What I listen for in scholarship auditions

ByBret Pimentel

It’s scholarship audition season again, which means I get to meet and listen to some very nervous high school seniors (and community college sophomores).

My university is a small regional one, so our audition process probably isn’t as intense as some of the big name-brand music schools. If you’re preparing for an audition, you should definitely check in with that school to see what they expect, but here’s what I usually hear auditionees play, and what I’m thinking while I listen.

Scales

I’ll likely ask to hear major scales in two or three keys, and maybe a chromatic scale as well. Generally top scholarship audition winners are ready to play all twelve, but if a prospective student only knows some of them then those are the ones I want to hear. They should be played in as many octaves as are practical for the instrument (or full range!). I don’t care much whether they are tongued, slurred, in some particular rhythm, etc. I do care that they are played evenly and with control, even if that means they are on the slow side. Fast and sloppy does not earn any scholarship dollars.

What I’m ultimately looking for is evidence of a disciplined, methodical approach to learning the instrument and its fingerings, throughout the instrument’s standard range. A student who has laid this groundwork probably has the dedication and practicing-related skills to succeed in college-level music studies.

Prepared repertoire

I prefer to hear something somewhat technical/notey plus something slower and more lyrical. It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s, say, two different etudes, or one repertoire piece that has elements of both.

In the more technical passage I’m interested in seeing evidence of ability to deal with lots of musical information at once: notes, articulations, alternate fingerings, etc. What this really boils down to is preparation—getting a relatively complicated piece into muscle memory. Again, I’m not especially concerned that the tempo be fast; if the student plays something polished and poised at a slower tempo then I know they will be capable of working the tempo up later.

For the more lyrical excerpt, I’m listening more specifically for musical thinking. Can the student join notes together into phrases, in at least a basic way? Can they execute dynamic changes and contrasts in a way that feels integral to the melodic line? Can they demonstrate fine control and beauty of tone?

Students who have had prior private lessons, or at least some good direction from a school band director, typically show up with etudes and/or repertoire from the instrument’s standard canon. That isn’t strictly necessary for purposes of evaluating students’ potential, but it does show that they have some idea of what they are getting into. Pop tunes or parts from their school concert band or marching band aren’t really appropriate, but if that’s all a student has then that’s what I’ll listen to. (I usually follow up with some questions to make sure they are clear about the nature of the degree program.)

Sight reading

Lots of auditioning students seem to regard sight reading as some kind of trap, like I’m trying to trick them into playing wrong notes so I can deny them a scholarship. But what I’m really interested in is seeing what approach they take to something new: are they able to count out rhythms, follow key signatures, and make some educated guesses about interpretation? Or do they seem to depend on someone else to teach them the rhythms by rote and remind them each time they play a wrong pitch? I have occasionally had students who are very good at executing something learned by rote or by ear—and these are valuable skills—but I need to verify their ability to read music. Substandard reading isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker if they show strong abilities in other areas, but I (and they) need to know what they are up against.

Habits and presentation

I always ask auditioning students about their practice habits, since the number of weekly practice hours required for college-level success can be surprising and overwhelming to incoming students. This isn’t really about me awarding scholarship money for being a good practicer—it’s about making sure the student is clear about expectations and shows willingness and enthusiasm for some hard work.

When I listen to an audition I’m acutely aware that this person is potentially someone I will spend many one-on-one hours with over the next several years, and I would like for that to be a pleasant experience. Factors like manners, dress and grooming, and communication skills aren’t part of what I am formally evaluating, but they do hint at what the student would be like to work with. I don’t have specific protocols or dress codes I expect them to adhere to, but I’m looking for some clues that they take the audition process seriously and want to lay groundwork for a positive student-teacher relationship.

I hope that helps. Good luck!

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    Practice slump checklist

    ByBret Pimentel

    Sometimes my students complain that they have had bad practicing days or weeks. Not that I have ever had this problem (ahem), but here are a few ideas for breaking out of a practicing slump.

    photo, Katy Wrathall
    photo, Katy Wrathall
    1. Check equipment. Slightly-malfunctioning gear can make you feel like a bad player. Be sure to eliminate this possibility.
      • Are your reeds functioning well? Prioritize response-balanced-with-stability over more subjective and malleable things like tone. Many reed players use unnecessarily stiff reeds; consider trying something a little softer if you haven’t lately.
      • Is your instrument functioning well? If you know how, check the most important adjustment screws (oboe: left hand stack, left G-sharp key, F resonance; saxophone: bis, G-sharp, right hand stack). Re-check basics like alignment of bridge keys. And, of course, make sure your instrument gets regular (at least annual) maintenance checkups. Professional instruments should probably get full mechanical overhauls every 5-10 years.
      • Are you using the best equipment for you? Don’t let new purchases be your go-to solution for every problem, but in some cases replacing an instrument or accessory can remove a roadblock to progress. (Do a reality-check with your teacher to make sure you aren’t just throwing away money chasing a quick fix.)
    2. Check technique. It might be you after all.
      • Have you warmed up thoroughly and correctly today? It’s best to do this at the beginning of your practice session, but there’s no rule that says you can’t warm up some more mid-session to double-check your tone production and reset your mental focus.
      • Have you reviewed all your fundamentals? Take a closer look at your posture, hand position, breath support, embouchure, voicing, finger movement, etc. Have you slipped back into a bad habit? Are you suffering the effects of a technique deficiency you know you should fix but haven’t gotten around to yet? If you don’t know how to fix it, check in with your teacher.
      • Can you release some tension? Frustration often goes hand-in-hand with tense muscles. Consider doing a little deep breathing, stretching, mindfulness practice, yoga, Alexander Technique, or whatever else puts your body back in balance.
      • Have you laid sufficient technical groundwork? If you are working on something especially difficult, is there something else you could practice as an intermediate step? Études, technical exercises, or other preparatory material can help bridge the gap between your current ability level and the ability level you need.
    3. Check your health. If your body isn’t responding well, your practice sessions will be difficult and unpleasant.
      • Have you been getting enough quality sleep? Implementing good sleep habits is a major upgrade to the function of your mind and body.
      • Are you eating balanced meals? Are you eating enough? Are you eating too much? Is your diet too low on good stuff and/or too high in bad stuff?
      • Are you getting outside for at least a few minutes of sunshine and “fresh” air? Sunshine is important to your body’s vitamin D level.
      • Are you stressed, or otherwise not at your best mentally? In some cases, professional counseling and/or treatment may be needed. If you are a college student, there is a good chance there are free, discreet counseling services available on your campus. In other cases, taking a break, getting a little exercise, talking something out with a friend or loved one, or just getting a change of scenery might be enough.
    4. Check your mindset.
      • Are you practicing mindlessly or without direction? Try making a short list of goals you would like to accomplish during this practice session. If you’re not sure where to start, make a quick recording (perhaps with the voice memo app on your smartphone) and listen to it to get some ideas about what needs improvement. If you don’t meet all your goals, you can tackle them again tomorrow or re-prioritize.
    5. Check your environment.
      • At what time of day are your practice sessions the most productive and pleasant? Do you practice best in the morning before your body is tired and your brain is full? Or do you get a second wind after the sun goes down?
      • What locations are most conducive to good practice sessions? Sometimes just changing the scenery can revitalize your focus and productivity. Practicing in places with different acoustical qualities can make you hear yourself in new ways and get your creative juices flowing.
      • What distractions are getting in your way? Can you reduce or remove them?
    6. Check your ego. Practicing should challenge you, but not overwhelm you.
      • Are you working on music that is inappropriately difficult for your current abilities? If you have some freedom to choose what you practice, consider working on something else for now and tackling this project later. If you are committed to a performance of something very difficult and have to make it work, be sure to include other things in your practice session that you can be successful at, to keep your motivation primed.

    Don’t let poor practice sessions bring you down—use them to refine your habits and make the next session your best yet.

  • Wind controllers as “practice” woodwinds

    ByBret Pimentel

    Can you use a wind controller, like the Akai EWI, the Yamaha WX, or the Roland Aerophone, as a convenient and/or quiet way to practice a “real” woodwind instrument, like the saxophone or the flute?

    No, not really.

    You can practice some very limited aspects of woodwind playing. For example, each of those wind controllers has fingering patterns that resemble (but are not identical to) the fingerings of standard woodwinds. If you are in the very early stages of playing a woodwind instrument and still trying to memorize fingerings, I suppose you could use a wind controller to help you with that specific task, to the extent that the fingerings do match.

    The Akai instruments have saxophone, flute, and oboe modes, plus the more flexible “EWI” mode that is quite saxophone-like, and even a couple of variations of a valved-brass-inspired mode. The Yamaha WX5 has several saxophone modes and a flute mode. The Roland instruments are set up to map fairly directly to saxophone fingerings, even going so far as to include some of the saxophone’s more problematic features like “palm” keys. However, with that exception, none even have all the keys needed to learn proper saxophone, flute, or oboe technique.

    (None of the instruments currently has a clarinet mode, presumably because the real-clarinet phenomenon of overblowing to odd-numbered partials raises some complications for an electronic instrument capable of many octaves of range. And none of the instruments has the physical keys to reasonably approximate bassoon technique.)

    Plus, in all cases, including the Rolands, none of them can fully imitate the “feel” of a standard woodwind. Beyond the very basic stage of learning fingering patterns, much of the fingering work that woodwind players practice has to do with nuances of the fingers’ interactions with the keys. Even switching from one flute to a slightly different model of flute can mean having to re-adapt to the keys’ precise locations, spring tensions, etc. Switching between a flute and a wind controller is a much larger leap.

    And, of course, no major wind controller currently provides a realistic approach to tone production. None has a reed that functions as such, and none has a flute-like embouchure hole. There are some superficial similarities like breath pressure being mapped to volume, or a bite-able mouthpiece that allows for something like saxophone-style jaw vibrato (or to the ill-advised reed instrument technique of bending pitch with jaw movement).

    So, can you practice on it? Not really.

    But the good news is that wind controllers (particularly, in my opinion, the Akai EWIs) have lots of potential as instruments in their own right. (If you aren’t familiar, look no farther than Michael Brecker’s playing for an eye-opener.)

    Rather than looking at wind controllers as a “practice” instrument or a low-budget stand-in, consider a wind controller to be an additional avenue for expression. Playing it well requires just as much hard work, but also brings worthwhile creative rewards.

  • What really went wrong? Leaning into problem spots

    ByBret Pimentel

    I have a recurring teaching challenge with my saxophone students who are tackling the altissimo register for the first time. They play a passage, and when they get to the altissimo note, if it doesn’t respond perfectly, they immediately stop playing. When I ask why, they look puzzled. “The note didn’t come out.”

    “Well, what did come out?” I might ask.

    More puzzlement. Sometimes I have to prompt them to play it again, and remind them to play it long enough to really hear it.

    “A weird honk,” they might finally conclude. Or “a terrible squeak.”

    “That’s a note,” I point out. It might be too low (honk) or too high (squeak). But it has a pitch, right? It isn’t the note we wanted, but it was something. And understanding what something it is helps us know what to try next. If it was a honk, the instrument responded at a too-low partial, and if it was a squeak, it responded at a too-high partial. There’s work to do to fix it, but we’re much farther along than we were the diagnosis was only as specific as “failure.”

    This approach is helpful with a variety of woodwind-playing problems. Don’t bail and declare failure at the first appearance of a problem. Try leaning into it. What does the problem really sound like? Can you make the problem happen again, on purpose? If you change something about your approach, does the sound change (even if it just changes to a different problem)? All of this information is potentially useful in finding a reliable, repeatable solution.

    Additionally, this approach encourages an attitude of curiosity and exploration, rather than self-judgment. That’s a much more fun and productive way to practice. It lets you finish your practice session eager to try again tomorrow, rather than dreading more failure.

    Run toward your problem spots, not away from them, and see what they can teach you.

  • Why I don’t loan out instruments

    ByBret Pimentel

    I am slowly building a good collection of high-quality instruments. It’s not easy to do that on a graduate student’s budget; I accomplish it by living frugally, saving carefully, shopping around, and generally putting a great deal of thought and planning into each purchase. I don’t buy instruments on credit. I protect my investments with conscientious care and maintenance, as well as an excellent insurance policy by a company that specializes in musical instrument coverage. (Incidentally, this policy quickly paid for itself, several times over, when there was an “incident” with my flute a couple of years ago. Seriously consider getting one if you don’t have one already!)

    Every now and then someone asks to borrow an instrument from me. Often it will be a saxophonist who needs a flute or clarinet for a gig they have already agreed to play. My policy, which I have upheld almost perfectly for several years now, is simple: I don’t loan instruments to anybody, for anything, period. Read More “Why I don’t loan out instruments”

  • How to convince me not to play your newly-composed piece

    ByBret Pimentel

    My inbox runneth over with invitations to buy and perform composers’ new pieces. I’d like to play new works, but some composers make it harder for me to accept their invitations. Here’s how:

    • Failure of fit. If I’m clearly just on your email-blast list of 3,000 clarinetists, there’s a fair chance your new piece doesn’t have any special appeal for me. But if it scratches one of my particular performance itches (like pieces for multiple-woodwinds soloist, woodwind instrument with live electronics, or “world” woodwinds) then a more limited mailing or a brief personal note will definitely catch my eye.
    • No reference material. If I have to guess what the piece is like from a title or a description, I probably won’t invest the money or time to give it a closer look. Give me a perusal score or recording, and preferably both. Recordings that are mediocre or computer-generated are acceptable—I just need a strong hint about what the music is like, not your fully-realized vision. And watermarked or even partial scores work, too. If I can’t find the reference materials on your website, I’ll assume they are not available, and probably won’t email you to ask.
    • Too restrictive. These days my recital performances are for a relatively small in-person audience and a larger online audience. If you’re uncomfortable with me putting a video on YouTube, I’m less interested in putting time and effort into it.
    • Logistics too costly. Pieces with extreme difficulty, large or unusual ensembles, complicated staging, rare instruments, etc. present real, practical obstacles to performance. The piece has to be compelling enough for me to decide to spend limited resources (time, money, called-in favors) on it. Some flexibility, such as piano reductions, optional cuts, or adaptable instrumentation, can convince me to try the piece in a lower-cost situation first, and then maybe like it enough to keep it in mind for the rare concerto opportunity later.

    Let’s work together and get some new works performed!

  • Ornaments are notes

    ByBret Pimentel

    I think there are some unintended consequences of the way ornamentation is notated in Western music. Often the ornaments are indicated with some kind of abstract symbol or with tiny “extra” notes (like grace notes), located visually outside of the music’s rhythmic structure. This sometimes leads less-experienced musicians to the conclusion, consciously or otherwise, that the ornaments do not have precise rhythms. Sometimes music teachers feed this problem by explaining the rhythmic aspects of ornamentation in a vague or misleading way.

    For example, many of my saxophone and oboe students are initially stymied by this moment in the first of the Ferling 48 Famous Studies:

    ferling-example.preview

    An unclear but common way to explain this is to indicate the pitch pattern of the turn—up a diatonic step and back down, down a diatonic (or maybe half-) step and back up—and then say something to the effect that these notes “steal” time from the F-natural. The grace notes in the next measure can be poorly explained by emphasizing that they go “on the beat.” These explanations aren’t factually incorrect, and make some sense to someone who already understands what the end result should sound like, but leave a lot of unanswered questions for students who are less experienced with ornamentation.

    To be clearer about the turn, I think it helps to think through exactly how many notes have to be played in the space of the F-natural (five) and some possible ways to fit them in. Here are a few: Read More “Ornaments are notes”

One Comment

  1. Hi,Brett! This is a great article! Organized, descriptive and specific, it’s a well-thought out and well-presented guide for prospective students. I think it’s also helpful that you give the reasons why you are looking out for certain elements and skills. In addition, I appreciate that you bring into focus signs of practice habits, critical thinking, professionalism, and other traits that have so much influence on our success in life.

    Reply

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