Audition Night Nightmares!

I remember it so clearly. It was my junior year of high school and I had auditioned and made the cut at Region to be eligible for Area with chance to audition later for All-State. Only the top players from Region are selected to go to Area, and I got second chair in the region on bari sax. Not bad, but the same guy beat me from the year before. That was going to change. My eyes were focused in on the highest goal: to kick bari sax butt at Area auditions and make it to State! Even in my college days now I don’t think that I have ever practiced the same pieces for sooo long. As the days counting down to the next round of auditions drew closer, I just knew that I was going to kick some tail.

            It was about a 3 hour drive to get to the school that auditions were held and my classmates that also made it to Area made the ride interesting. When we finally arrived there were still a couple of hours until audition time, so I lugged my big baby down the sidewalk to the holding area brimming with high school instrumentalists of the highest magnitude. I spotted my rival across the way and gave him a friendly wave, but I was not going to give him any chance to beat me again. I got my saxophone out and proceeded to play my music slowly and then again at the correct speed. After a couple of run-throughs on each piece I spotted a couple of my friends from other schools chilling outside on the grass. I went out and conversed with them for a while and had a great time catching up. When it came time for the call to audition I picked my music and the bari off of the ground and headed inside.

            Waiting outside of the audition room I had the chance to size up the competition. A few had very nice saxes that glittered in the light like they were brand new. A few of the others looked like they had been through a war zone. My baby was in about average shape comparatively, but in the many hours of practice I had created a bond with my bari powerful enough to conquer the world! When it was my turn to step into the audition room I had it all planned out. I would skip the optional one breath warm up and jump straight into the scales. I took a deep breath and began to play. To my horror, sounded much higher than they should have. I kept my wits enough to end up using my warm up breath to experiment, but everything continued to play much higher than normal. In a panic I stepped out of the room and told the other players what was going on. I held out a single note while 8 pairs of hands poked and prodded at different keys to see what the problem was. Nothing. Nobody else had the remotely same brand of saxophone that I did so I went in with my horn and butchered the beautiful lines that I had practiced a thousand times before. Every melodic line was tainted by the horrible wrong notes. Nearly distraught by my horrible performance I saught out the on-sight repairman. He looked my horn over for a few minutes and had me play a little, but he couldn’t find the problem immediately. I took my mouthpiece and hoped that someone would let me use their horn. When I got back one of the other saxophonists did let me borrow their instrument and I waited patiently to go into the room. On the second round of the audition I walked in with a saxophone that felt alien to me. The keys seemed like they were too close together and were cold and unforgiving to the touch. I proceeded to play the more technical piece, but instead of the fluent movements that I enjoyed with my horn I felt clumsy. My fingers even missed vital keys in the middle of even the easiest passages. After the horrors I gave the horn back to its owner and I was greeted by the repair tech. On the way back to his office I was informed that there was the tiniest sliver of grass under one of the pads that I never use, holding it open just enough to wreak havoc. I’m sure my face looked like a cartoon character’s when my eyes bugged out and jaw to hit the floor. The results came out about an hour later and I was relieved to see that I got second to last and the guy that beat me was only a chair ahead of me. Those facts were strangely comforting to me.

            The biggest lesson that I learned from this experience was that one should NEVER lay an instrument in the grass, and that auditions can bring out some very serious emotions. Nerves are powerful emotions that definitely influence a performance tremendously. From this experience I can now sympathize with my future students to know how they feel going into a performance, and I will be a better teacher because of it.

            What’s your audition nightmare?