Connecting & Communicating

Intent.  Okay, so we have to communicate and connect with audiences.  How?  To start, consider what the music means to the composer, and then more importantly, to you.  There are two layers, the composers’ intention and connecting those intentions to what’s meaningful to you.  What is the background of the composer?  Of the particular piece?  It’s important to have knowledge of different styles and understand where the composer is coming from, but then be brave enough to put it forth in an exaggerated manner that means something to you.

Imagine.  Finding what a piece means to you can require imagination.  When reading a book, we imagine and give life to the words on the page.  Similarly with music, take what’s on the page as a starting point and give life to the notes and rhythms.  Like a teacher reading a story to a kindergarten class, be the exaggerated story teller of the printed music.  In addition, use your intuition.  How do you intuitively or automatically want to respond to the music?  Compare this to the score and intertwine your intuition and the composers’ ideas together.

Paint a picture, tell a story.  Connect the music with something extra-musical, whether it’s descriptive words, moods, colors, emotions, a painting, or a story.  Better yet, try drawing/painting an actual picture of what the music looks like to you.  Or write a story to go along with the music, create characters, a plot, and action.  Reflecting the music in a personal painting or story will make the music come to life for you, and as a result your audience.

Sing.  All lines must sing on the instrument, so first sing them with your voice.  And really sing!  Notice how you approach phrases, where you breathe, how you emphasize certain moments.  And as you sing, conduct and move.  Feel the musical line, dance to the music and involve your entire body.  Internalize the music in your body and voice and then project that through your instrument. 

Listen.  Listen to other artists you admire, and really listen!  Include those that play your instrument as well as anyone else you admire.  Don’t limit your listening, explore a variety of genres.  Figure out what captivates you about the artist and use that as a platform or starting point.

Always be musical!

No matter what you’re playing, whether a Bach Cello Suite or a jazz ballade, or whom you’re playing with, from an unaccompanied solo to a chamber group, musicality should always be part of our musical message.  From the first reading of a new piece, keep in mind the story you’re telling. 

Get in the habit of having every note you play be a musical one.  Pay attention to the details on the page, see and respond to what the composer wants, exaggerate, give direction to the musical line, and tell a story.  Musicality allows us as performers to communicate and connect with the listener and other musicians.  And for me, this connection is the primary reason I became an artist in the first place.

-Stephanie