I had a lot of fun preparing this audition! I mean, as much “fun” as one can have under all that pressure… But, I did let myself explore a variety of ways of preparing, which kept it interesting. Perhaps I felt a little more free to do so because this is the third time I’ve prepared this list!
Audition prep
8-6 weeks before audition: Increasing practice time, listening to recordings, playing through excerpts, looking for weaknesses in fundamentals, and rotating in picc and alto, scheduling/taking lessons
3-4 weeks before audition: Digging deeper into the orchestra’s harmonies and rhythms by transcribing, recording, and playing flute duet arrangements of the accompaniment, focusing on fundamentals (vibrato, articulation, sound, fingers). This was inspired by Kujala’s excerpt book, which included the violin part to the Eroica excerpt.
In December, I had the pleasure of meeting Mark Sparks, and in preparation for our lesson, purchased and studied a few of his books. In doing so, I discovered his love of duets. I printed out my arrangements to show him, and it turned out that he had just published his own version of excerpt flute duets!
2 weeks before audition: 1/2 of my practice time on fundamentals, 1/2 recording and checking rhythm with metronome. This was enlightening- I had not practiced this way before, and my pulse was not nearly as steady as I had assumed…
1 week: Still spending 1/2 of practice time on fundamentals (about an hour)
Days 7, 6, 5: Recorded and looked for weaknesses in 1/3 of the list
Days 4, 3, 2: Recorded and looked for weaknesses in 1/2 of the list. Also had a Zoom lesson on New Year’s Day (day 2)!
Day 1: Recorded and played the whole list
Here’s a funny parallel log of my anxiety. I tend to get dreams that are somewhat distressing leading up to an audition. I thought I would write them down this time around.
Anxiety log
Day 11: Dream I lost my flute in a large, unfamiliar house
Day 10: Dream I was trying to go to teach a lesson, but kept getting held up by this and that
Day 9: No dream… it was Xmas Eve, and I was exhausted
Day 8: Dream I couldn’t find a practice room in a large, unfamiliar high school
Day 7: Dream I couldn’t find the location of a class I was supposed to go to
Day 6: Dream I had a disagreement with the band director and quit band
Day 5: After listening to my recording during my practice, I felt like this was too hard and I couldn’t play the music!
Days 4-0: No more anxiety dreams for some reason… maybe I just had to admit my fear while awake?
Financial summary
Since this audition was in Dallas (about 1 hour drive from Denton), the only expense was lessons.
- $550, 4 lessons (with 3 different teachers)
I’ll share my audition recording after next week’s second preliminary round is over!
Alyse Hokamp 