oboeinsight

I’ve been on both sides of the screen when it comes to auditions. I’ve sat on the panel, and I’ve escorted auditionees to that horrible screen a good number of times. In both cases I have been a bit nauseous; there’s something about auditions … even though I wasn’t even auditioning I’d get that awful anxious feeling, and even knowing we made the correct decision about who we chose, I always hurt for the number we had to turn away. If someone had a particularly bad audition, I just ached for the individual. We’ve always had our bad days. Really.

I was fairly surprised to read a rather revealing post about a trumpet audition up in Canada. Some readers might find it informative, so I’m putting the link here.

Biggest “take heed” … or, okay … “take heeds” I can offer?: Know your music inside out. Study not only your part, but know what’s going on around you as well. Hear those other parts as you practice. Play for a few people you trust, and make it an uncomfortable situation, as it will be when you do the real thing. (I helped someone out with this some time ago, and I had her behind a screen, to simulate that cold and impersonal situation. As an aside, this was not an audition I was then participating in in any way; I won’t hear someone for any orchestra of which I am a member.) If it’s an opera audition, please know what the singers are doing; it’s not all about you, you know?

I never blog about the auditions in which I’m involved, other than announcing a winner on occasion. I won’t write about what I hear until … well … it would have be be years later. For instance, I feel fairly comfortable, as it’s been over 15 years and the orchestra no longer exists, writing about an audition where a player (not an oboist, btw) played a Beethoven excerpt and throughout played a painfully obvious wrong note. Over. And over. (It was a passage with a lot of arpeggios.) The player hadn’t a clue he/she had done that, and I couldn’t believe anyone wouldn’t know such a famous excerpt. I won’t write about this kind of thing again, though (although I believe that one was safe to mention). I think, in fact, our local union or players’ committee would probably call me on the carpet if I did blog about current or recently past auditions.

No, we are not “San Jose Philharmonic”! Oops.

I’m SO glad I don’t do the drives these musicians do. I couldn’t bear it!

I’m with Karla; I don’t want to commute with other musicians if I can avoid it. And since I live 7 minutes away from work I can get away with driving alone, except when I get extra jobs that are further away. When I’m driving a distance then I do want to commute with others so I’m not the only one in trouble if we are late. (So far I’ve only been late to, I think, one gig, and that was a 10 minute drive from my house … but it was Cinco de Mayo and the route I had been instructed to take was horrible. I was, I think, 30 minutes late! So were others. Whew!)

Update
Okay … it’s over. And I’m just … oh dear … I’m nearly weepy. I’m not sure why. Is it because the film kind of nails this life (even mine, without quite so much driving)? Is it just the MUSIC? (New World Symphony does get to me.) Is it seeing people I admire there, and watching Karla deal with her injury? (I hadn’t even heard about that, btw. I had blogged about her stolen instrument, but the injury was news to me.)

I have to say that it felt pretty darn spot on with the feelings we have of the joy of music, the frustrations, the wondering if we’ll ever “make it” (I’ve decided I’ve “made it” to where I’m happy to be, but I know that some have higher aspirations, and knowing the musicians they featured I do believe they could reach their goals. They are fabulous!) … well … it really covered it all, you know?

All I would have liked was a “where are they now?” thing just for fun. Even though I mostly know where they are. 🙂

Someone in a discussion group was asking for a recording of the Hindemith Oboe Sonata.
Here’s a bit of the conversation (with a few things that might identify the people X’d out):

Person #1: Would somebody happen to have a recording of the Hindemith sonata for oboe an piano? I’m supposed to perform this piece in a few months and would like to hear it being played by someone else than my teacher :). Me being credit card-less and living in a smallish city in XX narrows down the alternatives. This Hindemith plays hard to get. So, I’d be very happy and also willing to fulfill requests of the same kind, if some beautiful soul were to upload this piece.

Person #2: I can upload a copy. Would you mind Xlocking this entry?

Person #1: Thanks :D!

Person #2: No problem, just don’t want the fact that I’m violating copyright made public. 😀 Here you go.
(link removed)
John Mack, oboe
Eunice Podis, piano

Someone is posting this and assuming it won’t be seen? Silly person. Google sent me the link. I just joined. Anyone can join. Anyone can read this person admitting to doing something that could get him/her in trouble.

No matter what any of us think about the whole copyright thing, admitting you are breaking a law online seems just a tad foolish to me.

Ya think?

So here’s a little reminder, once again: what you write online can be seen by a whole heck of a lot more folks than you might think. If you write something, just make the assumption it’s on a “worldwide billboard” … and you might reconsider what you post. (Believe me, I’ve had to remove some dumb things I’ve written!) And if you are going to break a law, you might reconsider admitting it in print!