Wiiliam, I tried to address you by name as the author of your letter, even your letter was meant (?) & understood as directed to the crowd, also speaking for many people.
There are very amusing things with many amateurs. Several of them hide behind a make up as being young or as being very well experienced, just to camouflage that they miss a lot of knowledge about what they try to speak about. There is e.g. a gentleman here in Bavaria, who set up a page about the history of the hunting horn & the different styles of playing, but confesses that he is a bloody amateur with a minimum of musical knowledge. He even talks about the Viennese Hunting Horn School preferring the 3/6 rhythm (not an error, it is on his page such !!). This is an extreme example. Would it not be better, to "lets not get carried away" and asking innocent questions instead ? The professionals here on the list would answer at best surely. Why to try Till, if one has a deficit in rhythm; why to try Bruckner no.4, if one has trouble with f2, why to try Oberon, if one is shy to enter alone, why trying Mahler no.6, if one cannot play loud ........ Self restriction comes first of all. Otherwise one will waste time of the orchestra, time of the audition jury, time of the audience, time of oneself, time of the neighbors, ....... But does it help, barking back, if the answerer has "hit ones nerve" definitely ? And, it is nonsense, mere nonsense, to put all kind of auditions into one pot. An audition to test you if you will be able to perform a certain piece with an amateur orchestra, well, can you call this an audition, a real audition ? If your playing experience & horn schooling has not brought you up to the level required for a certain piece, even thousand hours with the one piece will not bring you to the LEVEL, by no means. But it will bring frustration to you - in return. The kind of auditions, you obviously wrote about, is also nonsense. If a player is good as high or as low player, the musical community around knows that & will call that person for the gig anyway. If you fail or if you ruin the gig, they will never call you again. That is reality, no matter how much you practice. I hope strongly, that you have understood, what I meant "practicing the brain involved" . It is not important how many hours you practice, but HOW you practice. But one last thing: It is very funny, how otherwise very successful individuals, doing extreme well in their profession, are less successful in their "hobbies" (e.g. playing a musical instrument), but how "big" they speak about their playing. There is an island with a single bus line. The busses are quite short but very wide, because all travelers want to sit beside the driver. (So to speak about people, looking for a first chair.) ################################################################################################################## Am 12.05.2010 um 22:30 schrieb [email protected]: > > > > Because unlike you I am not: > > 1) A professional player > 2) Do not have a full time playing gig > 3) Play mostly part time when I have the free time. > > I do not have the decades of experience that people like yourself might have. > My hours of prep work are polishing up and making consistent excerpts I am > not familiar with. > > This is how I want to prepare. This is how I want to spend my free time > working up for an audition. > > It is nothing like prepping for an entire orchestra concert. This is prep > work for very small but over exposed parts that make or break a gig. > > Let's say you have to rebuild a transmission on a car. Does this mean you > have to rebuild everything on the car? No. > > Also, what are you referring to when you speak of 'high-school slang'? Please > cite specific examples. > > I'm sorry, but I make a very good living as a non-horn player and I'm not > going to give up my salary and very well paying job to go back to school and > pile up more mountains of debt. This is the path I chose. This is the path > I'm happy with. I'm a part time player. I'm an amateur. > > You tell me to be a realist - I don't see how I am doing anything but that. > > I think you're reading far to much into my post and instead of listening > you're trying to come up with two excuses and a judgement for every single > sentence that I say. > > -William > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Hans Pizka <[email protected]> > To: The Horn List <[email protected]> > Sent: Wed, May 12, 2010 4:03 pm > Subject: Re: [Hornlist] The Nuances of Auditions > > > William, > if you need that much time as preparation for an audition, how will you > survive > in the orchestra if you need a comparable amount of time preparing yourself > for > every performance & the rehearsals, as this would exceed the 24 hours a day > given by nature. > > You should be prepared a long time before applying for an invitation to > become a > participant., prepared enough as a player but not prepared for a certain job. > If > you need that much time, it would mean, you would become inflexible totally & > be > a nightmare for the future section you will play with. > > Get your standard pieces prepared for yourself & NOT for the audition, so you > have to refresh them only. Get all kind of standard repertory (excerpts) > prepared for yourself also, to be prepared for the audition or any audition. > It > is good being prepared for high & low excerpts as well, as this will keep > your > embouchure flexible. > > It is not the amount of spent time bringing you to success during the > audition. > It is how you practice with the brain involved. What will you do, if the > conductor wants to hear a certain passage much faster or much slower or > softer > than you had it prepared ? You would be lost definitely. No chance. If the > conductor or the leader of the section or the other principal players find > you > inflexible, forget your dreams, FORGET THEM. ZERO chance. > > Be prepared as a player first. Then look around where you would have chances. > Do > not look for the places you want to be in the future. Do not dream of it. Be > a > realist. Do all according to your REAL potentials, otherwise forget all. > > Keeping this in mind, practice just three hours (playing time) but with much > use > of the brain. to arrive at the top of the success-ladder. > > Good luck ! > Less is often more !!!!! > Do not waste your time by practicing things you can do very well allready. Be > a > lot self critical. It is not important how good to be you think. The only > criteria will be what the listeners will think about your playing & your > presentation. > ############################################################################################################## > Am 12.05.2010 um 21:07 schrieb [email protected]: > >> >> Prepping for my next audition, I got to thinking about all of the nuances >> that > I've come across during my prep work and during my audition that could have > helped me and could have hurt me. >> >> There was a discussion on the list a while ago about when one plays in an > audition (1st or not 1st) and there was almost a consensus that playing 1st > would be in ones favor. Whether this is because of psychology with the > auditioning panel, or being prepared for a specific time, or not stewing > around > in a practice room and listening to other players annoy you, well it could be > anything. >> >> I was reminded of this as I was trying to calculate the number of hours I >> have > prepped so far for this audition (including fundamental exercises and a warm > up > every morning) and calculated that at my current rate I will prep about 100 > to > 125 hours for this next audition (which is about 40 days multiplied by 2.5 > hours > playing each day and some change). The last audition I had, I went first and > prepped about 100 hours into and did fairly well. The one before that, I > prepped > about 60 hours and didn't do as well as I wanted to. >> >> So, I wonder, if a survey could be handed out to audition applicants during > auditions to find out how much prep work they've done coupled with their > audition time and audition order if one could find any patterns as to their > audition results? I suppose this could be done by giving a very specific > survey > to determine how many hours they practiced instead of asking them to write > down > a number, then letting the personnel manager write down the order of who won > and > sending in the surveys. >> >> I know it's probably purely academic, but I do wonder about patterns >> occurring > in every day things - and wonder what patterns that human psychology will > play > into audition results. >> >> >> This sounds more of a psychology thesis than a music thesis because it can > apply to acting and any sort of audition or even sports tournaments, but I > thought I'd share my thoughts with the group. >> >> -William >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> post: [email protected] >> unsubscribe or set options at >> https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/hpizka%40me.com > > _______________________________________________ > post: [email protected] > unsubscribe or set options at > https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/valkhorn%40aol.com > > > _______________________________________________ > post: [email protected] > unsubscribe or set options at > https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/hpizka%40me.com _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
