One of my all-time favorite audition stories came from a member of a major symphony when I asked him what the worst audition he’d ever heard was like:
Apparently, this orchestra never pre-screens their candidates, making for a quite egalitarian yet massively populated pool of candidates. Due to this policy, there are at least a handful of auditionees that have the panel rolling on the floor (figuratively, at least) in suppressed laughter or else slouched in their chairs with tears of pain rolling down their cheeks.
The double bass always attracts a motley crew of candidates anyway, and having no screening process usually means that there are some real characters stepping up on stage to strut their stuff. While painful to the ears of the long-suffering committee, it can also provide for some much-needed levity after hour after interminable hour of nervously executed symphonic snippets.
One such bass player entered for his audition (behind a screen, of course) and started tuning extremely loudly, roaring away on his low strings in an apparently futile attempt to get in tune. Not a good sign.
The committee was fidgeting away while waiting for the candidate to begin, only to slowly realize that, in fact, the candidate had begun, and that these crass attempts at tuning had somehow morphed into the first movement of the Vivaldi Sonata No. 3 for Cello, played as low as possible in the fist position of the bass. The candidate clacked and rattled his way through the first few phrases of this piece, grinding his low strings like some sort of lower life form, with the committee looking at each other with some amusement.
This audition was going to be fun.
The committee cut off the “grinder” after a bit, asking him to play the final movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, a tricky excerpt that requires quite a bit of agility on the part of the player. Not easy even for a top-caliber player, so how would this fellow fare.
Long pause.
The first four notes came out, a confused jumble of crud, then nothing.
Long pause.
Another attempt at those first four notes.
Silence.
Finally (and with much hysterically silent laughter from the committee), this fellow burped and snorted his way through this excerpt, like a piano falling down a set of stairs, only less graceful.
Having fun now, the committee proceeded to ask the candidate to play rehearsal number 9 from Ein Heldenleben, an even more fiendishly difficult passage for string bass.
Longer pause.
Finally, the proctor (the person with the candidate who points out what excerpts to play and helps coordinate the audition facilitation) calls out from the candidate’s side of the screen:
Proctor: Uh… the candidate declines to play this excerpt…
Committee: OK–thank you!
Don’t you just love bass auditions?
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Thank goodness for the partition!
I am a PM for a smaller orchestra and we do not turn anyone away who wants an audition. Subsequently we have had some questionable people show up to our auditions. I really don’t mind if this is their first audition ever- we have heard some really great players who fall into this category who have obviously been coached by a good teacher on how to have a successful audition, not only playing wise but what to do in the warm-up room, bring a snack, be nice to the person running the audition, etc. However, we have ended up with a few people (one was even a bassist) like the one described in Jason’s post, who were so far below “first time audition” line that I really had to question why they were there and why they were wasting their time, my time and the committee’s time. They were both young and old. I wonder if because we were a community orchestra for such a long time that people don’t realize that we are now a fully professional, full time ROPA orchestra and we have standards we aspire to in our subs, extras as well as obviously the core and part-time contracted players.
So here is my hint to any young bassists wanting to audition for the first time- go for it!
But make sure that you are prepared as best as possible with your excerpts (there are many different ways to prepare mentally and physically so choose what works for you) and be sure that you are prepared to possibly stay there all day. Wear nice clothes but something you can play in, wear comfortable shoes, bring a book or iPod, bring a snack just in case, and learn all you can from this audition and carry it on to your next one where the experience will never be quite the same. Good luck!