Skip to main content

Writing About Auditions

I love auditions.  I genuinely do.  I like how preparing for an audition makes me a much better player, and I like playing the audition game.  I like having the opportunity to play on some of our country's great stages, and I like performing for a committee of great musicians who are listening closely to every note.  I like traveling and seeing my friends and colleagues in the waiting rooms.  I like advancing, and I really like winning.

But I don't like talking about auditions.   Every time I write about auditioning on this blog, I squirm in my seat.  I edit and re-edit, and publish an uncomfortable over-worked little piece that doesn't really express what I want it to, and I've been trying to figure out why that is.

The audition scene is insanely competitive - we routinely see fifty or more oboists come out for a single job opening.  Every one of us has prepared to our very best ability and traveled at our own expense to the audition site.  The process lasts a grueling one to three days or even longer, and consists of multiple elimination rounds of excerpts.  These mostly take place behind a screen so the committee cannot be biased.  From the perspective of the auditionee, it’s hours of waiting around followed by 10 important minutes trying to impress a blank wall, literally.  At the end of the time, there may be three or four people in the finals who will perform for an actual, visible committee and usually, though not always, one will be hired.

I am happy with my current career.  I love my job, and I love myself as a performer and a teacher - an authority in my field.  People consult me.  I am known.  When I take an audition for a bigger job, though,  I am submitting to scrutiny by others, whom I have to accept as authorities over me, and trying to win their support.  Asking for their approval.   It’s a role I rarely play in my daily life.

That’s not even the part I mind - I like the limited feedback that I get from advancing or not advancing and I know that I am still who I am back at home.  Taking auditions puts me in my place a few times a year, and I can use that.  And I get better every time I raise my excerpts back to audition level. 

What I hate is talking about it to those who don’t know the audition circuit.  I feel defensive, as though I have to explain myself and confess my weaknesses.  I have to admit that I am vulnerable, and that's not part of my oboe persona.  I am the unfussy oboist, and I have solutions for students’ problems, and I can speak and write fluently and with authority about what I do.  Letting myself be seen as a supplicant is scary.  Not being one, exactly, but being seen that way.

And that, in a nutshell, is my problem with auditions.  I hate to admit that I'm not actually where I want to be and I'm not actually as authoritative as I claim, and I'm not actually a winner (or not recently).  I don’t like to break character in that way.  But I don’t want to keep the whole process secret, either. 

I find that writing out what I’m working on, the approaches I’m trying, and the results I’m getting is enormously helpful.  In the two years I’ve been publishing this blog I’ve been astounded at how much it has improved my playing, and my teaching, and my attitude.  Working things out in words is a wonderful aid, and I hate to miss this opportunity for improvement while I cling to my pride.  So I shall continue.  I am auditioning at the end of January for the Milwaukee Symphony, and it’s a job I want very much, and now that my Christmas “break” is at an end I will be hitting the practice room hard, trying some new approaches, and writing with humility about my progress. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Knife Sharpening

I've gotten a lot of questions on this topic, and the most recent querent prompted me to make a video to demonstrate.  You can find that  HERE . Knife sharpening seems to strike terror into many hearts.  And it's little wonder.  Many famous oboists have gone on record as saying that a sharp knife is the most important aspect of reed making. People have entire systems of stones and strops and rods set up to sharpen their knives. And it is important, of course it is - but I don't believe that you need your knife to be razor-like, or objectively the sharpest blade of any in your home.  The reed knife has one job - scraping cane off in precision ways - and it has to be sharp enough for that, and sharpened optimally for that purpose.  More than that is overly fussy for my taste. This is not to say that I allow my knife to be dull.  A dull knife forces you to put too much pressure on the reed and can cause cracking. Obviously it can lead to terribly inc...

The Blog has MOVED

 Have you been waiting ... and waiting ... and WAITING for a new Prone Oboe post?  Don't wait here anymore!  The blog has moved to https://jennetingle.com/prone-oboe/  and will not be updated here on Blogger anymore.  Please come and check me out there!  I love you all - stay safe out there!  Jennet

How Do You WISH You Could Describe Your Reeds?

In Reed Club last Monday, we took a moment before we started scraping to set some intentions.  We each said one word - an adjective to describe what we WANTED our reeds to be.  An aspirational adjective. Efficient was a word that came up, and Consistent . Dark and Mysterious . Mellow . Predictable .  Trustworthy .  Honest .  BIGGER . Reed affirmations actually felt helpful - both in the moment and in the results we found as we worked.  I don't know why that surprises me - I set intentions at the beginning of the year, at the beginning of the month, at the beginning of a run, in the morning before I work.  I love a good affirmation.  I love WORDS.  But I'd sort of forgotten about the possibility of applying one to the mundane work of reed-making.   You don't have to know exactly how to GET to that result.  But having clarity in your mind about what that result is?  Helps you to stop going down unhelpful rabbit holes...