A busy week – in the stretch of a busy month of thinking…
On Tuesday, I will be taking students to audition for our District Honor Band at Westminster College. It is always an anxiety filled time for them, and easy to lose site of the fact auditions are the test of our growth, not our worth (see I believe for more examples).
On Wednesday evening and all day Thursday I am guest conducting in Beaver Falls, Pa. I was absolutely floored that Len would ask me. I have a lot of respect for Len as a director and person, and the fact he would consider me for the JH portion of the festival is an honor. The program includes Julie Giroux’s Wagon Trail, Suspended Animation by Patrick J. Burns, Friends of Freedom by Timothy Loest, Basin Street Blues arranged by Paul Jennings, and the group will give the world debut of A West Highland Fanfare (coming in July of 2011).
On top of that I am still knee deep in research from my own students about their chamber music experience (Yes we stuck the landing, now we have to measure how far we lept…), thickening up a review of literature that may lead to my disseration topic at Kent, finishing a piece for another Honor Band in February (where I get to work with Mike Grady), and starting a commission for a pair of friends and colleagues who have an outstanding band program near Pittsburgh.
I will be back on soon hopefully with some profound thoughts and perspective that help save music…one note at a time.
So this week is a pretty big week. There is no concert. No recital. There is a playoff game which yours truly and his marching band must attend, perform, and cheer – but that is a mere formality (if we don’t know it by now, we never will). The big week actually comes to a head on Tuesday evening as I take students to Westminster College to audition for the PMEA Honors Band. Months of preparation on a college level instrumental solo lead to a 4 minute audition, and depending on how successful – a spot in the Honors Band Festival to be held later this month. As the title of the blog infers, it is a critical and decisive moment in time – like the reference to the matador making the kill in the bull ring – but it is only one moment. Will the matador win? Being that it is today’s public education, I doubt that the matador will actually be able to take a sword into school without facing expulsion. Good thing I armed the matador with an inner ipod (Thank you Dr. Cameron!)…
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I revisited a favorite story of mine from several years ago after talking with a couple of dejected students following chair auditions at Mercer. I had written this story down as part of my portfolio that I presented at Duquesne University. As much of our actual time is building students up, what happens when they get knocked down? And how can it be that when a student experiences a taste of failure, they actually get better? Read on, true believer….
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It must be that time of year – football seasons are half over (except those of you football teams is boasting a 5-1 record like yours truly) , homecoming dances are playing their last slow dance (here’s hoping it’s Stairway to Heaven), and directors of ensembles everywhere are thinning out paperwork and are finally able to find portions of their desk (except yours truly). But the other item that is drawing upon us (and sometimes surprising quickly) are auditions. Auditions in the school ensembles, auditions for honor groups, auditions for college and university bound seniors – the list goes on and on. It can be a stressful and fretful time for directors and student alike, and if not handled correctly can be the cause of a groups’ loss of synergy and cohesiveness.
One of the first things I address with each of my own ensembles is the rationale for auditions. I have found that students carry misconceptions about why they have to audition, and it causes undo anxiety that adversely affects their performance. My first point to the group is that this is a collection of data about their current abilities. I want to put them in the best possible position for growth, development, and ultimately success as a musician. The formative data collected from auditions allows me to plan individual instruction (in lessons), and ensemble rehearsal plans based on the strengths and weaknesses in each group. It is also a factor in the selection of music – is this the right year to showcase the clarinets? What song would best develop the young low brass section? Does this piece give the ensemble an educational opportunity to develop musical expression and sensitivity? Some years the results of auditions let me know I have a lot of work ahead of me. Other years it has let me know to keep setting the bar a notch higher than the students’ think they can reach.
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