Something I never thought about when choosing to become a clarinet teacher is that I will literally spend the rest of my life practicing, demonstrating and recording middle school/high school auditions.
I remember being a kid and hating auditions so much – honestly I still do. But sitting down and recording those ‘easy’ (now there are… not so much when I was in high school) auditions is rather enjoyable.
My process:
I use my lovely Tascam – from Amazon that I have had the same batteries in for 4 years now ($100). I put it into Adobe Audition to make it extra loud as I know my students will play along with it. And then I both email it to them and drop it into their dropbox. Super simple.
The change from ‘disliking audition music’ when you are young to ‘enjoying sitting down and playing it to a much higher standard then you knew possible’ is still funny to think about. What in a person’s mentality changes? Is it that we just have more patience and control as we get older. I guess that is kinda a duh, we do, with life comes experience and change. I wonder if recording auditions bring back a more carefree unconscious memory, releasing some chemical that induces good feelings from a simpler time?
Kind of like when you go to the gym and your body starts releasing endorphins?
I will google it for later. For today my student has a recording of her new audition music and I have a mystery of the mind to ponder.
