How to Prepare for your Audition

How to Prepare for High School Auditions:

Here's some things to help you prepare for your All-State Audition. Use the SDHSAA website to help you prepare. This is where you can print new copies of the scale sheets and list of terms. The website also has a sample Terms Test and sight reading examples from previous years.

Use this timeline to keep on track on your preparation:

• June - Begin work on scale preparation (memorize your chromatic scale).

• July - Select a solo and begin serious preparation.

• August - Begin sight-reading exercises from several sources.

• September - Scales up to tempo.

• October - Notes, rhythms, and articulations of solo hashed out. Regular sight-reading practice added into practice routine.

• November - Notes, rhythms, and articulations of etude hashed out.

• December - Solo and etude up to tempo. Use Christmas break for serious practice time. Study musical terms.

• January - Phrasing, dynamics, and musicality hashed out in solo, etude, and scales.

• Audition week - "Pretend Audition" Run through everything in front of people. Review terms.

Here's a suggested practice schedule:

• 20 minutes on scales. Rotate which scales you are working on, tackle the harder scales first. Use a METRONOME.

• 15 minutes on sight reading. Sight reading is not a natural gift, you need to work on it to be good at it. Please practice sight reading every time you practice. You can find practice books in the RHS music library, or on the SDHSAA website.

• 5-10 minutes on terms. Give your brain and lips a break.

• 30 minutes on solo and etude. Work on your music in chunks, slowly at first, and then put the chunks together. Don't rush learning your solo, or it will not be polished. Use a METRONOME.
  

The following is advice from the judges who will judge you:

1. Two or three weeks is certainly not enough time to prepare for an audition. You will be very frustrated when you are not prepared.

2. Give the judge an original score of your solo. If you do not have printed copies for both you and your judge, give the judge a piano score. Be sure it is the same edition of the solo you are performing. Musical markings in a different edition may vary from yours and therefore make it confusing for you and the judge.

3. If you change articulation marks on your solo, put them in the judge’s copy and explain them to the judge. It is all right to change marks to correspond to a fine recording, but the judge must know what you have done.

4. You should not play “piano cues.” They are not for you. You also need not count extended rests. Pause briefly and go to the next entrance.

5. Please do not use photocopies of your solos in the audition. If a judge notices this, they must note it on your ballot. This is unethical and illegal. No judge should be placed in a position of compromised ethics.

6. SCALES: While the tempo, as given on the sheet, must be observed as a minimum, you should only consider playing the scales faster to the extent that you are able to play them with the clarity and accuracy of an even tone, technique, and pitch throughout the range. Chromatic scales must be memorized!

7. Please empty the water from your instrument prior to the audition. At the least, empty it when you notice it.

8. Please understand that an All-State Band audition is not a measure of your worth as a band member or, more importantly, as a person. The All-State Band audition is a measure of how well you played for seven minutes on that particular day. You can only be expected to do your best. Expecting more is unrealistic and expecting less is cheating yourself.

9. Please do not ask the judge “how you did.” This can be awkward for you and the judge.

10. On the audition day, check twice to make sure that you have the correct audition form filled out and that you have all of your audition music with you. Judges always encounter a few students who do not have their solo or their scales. A few walk off with the sight-reading. This wastes time and will rattle even the best player.

11. Talk with your director about appropriate dress. Well-dressed students give the judge a positive impression immediately. It also puts you in a positive frame of mind.

12. Try very hard to have your instrument in excellent playing condition for the audition. In the event that something goes wrong at the last moment, tell the judge what has happened and see if you can be moved to later in the schedule.

13. Do everything you can to be on time for the audition. Be prepared to enter the room when the previous student leaves.