It has been a long time since I have written here. There have been two reasons for this: 1) I have had trouble staying healthy for the last few months because of sleep deprivation, and 2) I was practicing for an audition. I haven't taken an audition since my daughter was 9 months old, and before that it was several years.
For the fortunate who've never taken a symphony audition, let me try to describe the process.
When a position becomes open in an orchestra, an ad will appear in the national union paper. You send in your resume, and they send you a list of music to prepare. You show up at the audition a few months later, along with the 30-200 other hopeful musicians who have also been practicing insanely and probably had more time to practice than you. You all sit in a room together talking and/or practicing until a practice room becomes available for each person. Sometimes this means sitting in that room for eight hours, sometimes you get a private room for most of the day, depending on the facilities. When it's your turn to play, you are escorted on a carpeted path to the stage or other large room, where you play a list of excerpts and solo pieces for the audition committee, who are most often hidden behind a screen, to make sure the audition is fair. When they have heard enough (usually about 10-15 minutes) to decide whether you are good enough, they say "Thank you" and you are escorted back to the room where you wait what seems endless hours. The committee listens to a number of people, then takes a break to vote. They may select some people to move on to the next round, or they may send everyone from that group home. After they have heard everyone from the preliminary round, they hear those who passed on to the semi-finals, following the same process to select finalists. The final round is usually without a screen, and the music director is usually present. After the final round, they select the winner(s) or not.
In the case of my most recent audition, I received the most votes in the final round, but still did not get selected. They were apparently looking for a higher level of playing and experience than I have. This has been very difficult for me to deal with emotionally, but I feel that I grew as a musician through the process of preparing for this audition.
I am one of those lucky ones who can get by with very little actual work on the violin while still playing pretty well. I have always avoided practicing, even as an adult. When I was 10 my mother would feel whether the TV was warm to see if I had really practiced while she was gone! In my middle teen years circumstances made it difficult to avoid practicing--we lived with my grandparents who were always home and very strict about such things-- and for a few years I practiced 3 hours a day. When left to my own devices, I was most likely not going to practice. When I went to prestigious Meadowmount School of Music the summer I turned 14, I was supposed to practice 4-5 hours a day. We were monitored closely, but I still managed to play solitaire for many of those hours. Miraculously, my playing still got better that summer.
In college, I was more motivated, but panic practicing was my modus operandi. I also had not yet developed good practice techniques. I had always just repeated stuff when I played it wrong. During my junior year a pianist friend taught me a few exercises with rhythmic practice which worked like a magic trick on difficult fast passages. That made it possible to learn more in a shorter time, but didn't really teach me discipline.
At the end of my junior year, while preparing for a difficult jury, I developed some arm problems that made it painful to hold a book, much less play a Paganini caprice. That whole summer I didn't practice much, and when I returned in the fall my wrists were better and my technique was not so great. I foolishly signed up for my senior recital in October, which left me less than 2 months to learn the repertoire. My recital was mediocre, complete with memorization problems. That whole year I struggled with my identity of myself as a violinist. Who would I be if I couldn't make it in music? Having grown up in a musician-glutted family, I had always just assumed that being a musician was the thing to do. I was passionate about it, and had from an early age identified myself as a violinist. Now that my future felt insecure, I didn't really know who I was.
After graduating, I loafed around my grandparents' house for several months, taking long walks, trying to drum up some violin students. Meanwhile, all my friends were pursuing graduate degrees. I felt fairly useless and hopeless.
I took an audition for a regional orchestra, and won. I slowly started freelancing, gradually accumulating enough work to get my own apartment. I made very little money in those years, but I enjoyed myself, playing a variety of gigs--opera, symphony, weddings, teaching, chamber orchestra. I never practiced.
One year I decided to put on a recital. I practiced for that, and thought I made some improvements. On listening to the recording, I was horrified at how bad my intonation was. I decided to take some lessons with a local university teacher, and she was just what I needed to get back to some of the niceties of violin playing. I took an audition for a more substantial job and won a temporary position. I started taking auditions left and right, surprising myself by getting past the first round a few times. Eventually I won my current job.
After being here for a while I took some more auditions, but decided that the stress was putting my health at stake, so I finally settled down and bought a house. Again, I settled into minimal practice time. Why practice when I could be doing other fun things like reading, watching TV, being outside? After meeting my husband and having a baby, my practicing became a faint memory.
When this most recent audition was advertised, I decided to go for it. Concertmaster in my own orchestra sounded pretty good to me--if I won I'd make more money without having to move! I knew it would be a challenge when I got the repertoire list: it was mostly music I had never played before, and also mostly virtuosic. What I didn't expect once I started working on it was that this challenge would bring me to actually enjoy practicing. I was paying close attention to detail, but also to the larger shapes and phrases, trying to understand the forest of music instead of just looking at the individual trees of technique and perfection. I became more attuned to the reasoning behind musical choices. I was learning music without the aid of a teacher, and discovered that I can make good music without someone telling me exactly what to do. I was hearing and feeling results. I felt good about my playing for the first time in years. In addition, the precious time alone with the violin became a bit of a break from being a wife and mother. It was as though I was revisiting my childhood dream of being a soloist. I felt that I had never played better. What would have happened if I had practiced with this much passion and interest when I was still in college? Where would I be now? Had I missed the path of stardom, or at least distinction, because I didn't have the discipline?
It turns out that all of my practicing still didn't make me concertmaster. But I did learn a little about potential. How ironic that when I finally had the self-confidence and drive to pursue greatness, I was stymied by my lack of those very qualities in the past. I can only go forward now. I can't practice 3 hours a day and still maintain a relationship with my husband and daughter, but I can try to maintain some continuity in my practice, retaining those gems of wisdom that I wrested from the walls of my mind. If further opportunities arise, I can step forward and pursue them with confidence.
