Earlier this year my school was auditioning for region band. One of my friends didn’t know the mallet piece, so he just went up and played All Star on the marimba. My director said “Seriously!?!? SIT DOWN”
I showed up at all state honors in jeans and an adidas tshirt. This was in 7th grade and realized this was a problem when everybody else was in concert dress. When I walked in the audition room, the guy took a good old look at me with a nervous fake smile, and said "okayyyyyy, let's get started" and I could tell he was trying to get past choice of clothing.
Ro Josiah oh my bad I didn’t see the audition room part. Here in Georgia we are told to wear whatever we feel comfortable in, and the judges are behind a wall and can’t see us anyways. Don’t know anyone who auditioned with concert attire
I got thrown for a loop this year auditioning for district band as a percussionist. I did my timpani, auxiliary, and mallet rooms, and I get in line for the snare room. I am about to walk in and I hear the kid before me playing the etude we were supposed to prepare, and I realized I have learned a measure COMPLETELY wrong. So, in panic, I sit down and play on my lap, trying to figure this thing out before I walk in the room. If that wasn’t bad enough, I lost my audition slip in the hallway. I managed to find it and figure out the part and went into the room to play it. I managed to play the part correctly and I ended up making it as well. Overall, it went pretty well haha.
At my sophomore year audition for district band, I was in line for the mallet room, and I hear that a kid a few people in front of me didn’t even look at the mallet piece. When he went in the room, we all gathered around the door, and listened closely, cause what is he going to do😂. He played his scales, and paused a bit before playing the entire Tetris theme instead of the piece. For real. It was about a minute and a half long and all of us were dying laughing outside of the room. Long story short, we all got yelled at for not taking the audition “seriously.”
ruclips.net/video/wV7GijG9ZWY/видео.html Kind of related, but it's a great rendition of the Tetris theme by a contemporary big band. Thought I might share. Not my own btw
My horrible audition experience: I was auditioning on quads my freshman year of high school( I had done bass drum for my 8th grade year). I went into the room and we had never used drum stands so I was 90% prepared to hold them and play. I picked up the quads, put my sticks in the bag and then the instructor told me to play 8's. I started playing and then did the arounds and dropped both of my sticks. I restarted the rep with my drop sticks, and then proceeded to drop both of those sticks. I didn't make it on quads that year, but I went back to bass and did 2 more seasons and now this year I made it on quads
i auditioned for spirit of atlanta and we were supposed to have individual musical auditions before lunch and the physical exam after lunch, but the individual auditions took longer than they expected ,so i was the lucky individual that had to go first after visual block, after lunch, directly after the physical(i actually did pretty well, one of ~20 auditionees that got above 6 points out of ~150, i was sixteen at the time so i was pretty proud of myself) i spent as much time in the warm up room as i possibly could trying not to vomit (who puts the physical exam after lunch) and i went in to the audition room and my audition didnt go perfect to say the least, after i was done i just said sorry, they clearly knew me and the few other kids that got lucky enough to go after the exam werent going to do well. (The next day i did absolutely amazing in the visual individual audition, lesson learned: its okay if you mess up just keep your head up and dont think about it to much)
I was going to a college honor band that was actually where my band director at the time went to school. When I got to the audition I figured out that the person auditioning the clarinets was my band directories old professors. So I’m freaking out because I need to not do bad in front of him. But it ended up that to this date that was he worse audition I’ve ever had. But what was even more horrible was that some poor kid who played saxophone had left his whole saxophone in a different state and had to use the saxophone professor’s. So I guess I wasn’t the worst story that day but I can always remember that good comic relief I needed after a horrible audition.
My worst audition experience was my 8th grade year auditioning for honor band. I was so prepared to do the snare piece and the mallet piece. I walked into the audition room and started to play but 2 measures in my right stick went flying so i dropped my right one and started playing the piece WITH MY HANDS. But fortunately my mallet piece was pretty good but when i looked to see my score I GOT A HIGHER SCORE ON THE SNARE PIECE THAN THE MALLET PIECE! (i made it in btw)
I have a pretty funny story that happened to me during the winter drumline season. So this was my first year in winter drumline and I was bass 2. I've never really done anything as intense as that, and even the instructor said that this was probably the most physically demanding show they've done. We finish our full run, and the instructors clap for our performance, and I'm about to take a step, when my leg gives out completely and I start to fall. I notice it quickly, so I adjust my weight so I don't fall onto the drum, but instead fall backwards. Once I hit the ground, my harness raises up a little bit since it's hitting the ground, and my bass drum rolls over my face. Luckily because my harness was raised, it didn't really hurt since the harness just kind of made a ramp for my bass drum. My friends' reactions were a mixture of laughter and concern since I have a history of dislocating my knee. But now we just laugh about it since it's really funny.
So this year was my freshman year in highschool and long story short, I couldn't do band camp so I was thrown into Front Ensemble. The season ends, and I decide to stay in percussion, while also going back to clarinet whenever the band directors needed me to. Midterms come around, and basically what we had to do is audition for our chair placement IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CLASS. Percussion had to do a mallet exercise, while also choosing between a snare piece or timpani. I ultimately chose the snare piece, as I thought it would be easy /(oh how wrong I was.) Because I was scared to perform, I put off doing mine until the day before winter break started. Basically, how my school works, if you had good Enough grades and low enough absences, you were exempt from exams (except band kids, that's why many decided to do their auditions early) so there weren't many kids there to begin with. I do my mallet exercise, kinda just winging a little, then move on to the snare piece. That's when I realized: I hadn't practiced snare at all. I was SCARED. I start the piece, it was relatively easy, but at the very beggining I played VERY loud and EVERYONE LOOKED BACK AT ME. After that embarrassment, I fumble through the piece, and needless to say, I got dead last on chair placement. But this year, I'm going to practice harder than ever, and try for first chair! :D
I was doing an audition for our state's all state jazz band as a trumpet player. I had the etude for nearly 7 months, but I had recently moved to another part of the state that summer, so my practice was legitimately garbage. I join the jazz band at my new high school and because we are a very high level group, we were told that when we joined said group, we had to try out for all state jazz to stay in it. I practiced enough and got most of it down, but of course, I drew number 7, so basically no prep time. I walk in, and little do I know that my actual band director is the judge. I play what I can, but when I get to the fast 16th notes, I sing them in my head and pick up where I could play. I then do my sight reading, where I played 3 notes, none of which were on the page. After auditions are all over, I go and talk to my director, he asks what number I was, and I said 7. He then tells me the best statement I've heard. "Cody, you cannot sing the licks you can't play." TL;DR: I sang for an all state jazz trumpet audition and botched some sight reading.
My Horrible Audition Experience. Levi Seward, It was at my 6th grade band solo ensemble evaluation. I was so nervous that year, I nearly peed my pants. My band instructor told me that I had to play an 8th grade trombone solo. I had rehearsed it before, and I had it down. I went in, and the proctor walked me to my chair, and what happened next still changes all my audition experiences. The judge asked me to play the piece on my trombone, but my nerves got to me and I farted and became so embarrassed I started to cry. However the show had to continue. I got through it and walked out of the room crying into my tear soaked shirt. The kid going next asked me what happened and I told him I had farted. He looked at me weird and walked in the room. To my surprise I made a superior rating that year.
My worst audition experience. In 7th grade, I was auditioning for All-Region band and I had practiced my 3 parts which were Snare, Marimba, and Timpani, then there was sight reading. I had already gone through the first round of auditions placing 7th out of 128 other percussionists. So when the time came for me to audition, we had to play the whole of all our audition pieces. Now I started panicking because our Band Director told us we didn’t need to play the full piece for audition. Me being obedient didn’t practice it and I was representing my school because I was top band and I was the only one who made it this far. So I did really good on Snare and when the marimba part came, I had to sight read it as best as I could, which I had done terrible at and I just kinda died inside. But other than that, I did amazingly on timpani and great on sight reading. They had posted the scores and I actually almost made alternate, I was just one off and I will now practice the songs fully.
I was auditioning region band and the students were auditioning like normal. The monitor called 5 people to the marimbas to warm up for 30 seconds before we played individually. It didn’t matter which marimba you went to for the warm up, you could swap to your own school’s once it was your turn. So I went to a random marimba for the warm up and auditioned on it and was told to stay until all 5 were done auditioning. Well they called letter “AJ” and out of nowhere this 5’1” tiny girl comes running in my direction, pushed me and quickly adjusted the marimba to her size. Everybody laughed because she pushed me. I was humiliated. So for her audition, I stood in front of her and stared at her so she could get nervous, it didn’t work because she ended making region.
I auditioned for Honor Band in 8th grade because I thought that I had it like that. So I do good on the Timpani then the mallets but when I read the snare music all I could play was just the rhythm. There were lots of long rolls, flams, and stuff that I would have known today (still in Drumline) if it wasn’t for show style bands like Osborne High School (I go there).
So it was like a few days before winter break and me, a French Horn player was one of the few people to bring their instrument home to practice over the break. As a result of practicing regularly, one day while practicing I held my French Horn in such a way that my pinkie ring broke off. As I panicked I remembered that I had super glue so I gracefully coated the metal bit and stuck my pinkie ring in that area. This story now makes me more aware of the delicacy of my instrument.
I also went to Arcadia High School and was in the band all four years from 1997-2001. We definitely pride ourselves on our marching band, winterguard, and indoor drumline. Really cool to hear a fellow Apache share his story about being in band later in his high school years. We had a few people like that when I marched. Some joined in junior year, and we did have one or two join in their senior year. Go, Arcadia!
At regional band auditions- I was in line to audition, looks down, and realized I’d lost my audition tag (like name tag). It’s was my first audition, and we had just had a talk about how important the tags were for auditioning, (no tag = no audition) so of course I freaked out. Cue an hour long mental breakdown and search across the (freaking huge) school for a little audition tag. It was to the point where I was making people check the bottoms of their shoes (no joke). Finally, I get the courage to go to the directors in charge and get a new tag, all is well with the world (or so I thought). I get back to the audition room, the proctor brings me in and I’m getting ready to go. I go to empty my spit valve (I play euphonium), and guess what’s on my horn? My original audition tag. Needless to say that was not my year to make the regional band lol.
Oh boy, do I have a story. I was auditioning for district band this year. I’m a senior and had never gone to any festivals except for our county band, which doesn’t hold auditions. Around the start of the school year, I had started practicing for the audition, as well as college audition repertoire. The chaos of balancing multiple auditions at once probably caused the blunder I’m about to dreadfully relive. In every year prior, the audition for district band was a snare, mallet, and timpani solo. The auditions were blind and done in three rooms over the course of several hours depending on when you audition and how many kids are there auditioning. However, either due to carelessness, or having different priorities because of college auditions, I failed to notice that instead of a snare solo, the audition called for a multi percussion solo. I was playing snare solo 6 instead of multi percussion solo 6. I was confident going into the holding room, until I saw everybody looking at a different piece of music than me. I started chatting with my friend from a different school when I asked why everybody was looking at a multi percussion solo when my heart sank. I realized I learned the wrong solo. Until this point, I had never played a multi percussion solo, and for a district band audition it seemed pretty challenging. Luckily, I had my book with me and started learning the solo right away. I had a couple people help me out in learning the solo, knowing that I could get called at any second to audition. I figured out the piece as best as I could without having the actual drums with me. I started questioning if they would provide things like a triangle beater or a woodblock that I needed for the piece. The best part of this whole experience was going second from the end and having 5 hours in isolation to learn the piece, though I bet everybody that went around the time I did was probably ripping their hair out from stress and tension. Going into the audition room, they luckily had all the instruments and equipment needed. Though, because I was practically sight reading, and this was the first time I was playing anything multi percussion, on top of this being the first time I played this piece on real equipment, I crapped the bed all over that solo, it was just terrible. I’m being completely serious when I say that the performance I gave was honestly the worst thing I’ve ever played in front of other people. Everything else, though was great. However, I still didn’t make the festival. It stung and hurt a lot, considering my friend who helped me at the beginning got first chair. I found out a couple days later I missed the festival by one seat, I got 9th and they take 8, ouch. I also had the best timpani audition and the third best mallet audition, double ouch. It just wasn’t enough to get me in. Today, this doesn’t bother me much considering I got into both schools I auditioned at and I got some nice scholarship money too. Lesson learned- double check and make sure you’re playing the right piece before you audition.
It was 8th grade year, and our band had been called to play the national anthem at the baseball stadium in our city. I played percussion and still do today and i was assigned to crash cymbals. We had practiced it for a few weeks and finally when the day came, I was all stressed and all of my family was there cheering me on. The only twist was..... my band director had “forgotten” the crash cymbals in the band room at the school and claimed that he had “no space in his car” to take them. So my dad drove me and one of my friends back to our middle school (speeding HEAVILY btw) but when we got to the school, the janitors were still there but no one had saw us trying to get in. My dad pulled on the door of the band building and it broke the lock and popped open, we ran into the building got a key from another teacher and frantically looked for the crash cymbals in the room. Once we found them, we sped back to the stadium only to miss the national anthem by a few minutes when we heard the fireworks go off when we were sprinting to the stadium from our parked car. I still don’t forgive the band director...
I have a performance story: Our band was warming up in the warmup room getting ready for mpa (music performance assessment) and my nose started bleeding like heck. It got all over my uniform and I had to sit out the whole time. The sad thing was that my nose stopped bleeding as soon as it ended
When I was making the marching audition tape for the 2011 us army all american marching band, (I got in), I was playing the music in a block and snapped my shin and completed the prepared piece
UNT audition 2011-12 ish. I’m in front of Mark Ford about to play my marimba piece. I drove 5 hours for this audition. I felt good, I was ready ,this was the audition of my life. Prior to this. I was in the practice room just in the zone practicing on a little beat up 4.5 octave marimba. I sound great. I can’t be anymore ready than I was. I get Into the audition room and I see in front of me, a 5 octave marimba. I’ve never seen a 5 octave in my life. It completely mind f*cked me as my entire visual/muscle memory was off. After playing on a 4.5 octave for years something about those extra notes in the higher octave just threw me off so terribly. It was like looking at a completely different instrument. Anxiety and tunnel vision made all the bars blend together on the keyboard and I couldn’t tell what note was what…smh It seems silly, but man I blew it. So many wrong notes that I never played wrong before. I was so shaken and battered. I get to Paul rennick to play my snare piece and sight read and it was simple. I know it was simple. But I was so freaked out that I bombed that too. Cringe worthy bad. I teared up when I got my letter saying I didn’t make it, out of embarrassment and frustration of the worst audition I would ever do. Fast forward 10 years later I’m a Marine Drill Instructor. Funny how life works out.
Story: I was auditioning for my district band on mallets. I went into the first room, played the mallet solo, all was well. I went into the second room for the auxiliary stuff, played the snare solo, and played the auxiliary solo. Then the timpani solo came. I had my own timpani mallets from my school, and a nice mallet bag I brought with me. I played through the timpani solo, packed all my crap up, and drove back home. The next day, I walked into the band room to put back all the mallets I took with me. Then I realized I had 4 of the exact same timpani mallets. I did not bring 4 timpani mallets with me. The end
I auditioned for Cleveland orchestra youth orchestra and Elisabeth camus who was the auditioner, was the 2nd chair oboist behind Bob Mack of the Cleveland Orchestra. I started playing my piece for her and she cut me off within 4 measures....that was it. It was very abrupt and awkward
This year i auditioned for my regional band, but decided i was interested a mere 1.5 months before the audtions. I decided to go in for snare and mallets, and i practiced as much as i could. So the auditions are in 3 days, and im not even half way through my mallet piece. So i practice 5 hours straight the day before the audition to make sure i get the last half at least kinda ok. So the audition comes and i am the first one to audition. I go in, give the judge my form, and play the snare drum audition, which went pretty well. But after that he tells me im good to go. But I hadn't done my mallet audition, and this was my first time auditioning for something like this. I ask him if i come back later for my mallet piece, and he says im not marked for it. I. Was. Pissed. The stress id gone through for the past month was for nothing. I spoke to my band director and he went to get it figured out. It turns out it was a glitch in the system, and he gives me my new form. Great. I go in, and the judge tells me to play the beginning, and the last half, great. I play the first half ok, some mess ups but nothing to big. And then i get to the 2nd half. I pretty much played some rough estimates of what the piece was supposed to sound like, and i stopped because of how bad i was doing. I finished the piece, and was so disappointed. I was being so hard on myself about it, i didnt even want to see my results. But results came in and i got 2nd chair with mallets and an all state reccomendation on snare. Happy ending :)
So I am a junior that plays tuba. I was preparing to audition for WIBC (western international band clinic), and we do it during 6th period which is wind ensemble. I was called in to the audition, and I played my one peice which was a 2 octave chromatic scale on F. Then I was playing Minor Etude, didn't play it well, so my band director let me retry it. So I was about 5 measures in, and the school bell rang, we waited in case there were announcements, there were none, so I started playing. THEN, I was interrupted by the ANNOUNCEMENTS, so I had to stop again. Then after all that crap, I played without interruptions for once. And finished my audition with Danny Boy. Long story short, I made 7th alternate on tuba (I didn't make it). But I will try again next year.
It was my first audition ever for high school. All my percussion friends were hanging out and apparently that was the day of the auditions so we all missed it. Later that week the band teacher from the high school had to come to my middle school. I completely forgot to practice the marimba and snare part. Thankfully all of us forgot to practice and so the teacher made us play warm ups. Thankfully there was only 10 people in the pit and the drumline combined so we all got in.
I auditioned for synphonic orchestra. I auditioned with a jazz solo for vibraphone and an afrocuban solo for drums. They basically told me that they really didn't need mallet percussion (since they play like very old stuff and mallet percussion didn't even exist back then). Welp, I had 4 timpani lessons the month before (still my only timpani experience in my life). So I offered to just play some timpani stuff freestyle (to show off techniquie). I acted really confident about it as well. They said that they liked what I played and I seemed good enough so I didn't have to play timpani, so I actually just got in. My first and only audition. It is like a really good orchestra, and it is generally hard to get in, but to be fair, while I played inappropriate pieces, I was REALLY good for my age, and these pieces were polished lol.
Senior year of high school I decided to audition for my 2nd year of drum corps with the same organization. I got contracted November camp. No problems there. However, as drum corps is, there are multiple audition camps and you are expected to attend them even with a contract as it is you obligation to continue to get better between camps. December camp rolled around and I did not have my driver's license yet. My mom drove me about 30 minutes to a bus station where I was able to get a ticket to travel to the camp, and from there I had an arrangement with another auditionee to carpool. About halfway to the destination, the bus couldn't move up a hill full of ice, and traffic was atrocious. The bus was 3 hours late. And just as I was about to pull into the station, my ride wasn't responding. Another 30 minutes later, turns out he got into a car accident and his car became totaled. Now stuck in a bus station about 45 minutes away from the camp venue, I called the drum corps logistics manager. After some more time, I finally arrived to camp with 30 minutes left. Now at the camp, there is 30 minutes left before night block ends. And as contra player, I rely on using corps horns, but being the last player to arrive I had to use a convertible marching tuba (corps was ordering new horns to accommodate the new size of the hornline). Convertible marching tubas are the worst. After I put this one together, I was in a hurry and wanted to get a few reps in before the night landed. As I got into the gym, we were at standby, and the brass caption head just gave instructions to bring our horns up to carry position. Right as soon as I finished moving my horn, the lead pipe and mouthpiece fell apart on the gym floor. It was the only thing you could hear. Brass caption head took one look at me in front of the whole hornline: Brass Caption Head: Did you get a contract last camp? Me: Yep. Brass Caption Head: You're cut. *moves hands up to instruct us to move to playing position* It was the last rep of the block. I didn't actually get cut, but because my horn wasn't playable I had to sing all exercises including lip slurs, articulations, and long tones the rest of the camp.
I remember having such an anxiety attack in college as I was supposed to perform in front of all the head honchos of the music department. They all came into the room and I was on the floor and saying I can't breathe or feel like my limbs.
In eighth grade I played snare for one of the lower bands, the older snare player had moved schools so they had me learn how to read rhythms and offered me the part (I’m a first trumpet). I had a pretty good year, and I played well until our band went to Uil and went through the sight reading portion of the contest. The music was simple enough so I wasn’t worried about it...until I started playing and realized my snares were off. I had a large group of rests in the middle of the piece so I turned the snares on but I ended up missing my entrance and ended a whole measure after the rest of the band had stopped playing. Luckily the judges were very nice and didn’t take off points so we got straight 1’s.
My 8th grade year (30 something years ago) I was at region tryouts and apparently woke up that day with the flu. I don't remember much of the day, but I do remember that I kept having to go back in and play. At one point, somebody shook me awake to go back in because I had fallen asleep standing up! All I wanted was to get cut so I could go home. I was in the cafeteria asleep on a table when my band director came over to tell me I got first chair symphonic! If I had had my wits about me, I probably would have been way too nervous to have auditioned that well. It was a surreal day. (it was on snare, btw)
For one of my auditions, I was auditioning for the tenors, (this was the first time I've ever played tenors except for practicing) and I go into the audition room, and almost at the end of the audition piece there were a lot of rim shots in a row on drum 4 and I didn't hit any of the rim shots, so out of frustration I hit the drum as hard as I could on the final rim shot to try and actually hit but instead I broke the drum head but the good thing is that I still got the part.
So this year, im a senior and everyone in my band was required to audition for SRO (senior regional orchestra) so when I get there I'm one of the last to go and I'm talking to all my fellow percussionist and a junior comes back after her audition, and just so you know shes usually very quiet and kinda timid, so she comes back and she tells us that for the sight reading part for all of the instruments she just played our marching show... which was Gidzilla eats Las Vegas, and for snare she played the snare part of our part 3 drum break (she plays vibraphone). Anyways, she did not get in, and instantly threw her judges sheet away when she got it
Oh... that was the sight reading for SRO??? Glad I didn’t audition this year.... was going to but district choir was coming up. Btw, from Langley HS, but I have a couple friends in Oakton marching band. I don’t wanna sound creepy.
This reminds me of my jazz band concert. So our jazz band was very small with 7th and 8th graders. I was in 8th grade and our jazz band director was so bad. No matter how much we practiced we never got better. Then the concert came up and we were so unprepared. I’m in percussion so our jazz band director told us that there would be mallets and all the auxiliary percussion. But when we got there... there was literally nothing there except maracas, a vibraphone, and a drum set. There were also no mallets for the vibraphone. So for one of our songs me and my other percussionist had to play vibraphone together but there were no mallets. So I grabbed some old soft rubber mallets in my stick bag and me and my friend had to play with only one mallet😂😂😂 It was so bad everybody in the audience was laughing at us. That made me never want to do jazz band ever again.
My freshman year of high school, I tried out for Snare Drum on the drumline, and when I started 8's, I accidentally did alternating sticking (R L R L...). I started over, and I didn't get snare that year, but I did get bass 5
my 8th grade year i went to region band auditions and i was super excited i was there talking and hanging out with my friends and sudenley a nother kid walks up to me and said "oh cool is that a bassoon let me see" and proceeds to grab my bassoon and starts playing on it my reed was soaking wet and he just started playing on it i was shocked and my friends just looked at me . i threw my reed away and when my director asked i said someone steped on it. P.S. i did have an extra reed and i made the band
My worst audition experience. In 7th grade, I was auditioning for All-Region band and I had practiced my 3 parts which were Snare, Marimba, and Timpani, then there was sight reading. I had already gone through the first round of auditions placing 7th out of 128 other percussionists. So when the time came for me to audition, we had to play the whole of all our audition pieces. Now I started panicking because our Band Director told us we didn’t need to play the full piece for audition. Me being obedient didn’t practice it and I was representing my school because I was top band and I was the only one who made it this far. So I did really good on Snare and when the marimba part came, I had to sight read it as best as I could, which I had done terrible at and I just kinda died inside. But other than that, I did amazingly on timpani and great on sight reading. They had posted the scores and I actually almost made alternate, I was just one off and I will now practice the songs fully.
Before my first football game our band director said “we will not be marching with our flip folders” but I thought he said “we will not be needing our flip folders” and we were out of town so I couldn’t call my mom to bring it to me, so I went my entire first football game without my flip folder (keep in mind I was only in 8 grade and I had only payed these songs during practice) my punishment was that I had to do 20 eights and eights. So what did we learn? Always listen closely! (I play cymbals btw)
I have a horrible tenor accident story. This is my senior year of high school. I am the only tenor player in the line. We also have brand new Pearl carbon core drums for both snare and tenors. We were marching the last set in the second movement. It was a crab to the right. So as I'm marching my left foot didn't have enough clearance to go over my right foot. I tripped and went sideways then I think I kinda barrel rolled and slammed the drums into the ground. The drums fell off and I lied on my back with the harness still attached. I should also mention that we were marching on the pavement parking lot of my school. I scrapped my right knee just below the knee cap and off set to the right. The leg was bleeding with some control. And it wasn't too bad. My band director gave me an old shirt to wrap over the leg. This was before the lunch break and I was instructed to get a bandaid on it. I forgot to ask and so I marched the rest of the day with the shirt on my leg. This was also to first day of competition in the season and I knew I had to march. I marched with little trouble at that show. Sadly this was a terrible season and we had one of the worst seasons ever. My band director blamed the season on "show bias" judging which led us on the road to a bad season. The mark is still visible too. How can I sent a picture?
My worst audition experience was for a community theatre musical (Urinetown) I did the summer I graduated high school. They had asked me to prepare a rudimentary etude for snare, a piece on marimba, and play a few minutes of different groves on drumset. I played my snare and marimba portions, and then the drumset part came along, I didn't adjust the heights of the cymbals and I ended up accidentally knocking the crash over during one of the grooves. I quickly ended what I was playing as smoothly as possible, and went to pick up the cymbal stand that fell over. That year they let me play the drumset.
My worst audition experience isn't really the audition. But the aftermath. It was an audition for a week-long jazz band over the summer. I had to sight-read, and play a beat for each genre. The audition went amazing, and I got jazz band 4 ( second best). The actual bad part was the part of I went to the wrong jazz band audition.
Some expertise from a master memester: Megalovania is a song from a video game called Undertale. It is the theme played when you battle Sans (this skeleton wearing a blue jacket) which only happens in Genocide mode, if you murdered everyone in the game, so he has to get justice by killing you over and over again. (He can be defeated, however.)
Storytime. Last year I auditioned for the Blue Knights Percussion Ensemble as a junior in high school. I was auditioning for a mallet spot in the pit. Previously to the summer of 2018, I had never played 4 mallets or have seen anyone play with 4, till I went to Denver's drums along the Rockies and did the BKX camp. Anyways, we get to the individual audition and the techs ask me to play this difficult 4 mallet exercise that I was not 100% good on. So I start playing through it and then I start breaking like crazy, like a lawnmower engine trying to start. After that, I was like Ok there is no way I can do any worse from here, till I got to the solo piece. My playing was fine but it's what I did after playing it. I decided to play the all-state band audition for them and one of the techs recognized it and asked me to name the composer and song. To which I said I have no clue. I was so upset with myself, but, I got in on Glockenspiel and this year I'm on vibes so it all worked out somehow 😅 I am so happy to have the opportunity to play with such great musicians and I am looking forward to playing more!
My worst audition: I was auditioning for seventh grade honor band. I play clarinet and there weren't that many there so I was thinking I can get in easy. When I was halfway through the audition my bell slipped off of my clarinet (over greased the cork) and I go to pick it up, and my reed feel off and broke. Now I'm standing there with no reed and I immediately went to my case grabbed a reed and put it on. I could see the judge kinda glaring at me. (I didn't make it) Also I'm that kid that met you in NYC when the battle color detachment was there.
Last year during UIL we were doing this song called colliding visions and we noticed that we forgot the Cabaza at the band hall in school, so instead of not doing the part, I made the sound of it and still got a one👌👌
I was a sax trying out for all region jazz. I was informed by someone in my school there was a certain section in the music that we weren't supposed to play. This was not true. I only found out in the practice room before the audition. I didn't make it
I wanted to go to district band on tuba this year, but I wasn't chosen by my director. Two weeks before districts (it happened on Valentine's Day weekend this year), my director came up to me and told me that another tuba froma different school had to drop for some reason, and the director from that school had emailed him and asked him if I was still available. I immediately agreed, and my director said that a copy was being scanned and was on its way. However, I didn't get the music until four days before the auditions. I practiced for hours but sadly didn't make it to regionals, but my director came up to me afterwards and told me that I had gotten really close to passing the audition.
I auditioned for Phantom Regiment in 2020. I received a callback and was told that overall I did very well. At the next camp I felt like I did very well, just to be told that I was awful and that the euphonium players I listened to weren’t good enough.
Megalovania thing happened at 8th grade region when the Mallet auditions were happening. Everybody laughed super hard as soon as we were allowed to talk to eachother and a couple people even high fived the kid. He's now dubbed "The Megalovania Kid"
Ads for me (because you at one point asked): The Battle Cats and Jewel Blast: the temple and iron saga - battle Mecha and toon blast and to dots and undead nation: last shelter Lots of apps... And a lit mobile battery bank...
At an open class wgi audition for the 2018 season, we were playing through like standard 16th note stick control, the tech comes over to play on my drum, and all the variations were like perfectly in time, but the check pattern was like an almost perfect hand to hand with the tech, I ended up red in the face immediately, and got cut the next week
This happened this year. It was my first time auditioning for in all County band So how was auditioning for jazz band my director taught me how to do the audition piece at about 130 BPM. I walk into my audition quite confidently because I had quite a good tone while practicing I keep in mind I play Trombone and this piece goes through the slide positions quite quickly and so after my scales they were like, okay now that the the audition Piece so I took down. And it has four measures of frost at the beginning. Little did I know they had the tempo At about 215 BPM. So as I walk out quite annoyed and then I hear my judges for the audition talking about How slow I am most the practice it so slow. The sheet music had 130 BPM written on it.
I auditioned for a state honors band (ILMEA) before 8th grade. It was my first ever audition, and I didn’t know what I had to play until like a week before the audition. I walked into the room. Started playing through the scales, crying. Crying the entire time I played. Didn’t really stop crying till I got home. Did not get in.
So Freshman year of high school, I decided to audition for Drumline. This was my first time Doing anything Marching Band so I was pretty inexperienced. But I had made a spot on the cymbal line. I was happy with the decision. But then, two days into band camp, a transfer student from Hawaii comes to my school. He’s a Junior who’s already played Snare the year prior. Since he had more experience than me, they literally gave this transfer student my spot on the cymbal line and threw me into the Front Ensemble. Literally, no audition process. No challenges. The staff just “gave” him my spot and screwed me over in the process. Safe to say I was pissed.
I decided in 8th grade that I was gonna audition for the middle school jazz band on drums. I wasn’t able to prepare very well because I didn’t have a good drum set at the time, and even if I did, I didn’t have any knowledge or teaching on how to read drum set music, I also didn’t have the privilege of a private lessons teacher to help me, and our band director wasn’t very good with percussion. I barely knew how to read rhythms at that point, and I was a mess when it came to mallet instruments. Anyways, I went into the back storage closet to do my audition, and I tried my best... I think. It was really bad, and when I walked out, all of my fellow percussionists were outside the door trying to hide their laughter, some weren’t trying to hide it. It was pretty embarrassing and a little discouraging, but I got over it. I’m now in the Jazz Band as a sophomore in high school, and I’m pretty okay in my opinion. So what I’m trying to get across out of all this, is to never give up, try your best, and if you fall on your face, get up and try again harder.
Some auditioners will turn off snares between auditions, some won't. If snares are on while you play another instrument, or if snares are off while you play snare, it's going to suck. Always make sure to check the snare when walking into the audition room and before and after playing it.
I was Auxillary my first year in drumline and my instructor felt like I enjoyed playin' the aux. base drum (Sasha is what i called it and i still do to this day) and should be in Battery as base drum. This is my 2nd year in battery and 3rd year in drumline and I am so glad and thankful im in drumline. Now...my accidents i had 1) I slipped on a snare stick durin' our 4th movement of the show. I didnt fall but yeah i slipped and was base 5 2) same show but I bent my back too far and tumbled and managed to catch myself(ig its not a accident but i wouldve been hurt pretty bad) 3) a month ago durin' our performance, we were movin' towards the end of the 2nd movement and my mallet fell out of the mallet holder
My audition horror story is when I was fighting for the solo in my Junior year show. Well I practiced the solo at full tempo and my “audition” was at a football game during halftime and we marched at a really slow tempo and I got really nervous and played the solo at full tempo and slowed down halfway through and my band director that had retired the year before just said yea that was bad.
I play Baritone saxophone, and during my district Honor jazz audition (freshman) I started crying because of my nervousness. The Procter then told me to stop and rethink my choices to audition. I'm a junior now and I will hopefully make it this year. 🤞
I had a bad experience with an audition. I was trying out for percussion at my school concert band and i was very very very nervous. When i walked in and had a major voice crack when i introduced myself and it was so awkward. Then the snare music i printed out was missing a whole 4 measures and then some. Once i got to timpani it just got worst. I started to relax a bit more but still i was nervous. I totally murdered the music. It was the worst i ever sounded. When i played marimba it was better but i only knew a few of my scales so that didnt last too long. And that was the worst audition experience for me.
My worst audition experience was at a marching band performance our band was auditioning I was a freshman and was not in the marching block so they made the me and the others not in the block be slaves to the pit percussion(marimba,keyboard,etc) my job and this other girls job was to push a heavy speaker on a cart onto the field, and angle it toward the crowd. We get set up every thing is fine performance is fine. The girl helping me was put somewhere else so me being a skinny weak freshmen had to push the heavy speaker by myself but first i had to unagle the platform it was on so I pulled these pins to readjust the angle and the speaker went flying towards the entire crowd and landed on the turf everyone noticed. the tec just picked up the entire thing covered in turf and plopped it on the cart just told me to run cause we had 30 seconds to get off the field. Yeah i retired from speaker duty after that even though they reassured me that it was totaly replacable
My worst audition experience was my freshman year. I was trying out for jazz band. Side note I play the trombone. I practiced the music we were auditioning with and thought I was doing it pretty good. The day came of our audition and my spit valve came lose and was not covering the hole so my instrument sounded like poop. I was frantically running around asking other members of my section for either their instrument or tape. I ended up finding tape to use. I went in and informed my band director, who was in charge of auditions, what was going on. I did pretty good then I hand to sight read. When I got told this I almost started crying. I powered through it and also kind of gave up but still made it through. I suck at sight reading and left the audition and cried. I did not make it in that year, but I learned went in with more confidence the next year and made it in.
For the auditions for drumline my sophomore year, I had practiced all year for them (I'm a bari sax player so percussion was pretty foreign). On the day of my audition, I got REALLY sick, like the flu. I was really dizzy, nauseous, and I had the shits so every fart was very questionable. I also couldn't breathe very well and was almost completely deaf in one ear. I knew all of the audition pieces perfectly. It was going okay but I started getting really dizzy and I for sure needed to spew chunks. My mark time got off, then my playing got off. I didn't even make bass drum and was stuck AGAIN playing an instrument I didn't want to in marching band.
My sophomore year audition for region band I got really really freaked out. I was the first kid in 15 years at my school to go to region band auditions. I got in there, anxiety full blown, played my scales. They were alright but then it was the etudes. I played them with absolute adrenaline running through my veins. Five measures in I realize I played the wrong section, said “oh shit”, finished, and left the room crying. Absolute win I must say 😂
Not an audition but it was a solo. So my band director told me to play the song Argosy. It had chimes and marimba as I had to go to marimba while the chimes were by me. My mallet for the chimes fell onto my foot midway as I was struggling to play with my right hand while squatting to get the mallet.
Megalovania is a difficult song to play as it was originally written with 16th notes everywhere and a few 32nd note runs. There are definitely harder songs like Flight of the Bumblebee but there is no way you can play Megalovania without practicing.
When i was a freshman i tried out for district clarinet, there was a part where they told me to play various scales from memory, which i did pretty good at, but then they hit me with an e minor, and i completely drew a blank, so instead, i just redid my chromatic scale. The judge looked at me with the worst death stare ive ever seen, of course, i didnt make it, and to this day, i still dont remember how to play e minor.
Not Marching band but one time I was auditioning for a local rock band. I had my sticks and pedal since they said there would be a house kit to play and they didn't want a ton of people with their drum kits there. Almost immediately I realize that the kit is something they probably got for free on the side of the road. Bad heads and cymbals and it was all out of tune. Nobody who auditioned could make it sound good and not understanding why the band stopped us a few bars in saying we werent good enough. Nobody made the band that day.
I had one similar to tony. In my rehearsal for solo and ensemble. I practiced on a marimba. And I didn’t bring mallets cause i forgot. The only mallets I found in the percussion room were rubber. So I used soft rubber mallets on a crappy xylo
playing tuba, on my way to region band auditions. i'm in the backseat on my way there, and since it's a school horn, i didn't have a case/anything to really protect it. it's in the backseat and we go over a speed bump a little too hard, and the instrument flips over and hits against the seat. they're not cushioned seats either, so all 4 valves broke at the stem - just split in half. obviously, had to sit out of the audition that year.
Okay, so I was playing drum set for Bohemian Rhapsody at a concert, we had just played a piece only for mallets, and my friend was in charge of cutting the snares of then back on after (I was playing the mallet piece), but he decided to not cut the snares back on.... at first, all snare hits were rim knocks, so i didn't notice, then I got to my first fill of the piece and of course, the snares are off. I stay calm and try to turn the snares on before my next fill, but I miss and just end up looking like an idiot. Somehow I kept a straight face the whole time though and the band director didn't even notice and he was super happy about the piece (I had never played drum set and I had learned the piece in only 2 weeks as a freshman)
It was my 8th grade year and I was playing at the solo and ensemble festival. I had originally planned to play a tenor solo and a marimba solo, but I barely practiced and so I had to drop the tenor one. As for the marimba one, I only knew like half the piece. The second half had a lot of accidentals and I only started practicing the week before the festival. So I went in there, told the judge that I only knew half the piece which was a stupid mistake as he chewed me out for it. Anyway when results of what we got(1 being the best and 4 or 5 being the worst), I was the only one in my percussion section that didn't obtain a 1 and only got a 3. I was actually planning on just not going to the festival at all but when my teacher found out he was really pissed, telling me that I was gonna receive a 0 and get the least important parts for the rest of the pieces we were playing later in the year. I was starting to really dislike band because of how strict my teacher was since I was in the top band and he had super high expectations for us which is why I quit band when I started high school earlier this year. Somehow I was second chair but maybe that's because I was one of the two people that made all region band in the first semester.
I was trying out for district band in 7th grade. I’m a euphonium player so all I had to bring was my instrument my music in my mouth piece. So I bring all those things in and we start walking to the audition room. Then, we get into a hallway where we can’t talk. Then, I drop my mouthpiece, to my surprise it doesn’t fit into my instrument due to the massive dent in the mouthpiece , but I can’t say anything to the proctor because we can’t talk in the hallway. So I had to wait until we got to the audition room tell them about my mouthpiece. So the proctor told me to run all the way back to the warm-up room and grab my back up mouth piece. I ran back to the warm-up room got t I ran back to the warm-up room, got the mouthpiece and did my audition. My audition was terrible because I had never used the backup mouth pice before. I got cut.
This past summer I auditioned for a band camp and I walked in and they asked me to do the sightreading and I randomly started coughing during the middle of it. This isn’t so bad except for the fact that I play saxophone. But I still made first chair in the top band so I’m pleased.
One kid in my band had just started playing his instrument that school year. He walked into the regional audition and played All Star.
Did he make it tho?
@@CavinLee wh- what
@@peach6405 lol no, but he was an alternate
Earlier this year my school was auditioning for region band. One of my friends didn’t know the mallet piece, so he just went up and played All Star on the marimba. My director said “Seriously!?!? SIT DOWN”
F#C#A#A#G#F#F#BA#A#G#G#F#
F#C#A#A#G#G#F#F#D#C#
Nathan Wilson I read that as religion band, idk why, but I did
I showed up at all state honors in jeans and an adidas tshirt. This was in 7th grade and realized this was a problem when everybody else was in concert dress. When I walked in the audition room, the guy took a good old look at me with a nervous fake smile, and said "okayyyyyy, let's get started" and I could tell he was trying to get past choice of clothing.
Ro Josiah in the concert or rehearsal?
@@me-it9jn it was the audition
Ro Josiah oh my bad I didn’t see the audition room part. Here in Georgia we are told to wear whatever we feel comfortable in, and the judges are behind a wall and can’t see us anyways. Don’t know anyone who auditioned with concert attire
@@me-it9jn Yeah I live in cali, everything is in front of a judge in a classroom
I got thrown for a loop this year auditioning for district band as a percussionist. I did my timpani, auxiliary, and mallet rooms, and I get in line for the snare room. I am about to walk in and I hear the kid before me playing the etude we were supposed to prepare, and I realized I have learned a measure COMPLETELY wrong. So, in panic, I sit down and play on my lap, trying to figure this thing out before I walk in the room. If that wasn’t bad enough, I lost my audition slip in the hallway. I managed to find it and figure out the part and went into the room to play it. I managed to play the part correctly and I ended up making it as well. Overall, it went pretty well haha.
That is what happened at regional
But the question is did you make it
@@CarlosRuiz-cr9uo he said yes
At my sophomore year audition for district band, I was in line for the mallet room, and I hear that a kid a few people in front of me didn’t even look at the mallet piece. When he went in the room, we all gathered around the door, and listened closely, cause what is he going to do😂. He played his scales, and paused a bit before playing the entire Tetris theme instead of the piece. For real. It was about a minute and a half long and all of us were dying laughing outside of the room. Long story short, we all got yelled at for not taking the audition “seriously.”
ruclips.net/video/wV7GijG9ZWY/видео.html
Kind of related, but it's a great rendition of the Tetris theme by a contemporary big band. Thought I might share. Not my own btw
Thank you, EMC, for sharing my story of embarrassment and redemption 🙏
My horrible audition experience: I was auditioning on quads my freshman year of high school( I had done bass drum for my 8th grade year). I went into the room and we had never used drum stands so I was 90% prepared to hold them and play. I picked up the quads, put my sticks in the bag and then the instructor told me to play 8's. I started playing and then did the arounds and dropped both of my sticks. I restarted the rep with my drop sticks, and then proceeded to drop both of those sticks. I didn't make it on quads that year, but I went back to bass and did 2 more seasons and now this year I made it on quads
Asked for xymox pad for Christmas, didn’t get it in time so my parents just had the order receipt in my stocking. I hope I get it by the end of 2020
StablestRex hopefully...
Keep us posted for when it comes in 2030
You’re probably right
A bit too optimistic wouldn't you say?
2021*
i auditioned for spirit of atlanta and we were supposed to have individual musical auditions before lunch and the physical exam after lunch, but the individual auditions took longer than they expected ,so i was the lucky individual that had to go first after visual block, after lunch, directly after the physical(i actually did pretty well, one of ~20 auditionees that got above 6 points out of ~150, i was sixteen at the time so i was pretty proud of myself) i spent as much time in the warm up room as i possibly could trying not to vomit (who puts the physical exam after lunch) and i went in to the audition room and my audition didnt go perfect to say the least, after i was done i just said sorry, they clearly knew me and the few other kids that got lucky enough to go after the exam werent going to do well. (The next day i did absolutely amazing in the visual individual audition, lesson learned: its okay if you mess up just keep your head up and dont think about it to much)
I was going to a college honor band that was actually where my band director at the time went to school. When I got to the audition I figured out that the person auditioning the clarinets was my band directories old professors. So I’m freaking out because I need to not do bad in front of him. But it ended up that to this date that was he worse audition I’ve ever had. But what was even more horrible was that some poor kid who played saxophone had left his whole saxophone in a different state and had to use the saxophone professor’s. So I guess I wasn’t the worst story that day but I can always remember that good comic relief I needed after a horrible audition.
My worst audition experience was my 8th grade year auditioning for honor band. I was so prepared to do the snare piece and the mallet piece. I walked into the audition room and started to play but 2 measures in my right stick went flying so i dropped my right one and started playing the piece WITH MY HANDS. But fortunately my mallet piece was pretty good but when i looked to see my score I GOT A HIGHER SCORE ON THE SNARE PIECE THAN THE MALLET PIECE! (i made it in btw)
I mean, whatever works works I guess.
HOW! just how
Sophia Brigham i'm just that good😎
Besar. Maybe they really didn’t care and just saw that you didn’t stop and kept going.
Not about how you fail but how you recover. You clearly knew your stuff because you kept going vs choking
I have a pretty funny story that happened to me during the winter drumline season. So this was my first year in winter drumline and I was bass 2. I've never really done anything as intense as that, and even the instructor said that this was probably the most physically demanding show they've done. We finish our full run, and the instructors clap for our performance, and I'm about to take a step, when my leg gives out completely and I start to fall. I notice it quickly, so I adjust my weight so I don't fall onto the drum, but instead fall backwards. Once I hit the ground, my harness raises up a little bit since it's hitting the ground, and my bass drum rolls over my face. Luckily because my harness was raised, it didn't really hurt since the harness just kind of made a ramp for my bass drum. My friends' reactions were a mixture of laughter and concern since I have a history of dislocating my knee. But now we just laugh about it since it's really funny.
So this year was my freshman year in highschool and long story short, I couldn't do band camp so I was thrown into Front Ensemble. The season ends, and I decide to stay in percussion, while also going back to clarinet whenever the band directors needed me to. Midterms come around, and basically what we had to do is audition for our chair placement IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CLASS. Percussion had to do a mallet exercise, while also choosing between a snare piece or timpani. I ultimately chose the snare piece, as I thought it would be easy /(oh how wrong I was.) Because I was scared to perform, I put off doing mine until the day before winter break started. Basically, how my school works, if you had good Enough grades and low enough absences, you were exempt from exams (except band kids, that's why many decided to do their auditions early) so there weren't many kids there to begin with. I do my mallet exercise, kinda just winging a little, then move on to the snare piece. That's when I realized: I hadn't practiced snare at all. I was SCARED. I start the piece, it was relatively easy, but at the very beggining I played VERY loud and EVERYONE LOOKED BACK AT ME. After that embarrassment, I fumble through the piece, and needless to say, I got dead last on chair placement. But this year, I'm going to practice harder than ever, and try for first chair! :D
I was doing an audition for our state's all state jazz band as a trumpet player. I had the etude for nearly 7 months, but I had recently moved to another part of the state that summer, so my practice was legitimately garbage. I join the jazz band at my new high school and because we are a very high level group, we were told that when we joined said group, we had to try out for all state jazz to stay in it. I practiced enough and got most of it down, but of course, I drew number 7, so basically no prep time. I walk in, and little do I know that my actual band director is the judge. I play what I can, but when I get to the fast 16th notes, I sing them in my head and pick up where I could play. I then do my sight reading, where I played 3 notes, none of which were on the page. After auditions are all over, I go and talk to my director, he asks what number I was, and I said 7. He then tells me the best statement I've heard. "Cody, you cannot sing the licks you can't play."
TL;DR: I sang for an all state jazz trumpet audition and botched some sight reading.
My Horrible Audition Experience. Levi Seward,
It was at my 6th grade band solo ensemble evaluation. I was so nervous that year, I nearly peed my pants. My band instructor told me that I had to play an 8th grade trombone solo. I had rehearsed it before, and I had it down. I went in, and the proctor walked me to my chair, and what happened next still changes all my audition experiences. The judge asked me to play the piece on my trombone, but my nerves got to me and I farted and became so embarrassed I started to cry. However the show had to continue. I got through it and walked out of the room crying into my tear soaked shirt. The kid going next asked me what happened and I told him I had farted. He looked at me weird and walked in the room. To my surprise I made a superior rating that year.
Sorry for the traumatic experience, but if that was me, I would start laughing hysterically.
Same
My worst audition experience. In 7th grade, I was auditioning for
All-Region band and I had practiced my 3 parts which were Snare, Marimba, and Timpani, then there was sight reading. I had already gone through the first round of auditions placing 7th out of 128 other percussionists. So when the time came for me to audition, we had to play the whole of all our audition pieces. Now I started panicking because our Band Director told us we didn’t need to play the full piece for audition. Me being obedient didn’t practice it and I was representing my school because I was top band and I was the only one who made it this far. So I did really good on Snare and when the marimba part came, I had to sight read it as best as I could, which I had done terrible at and I just kinda died inside. But other than that, I did amazingly on timpani and great on sight reading. They had posted the scores and I actually almost made alternate, I was just one off and I will now practice the songs fully.
Wow, just starting my first year!
CurlyFrye
When you audition just stay calm and your audition will go great.
I was auditioning region band and the students were auditioning like normal. The monitor called 5 people to the marimbas to warm up for 30 seconds before we played individually. It didn’t matter which marimba you went to for the warm up, you could swap to your own school’s once it was your turn. So I went to a random marimba for the warm up and auditioned on it and was told to stay until all 5 were done auditioning. Well they called letter “AJ” and out of nowhere this 5’1” tiny girl comes running in my direction, pushed me and quickly adjusted the marimba to her size. Everybody laughed because she pushed me. I was humiliated. So for her audition, I stood in front of her and stared at her so she could get nervous, it didn’t work because she ended making region.
I auditioned for Honor Band in 8th grade because I thought that I had it like that. So I do good on the Timpani then the mallets but when I read the snare music all I could play was just the rhythm. There were lots of long rolls, flams, and stuff that I would have known today (still in Drumline) if it wasn’t for show style bands like Osborne High School (I go there).
So it was like a few days before winter break and me, a French Horn player was one of the few people to bring their instrument home to practice over the break. As a result of practicing regularly, one day while practicing I held my French Horn in such a way that my pinkie ring broke off. As I panicked I remembered that I had super glue so I gracefully coated the metal bit and stuck my pinkie ring in that area. This story now makes me more aware of the delicacy of my instrument.
I also went to Arcadia High School and was in the band all four years from 1997-2001. We definitely pride ourselves on our marching band, winterguard, and indoor drumline. Really cool to hear a fellow Apache share his story about being in band later in his high school years. We had a few people like that when I marched. Some joined in junior year, and we did have one or two join in their senior year. Go, Arcadia!
At regional band auditions- I was in line to audition, looks down, and realized I’d lost my audition tag (like name tag). It’s was my first audition, and we had just had a talk about how important the tags were for auditioning, (no tag = no audition) so of course I freaked out. Cue an hour long mental breakdown and search across the (freaking huge) school for a little audition tag. It was to the point where I was making people check the bottoms of their shoes (no joke). Finally, I get the courage to go to the directors in charge and get a new tag, all is well with the world (or so I thought). I get back to the audition room, the proctor brings me in and I’m getting ready to go. I go to empty my spit valve (I play euphonium), and guess what’s on my horn? My original audition tag. Needless to say that was not my year to make the regional band lol.
Oh boy, do I have a story. I was auditioning for district band this year. I’m a senior and had never gone to any festivals except for our county band, which doesn’t hold auditions. Around the start of the school year, I had started practicing for the audition, as well as college audition repertoire. The chaos of balancing multiple auditions at once probably caused the blunder I’m about to dreadfully relive. In every year prior, the audition for district band was a snare, mallet, and timpani solo. The auditions were blind and done in three rooms over the course of several hours depending on when you audition and how many kids are there auditioning. However, either due to carelessness, or having different priorities because of college auditions, I failed to notice that instead of a snare solo, the audition called for a multi percussion solo. I was playing snare solo 6 instead of multi percussion solo 6. I was confident going into the holding room, until I saw everybody looking at a different piece of music than me. I started chatting with my friend from a different school when I asked why everybody was looking at a multi percussion solo when my heart sank. I realized I learned the wrong solo. Until this point, I had never played a multi percussion solo, and for a district band audition it seemed pretty challenging. Luckily, I had my book with me and started learning the solo right away. I had a couple people help me out in learning the solo, knowing that I could get called at any second to audition. I figured out the piece as best as I could without having the actual drums with me. I started questioning if they would provide things like a triangle beater or a woodblock that I needed for the piece. The best part of this whole experience was going second from the end and having 5 hours in isolation to learn the piece, though I bet everybody that went around the time I did was probably ripping their hair out from stress and tension. Going into the audition room, they luckily had all the instruments and equipment needed. Though, because I was practically sight reading, and this was the first time I was playing anything multi percussion, on top of this being the first time I played this piece on real equipment, I crapped the bed all over that solo, it was just terrible. I’m being completely serious when I say that the performance I gave was honestly the worst thing I’ve ever played in front of other people. Everything else, though was great. However, I still didn’t make the festival. It stung and hurt a lot, considering my friend who helped me at the beginning got first chair. I found out a couple days later I missed the festival by one seat, I got 9th and they take 8, ouch. I also had the best timpani audition and the third best mallet audition, double ouch. It just wasn’t enough to get me in. Today, this doesn’t bother me much considering I got into both schools I auditioned at and I got some nice scholarship money too. Lesson learned- double check and make sure you’re playing the right piece before you audition.
It was 8th grade year, and our band had been called to play the national anthem at the baseball stadium in our city. I played percussion and still do today and i was assigned to crash cymbals. We had practiced it for a few weeks and finally when the day came, I was all stressed and all of my family was there cheering me on. The only twist was..... my band director had “forgotten” the crash cymbals in the band room at the school and claimed that he had “no space in his car” to take them. So my dad drove me and one of my friends back to our middle school (speeding HEAVILY btw) but when we got to the school, the janitors were still there but no one had saw us trying to get in. My dad pulled on the door of the band building and it broke the lock and popped open, we ran into the building got a key from another teacher and frantically looked for the crash cymbals in the room. Once we found them, we sped back to the stadium only to miss the national anthem by a few minutes when we heard the fireworks go off when we were sprinting to the stadium from our parked car. I still don’t forgive the band director...
I have a performance story:
Our band was warming up in the warmup room getting ready for mpa (music performance assessment) and my nose started bleeding like heck. It got all over my uniform and I had to sit out the whole time. The sad thing was that my nose stopped bleeding as soon as it ended
Bruh having a stick bag malfunction is tooooo real.
I've been there. Sticks everywhere.
When I was making the marching audition tape for the 2011 us army all american marching band, (I got in), I was playing the music in a block and snapped my shin and completed the prepared piece
I't's every drummers nightmare realising you didn't turn the snares on... happens to even good players sometimes.
UNT audition 2011-12 ish.
I’m in front of Mark Ford about to play my marimba piece. I drove 5 hours for this audition. I felt good, I was ready ,this was the audition of my life.
Prior to this. I was in the practice room just in the zone practicing on a little beat up 4.5 octave marimba. I sound great. I can’t be anymore ready than I was.
I get Into the audition room and I see in front of me, a 5 octave marimba. I’ve never seen a 5 octave in my life. It completely mind f*cked me as my entire visual/muscle memory was off. After playing on a 4.5 octave for years something about those extra notes in the higher octave just threw me off so terribly. It was like looking at a completely different instrument. Anxiety and tunnel vision made all the bars blend together on the keyboard and I couldn’t tell what note was what…smh
It seems silly, but man I blew it. So many wrong notes that I never played wrong before. I was so shaken and battered.
I get to Paul rennick to play my snare piece and sight read and it was simple. I know it was simple. But I was so freaked out that I bombed that too. Cringe worthy bad.
I teared up when I got my letter saying I didn’t make it, out of embarrassment and frustration of the worst audition I would ever do.
Fast forward 10 years later I’m a Marine Drill Instructor. Funny how life works out.
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Perfectly balanced as everything should be
Story: I was auditioning for my district band on mallets. I went into the first room, played the mallet solo, all was well. I went into the second room for the auxiliary stuff, played the snare solo, and played the auxiliary solo. Then the timpani solo came. I had my own timpani mallets from my school, and a nice mallet bag I brought with me. I played through the timpani solo, packed all my crap up, and drove back home. The next day, I walked into the band room to put back all the mallets I took with me. Then I realized I had 4 of the exact same timpani mallets. I did not bring 4 timpani mallets with me. The end
I auditioned for Cleveland orchestra youth orchestra and Elisabeth camus who was the auditioner, was the 2nd chair oboist behind Bob Mack of the Cleveland Orchestra. I started playing my piece for her and she cut me off within 4 measures....that was it. It was very abrupt and awkward
This year i auditioned for my regional band, but decided i was interested a mere 1.5 months before the audtions. I decided to go in for snare and mallets, and i practiced as much as i could. So the auditions are in 3 days, and im not even half way through my mallet piece. So i practice 5 hours straight the day before the audition to make sure i get the last half at least kinda ok. So the audition comes and i am the first one to audition. I go in, give the judge my form, and play the snare drum audition, which went pretty well. But after that he tells me im good to go. But I hadn't done my mallet audition, and this was my first time auditioning for something like this. I ask him if i come back later for my mallet piece, and he says im not marked for it. I. Was. Pissed. The stress id gone through for the past month was for nothing. I spoke to my band director and he went to get it figured out. It turns out it was a glitch in the system, and he gives me my new form. Great. I go in, and the judge tells me to play the beginning, and the last half, great. I play the first half ok, some mess ups but nothing to big. And then i get to the 2nd half. I pretty much played some rough estimates of what the piece was supposed to sound like, and i stopped because of how bad i was doing. I finished the piece, and was so disappointed. I was being so hard on myself about it, i didnt even want to see my results. But results came in and i got 2nd chair with mallets and an all state reccomendation on snare. Happy ending :)
So I am a junior that plays tuba. I was preparing to audition for WIBC (western international band clinic), and we do it during 6th period which is wind ensemble. I was called in to the audition, and I played my one peice which was a 2 octave chromatic scale on F. Then I was playing Minor Etude, didn't play it well, so my band director let me retry it. So I was about 5 measures in, and the school bell rang, we waited in case there were announcements, there were none, so I started playing. THEN, I was interrupted by the ANNOUNCEMENTS, so I had to stop again. Then after all that crap, I played without interruptions for once. And finished my audition with Danny Boy. Long story short, I made 7th alternate on tuba (I didn't make it). But I will try again next year.
It was my first audition ever for high school. All my percussion friends were hanging out and apparently that was the day of the auditions so we all missed it. Later that week the band teacher from the high school had to come to my middle school. I completely forgot to practice the marimba and snare part. Thankfully all of us forgot to practice and so the teacher made us play warm ups. Thankfully there was only 10 people in the pit and the drumline combined so we all got in.
Thanks for sharing my story! Merry Christmas :)
Merry Christmas! Great 2-days of videos!
I auditioned for synphonic orchestra.
I auditioned with a jazz solo for vibraphone and an afrocuban solo for drums.
They basically told me that they really didn't need mallet percussion (since they play like very old stuff and mallet percussion didn't even exist back then).
Welp, I had 4 timpani lessons the month before (still my only timpani experience in my life). So I offered to just play some timpani stuff freestyle (to show off techniquie). I acted really confident about it as well.
They said that they liked what I played and I seemed good enough so I didn't have to play timpani, so I actually just got in.
My first and only audition.
It is like a really good orchestra, and it is generally hard to get in, but to be fair, while I played inappropriate pieces, I was REALLY good for my age, and these pieces were polished lol.
Senior year of high school I decided to audition for my 2nd year of drum corps with the same organization. I got contracted November camp. No problems there. However, as drum corps is, there are multiple audition camps and you are expected to attend them even with a contract as it is you obligation to continue to get better between camps.
December camp rolled around and I did not have my driver's license yet. My mom drove me about 30 minutes to a bus station where I was able to get a ticket to travel to the camp, and from there I had an arrangement with another auditionee to carpool. About halfway to the destination, the bus couldn't move up a hill full of ice, and traffic was atrocious. The bus was 3 hours late. And just as I was about to pull into the station, my ride wasn't responding. Another 30 minutes later, turns out he got into a car accident and his car became totaled. Now stuck in a bus station about 45 minutes away from the camp venue, I called the drum corps logistics manager. After some more time, I finally arrived to camp with 30 minutes left.
Now at the camp, there is 30 minutes left before night block ends. And as contra player, I rely on using corps horns, but being the last player to arrive I had to use a convertible marching tuba (corps was ordering new horns to accommodate the new size of the hornline). Convertible marching tubas are the worst. After I put this one together, I was in a hurry and wanted to get a few reps in before the night landed. As I got into the gym, we were at standby, and the brass caption head just gave instructions to bring our horns up to carry position. Right as soon as I finished moving my horn, the lead pipe and mouthpiece fell apart on the gym floor. It was the only thing you could hear. Brass caption head took one look at me in front of the whole hornline:
Brass Caption Head: Did you get a contract last camp?
Me: Yep.
Brass Caption Head: You're cut. *moves hands up to instruct us to move to playing position*
It was the last rep of the block. I didn't actually get cut, but because my horn wasn't playable I had to sing all exercises including lip slurs, articulations, and long tones the rest of the camp.
I remember having such an anxiety attack in college as I was supposed to perform in front of all the head honchos of the music department. They all came into the room and I was on the floor and saying I can't breathe or feel like my limbs.
In eighth grade I played snare for one of the lower bands, the older snare player had moved schools so they had me learn how to read rhythms and offered me the part (I’m a first trumpet). I had a pretty good year, and I played well until our band went to Uil and went through the sight reading portion of the contest. The music was simple enough so I wasn’t worried about it...until I started playing and realized my snares were off. I had a large group of rests in the middle of the piece so I turned the snares on but I ended up missing my entrance and ended a whole measure after the rest of the band had stopped playing. Luckily the judges were very nice and didn’t take off points so we got straight 1’s.
How in the world does someone bring there own marimba somewhere. They're huge!
My 8th grade year (30 something years ago) I was at region tryouts and apparently woke up that day with the flu. I don't remember much of the day, but I do remember that I kept having to go back in and play. At one point, somebody shook me awake to go back in because I had fallen asleep standing up! All I wanted was to get cut so I could go home. I was in the cafeteria asleep on a table when my band director came over to tell me I got first chair symphonic! If I had had my wits about me, I probably would have been way too nervous to have auditioned that well. It was a surreal day. (it was on snare, btw)
For one of my auditions, I was auditioning for the tenors, (this was the first time I've ever played tenors except for practicing) and I go into the audition room, and almost at the end of the audition piece there were a lot of rim shots in a row on drum 4 and I didn't hit any of the rim shots, so out of frustration I hit the drum as hard as I could on the final rim shot to try and actually hit but instead I broke the drum head but the good thing is that I still got the part.
You...
*Broke* a tenor head?
How hard did you hit it??
@@cam0227 It was very old and used I hit very hard, but in the end I payed for it
So this year, im a senior and everyone in my band was required to audition for SRO (senior regional orchestra) so when I get there I'm one of the last to go and I'm talking to all my fellow percussionist and a junior comes back after her audition, and just so you know shes usually very quiet and kinda timid, so she comes back and she tells us that for the sight reading part for all of the instruments she just played our marching show... which was Gidzilla eats Las Vegas, and for snare she played the snare part of our part 3 drum break (she plays vibraphone). Anyways, she did not get in, and instantly threw her judges sheet away when she got it
Oh... that was the sight reading for SRO??? Glad I didn’t audition this year.... was going to but district choir was coming up.
Btw, from Langley HS, but I have a couple friends in Oakton marching band. I don’t wanna sound creepy.
This reminds me of my jazz band concert. So our jazz band was very small with 7th and 8th graders. I was in 8th grade and our jazz band director was so bad. No matter how much we practiced we never got better. Then the concert came up and we were so unprepared. I’m in percussion so our jazz band director told us that there would be mallets and all the auxiliary percussion. But when we got there... there was literally nothing there except maracas, a vibraphone, and a drum set. There were also no mallets for the vibraphone. So for one of our songs me and my other percussionist had to play vibraphone together but there were no mallets. So I grabbed some old soft rubber mallets in my stick bag and me and my friend had to play with only one mallet😂😂😂 It was so bad everybody in the audience was laughing at us. That made me never want to do jazz band ever again.
My freshman year of high school, I tried out for Snare Drum on the drumline, and when I started 8's, I accidentally did alternating sticking (R L R L...). I started over, and I didn't get snare that year, but I did get bass 5
Merry Christmas man. I hope Santa gives yuh many yummy drummy thingz. Love you man keep up the work!!!!!
my 8th grade year i went to region band auditions and i was super excited i was there talking and hanging out with my friends and sudenley a nother kid walks up to me and said "oh cool is that a bassoon let me see" and proceeds to grab my bassoon and starts playing on it my reed was soaking wet and he just started playing on it i was shocked and my friends just looked at me . i threw my reed away and when my director asked i said someone steped on it. P.S. i did have an extra reed and i made the band
My worst audition experience. In 7th grade, I was auditioning for
All-Region band and I had practiced my 3 parts which were Snare, Marimba, and Timpani, then there was sight reading. I had already gone through the first round of auditions placing 7th out of 128 other percussionists. So when the time came for me to audition, we had to play the whole of all our audition pieces. Now I started panicking because our Band Director told us we didn’t need to play the full piece for audition. Me being obedient didn’t practice it and I was representing my school because I was top band and I was the only one who made it this far. So I did really good on Snare and when the marimba part came, I had to sight read it as best as I could, which I had done terrible at and I just kinda died inside. But other than that, I did amazingly on timpani and great on sight reading. They had posted the scores and I actually almost made alternate, I was just one off and I will now practice the songs fully.
Before my first football game our band director said “we will not be marching with our flip folders” but I thought he said “we will not be needing our flip folders” and we were out of town so I couldn’t call my mom to bring it to me, so I went my entire first football game without my flip folder (keep in mind I was only in 8 grade and I had only payed these songs during practice) my punishment was that I had to do 20 eights and eights. So what did we learn? Always listen closely! (I play cymbals btw)
I have a horrible tenor accident story. This is my senior year of high school. I am the only tenor player in the line. We also have brand new Pearl carbon core drums for both snare and tenors. We were marching the last set in the second movement. It was a crab to the right. So as I'm marching my left foot didn't have enough clearance to go over my right foot. I tripped and went sideways then I think I kinda barrel rolled and slammed the drums into the ground. The drums fell off and I lied on my back with the harness still attached. I should also mention that we were marching on the pavement parking lot of my school. I scrapped my right knee just below the knee cap and off set to the right. The leg was bleeding with some control. And it wasn't too bad. My band director gave me an old shirt to wrap over the leg. This was before the lunch break and I was instructed to get a bandaid on it. I forgot to ask and so I marched the rest of the day with the shirt on my leg. This was also to first day of competition in the season and I knew I had to march. I marched with little trouble at that show. Sadly this was a terrible season and we had one of the worst seasons ever. My band director blamed the season on "show bias" judging which led us on the road to a bad season. The mark is still visible too. How can I sent a picture?
My worst audition experience was for a community theatre musical (Urinetown) I did the summer I graduated high school.
They had asked me to prepare a rudimentary etude for snare, a piece on marimba, and play a few minutes of different groves on drumset.
I played my snare and marimba portions, and then the drumset part came along, I didn't adjust the heights of the cymbals and I ended up accidentally knocking the crash over during one of the grooves. I quickly ended what I was playing as smoothly as possible, and went to pick up the cymbal stand that fell over.
That year they let me play the drumset.
My worst audition experience isn't really the audition. But the aftermath. It was an audition for a week-long jazz band over the summer. I had to sight-read, and play a beat for each genre. The audition went amazing, and I got jazz band 4 ( second best). The actual bad part was the part of I went to the wrong jazz band audition.
Some expertise from a master memester:
Megalovania is a song from a video game called Undertale. It is the theme played when you battle Sans (this skeleton wearing a blue jacket) which only happens in Genocide mode, if you murdered everyone in the game, so he has to get justice by killing you over and over again. (He can be defeated, however.)
I watched this at 10:47 PM and "Have a Good Morning" still made my night
3:55 "Cracked" me up lol XD
Storytime. Last year I auditioned for the Blue Knights Percussion Ensemble as a junior in high school. I was auditioning for a mallet spot in the pit. Previously to the summer of 2018, I had never played 4 mallets or have seen anyone play with 4, till I went to Denver's drums along the Rockies and did the BKX camp. Anyways, we get to the individual audition and the techs ask me to play this difficult 4 mallet exercise that I was not 100% good on. So I start playing through it and then I start breaking like crazy, like a lawnmower engine trying to start. After that, I was like Ok there is no way I can do any worse from here, till I got to the solo piece. My playing was fine but it's what I did after playing it. I decided to play the all-state band audition for them and one of the techs recognized it and asked me to name the composer and song. To which I said I have no clue. I was so upset with myself, but, I got in on Glockenspiel and this year I'm on vibes so it all worked out somehow 😅 I am so happy to have the opportunity to play with such great musicians and I am looking forward to playing more!
megalovania is my song
also i made a drumline version on my channel
Respect.
DDDAAbGFDFG
CCDAAbGFDFG
BBDAAbGFDFG
BbBbDAAbGFDFG
LifeOnTheLedgerLines ayy it’s you
ruclips.net/video/IgpI-zfxK1c/видео.html
Just reviewed the video
Muy bueno 😎
My worst audition:
I was auditioning for seventh grade honor band. I play clarinet and there weren't that many there so I was thinking I can get in easy. When I was halfway through the audition my bell slipped off of my clarinet (over greased the cork) and I go to pick it up, and my reed feel off and broke. Now I'm standing there with no reed and I immediately went to my case grabbed a reed and put it on. I could see the judge kinda glaring at me. (I didn't make it)
Also I'm that kid that met you in NYC when the battle color detachment was there.
Last year during UIL we were doing this song called colliding visions and we noticed that we forgot the Cabaza at the band hall in school, so instead of not doing the part, I made the sound of it and still got a one👌👌
I was a sax trying out for all region jazz. I was informed by someone in my school there was a certain section in the music that we weren't supposed to play. This was not true. I only found out in the practice room before the audition.
I didn't make it
New hi-hat and stand for Christmas 👍
I wanted to go to district band on tuba this year, but I wasn't chosen by my director. Two weeks before districts (it happened on Valentine's Day weekend this year), my director came up to me and told me that another tuba froma different school had to drop for some reason, and the director from that school had emailed him and asked him if I was still available. I immediately agreed, and my director said that a copy was being scanned and was on its way. However, I didn't get the music until four days before the auditions. I practiced for hours but sadly didn't make it to regionals, but my director came up to me afterwards and told me that I had gotten really close to passing the audition.
I auditioned for Phantom Regiment in 2020. I received a callback and was told that overall I did very well. At the next camp I felt like I did very well, just to be told that I was awful and that the euphonium players I listened to weren’t good enough.
Random question:
Do u ever say good night
Yes
No
Megalovania thing happened at 8th grade region when the Mallet auditions were happening. Everybody laughed super hard as soon as we were allowed to talk to eachother and a couple people even high fived the kid. He's now dubbed "The Megalovania Kid"
Merry Xmas
Ads for me (because you at one point asked): The Battle Cats and Jewel Blast: the temple and iron saga - battle Mecha and toon blast and to dots and undead nation: last shelter
Lots of apps... And a lit mobile battery bank...
I asked for tenor drums for Christmas but I thought I wouldn't get them, but I did!
Wut?! Lucky
@@lifeontheledgerlines8394 I know right!
Got 2 tenor pads and a couple snare pads for christmas. This could be the first extreme tenor practice pad.
If i ever had to audition like in tony"s story, I'd use the end of the sticks instead of the head.
At an open class wgi audition for the 2018 season, we were playing through like standard 16th note stick control, the tech comes over to play on my drum, and all the variations were like perfectly in time, but the check pattern was like an almost perfect hand to hand with the tech, I ended up red in the face immediately, and got cut the next week
This happened this year. It was my first time auditioning for in all County band So how was auditioning for jazz band my director taught me how to do the audition piece at about 130 BPM. I walk into my audition quite confidently because I had quite a good tone while practicing I keep in mind I play Trombone and this piece goes through the slide positions quite quickly and so after my scales they were like, okay now that the the audition Piece so I took down. And it has four measures of frost at the beginning. Little did I know they had the tempo At about 215 BPM. So as I walk out quite annoyed and then I hear my judges for the audition talking about How slow I am most the practice it so slow. The sheet music had 130 BPM written on it.
I auditioned for a state honors band (ILMEA) before 8th grade. It was my first ever audition, and I didn’t know what I had to play until like a week before the audition. I walked into the room. Started playing through the scales, crying. Crying the entire time I played. Didn’t really stop crying till I got home. Did not get in.
So Freshman year of high school, I decided to audition for Drumline. This was my first time Doing anything Marching Band so I was pretty inexperienced. But I had made a spot on the cymbal line. I was happy with the decision. But then, two days into band camp, a transfer student from Hawaii comes to my school. He’s a Junior who’s already played Snare the year prior. Since he had more experience than me, they literally gave this transfer student my spot on the cymbal line and threw me into the Front Ensemble. Literally, no audition process. No challenges. The staff just “gave” him my spot and screwed me over in the process. Safe to say I was pissed.
Merry chrisman
Merry Christmas!
I decided in 8th grade that I was gonna audition for the middle school jazz band on drums. I wasn’t able to prepare very well because I didn’t have a good drum set at the time, and even if I did, I didn’t have any knowledge or teaching on how to read drum set music, I also didn’t have the privilege of a private lessons teacher to help me, and our band director wasn’t very good with percussion. I barely knew how to read rhythms at that point, and I was a mess when it came to mallet instruments. Anyways, I went into the back storage closet to do my audition, and I tried my best... I think. It was really bad, and when I walked out, all of my fellow percussionists were outside the door trying to hide their laughter, some weren’t trying to hide it. It was pretty embarrassing and a little discouraging, but I got over it. I’m now in the Jazz Band as a sophomore in high school, and I’m pretty okay in my opinion. So what I’m trying to get across out of all this, is to never give up, try your best, and if you fall on your face, get up and try again harder.
Some auditioners will turn off snares between auditions, some won't. If snares are on while you play another instrument, or if snares are off while you play snare, it's going to suck. Always make sure to check the snare when walking into the audition room and before and after playing it.
I was Auxillary my first year in drumline and my instructor felt like I enjoyed playin' the aux. base drum (Sasha is what i called it and i still do to this day) and should be in Battery as base drum. This is my 2nd year in battery and 3rd year in drumline and I am so glad and thankful im in drumline.
Now...my accidents i had
1) I slipped on a snare stick durin' our 4th movement of the show. I didnt fall but yeah i slipped and was base 5
2) same show but I bent my back too far and tumbled and managed to catch myself(ig its not a accident but i wouldve been hurt pretty bad)
3) a month ago durin' our performance, we were movin' towards the end of the 2nd movement and my mallet fell out of the mallet holder
I’ll have a story this next month when I try out for Honor band!
My audition horror story is when I was fighting for the solo in my Junior year show. Well I practiced the solo at full tempo and my “audition” was at a football game during halftime and we marched at a really slow tempo and I got really nervous and played the solo at full tempo and slowed down halfway through and my band director that had retired the year before just said yea that was bad.
I play Baritone saxophone, and during my district Honor jazz audition (freshman) I started crying because of my nervousness. The Procter then told me to stop and rethink my choices to audition. I'm a junior now and I will hopefully make it this year. 🤞
I had a bad experience with an audition. I was trying out for percussion at my school concert band and i was very very very nervous. When i walked in and had a major voice crack when i introduced myself and it was so awkward. Then the snare music i printed out was missing a whole 4 measures and then some. Once i got to timpani it just got worst. I started to relax a bit more but still i was nervous. I totally murdered the music. It was the worst i ever sounded. When i played marimba it was better but i only knew a few of my scales so that didnt last too long. And that was the worst audition experience for me.
Ouch megalovania that’s tough 🤭
My worst audition experience was at a marching band performance our band was auditioning
I was a freshman and was not in the marching block so they made the me and the others not in the block be slaves to the pit percussion(marimba,keyboard,etc) my job and this other girls job was to push a heavy speaker on a cart onto the field, and angle it toward the crowd. We get set up every thing is fine performance is fine. The girl helping me was put somewhere else so me being a skinny weak freshmen had to push the heavy speaker by myself but first i had to unagle the platform it was on so I pulled these pins to readjust the angle and the speaker went flying towards the entire crowd and landed on the turf everyone noticed. the tec just picked up the entire thing covered in turf and plopped it on the cart just told me to run cause we had 30 seconds to get off the field. Yeah i retired from speaker duty after that even though they reassured me that it was totaly replacable
My worst audition experience was my freshman year. I was trying out for jazz band. Side note I play the trombone. I practiced the music we were auditioning with and thought I was doing it pretty good. The day came of our audition and my spit valve came lose and was not covering the hole so my instrument sounded like poop. I was frantically running around asking other members of my section for either their instrument or tape. I ended up finding tape to use. I went in and informed my band director, who was in charge of auditions, what was going on. I did pretty good then I hand to sight read. When I got told this I almost started crying. I powered through it and also kind of gave up but still made it through. I suck at sight reading and left the audition and cried. I did not make it in that year, but I learned went in with more confidence the next year and made it in.
For the auditions for drumline my sophomore year, I had practiced all year for them (I'm a bari sax player so percussion was pretty foreign). On the day of my audition, I got REALLY sick, like the flu. I was really dizzy, nauseous, and I had the shits so every fart was very questionable. I also couldn't breathe very well and was almost completely deaf in one ear. I knew all of the audition pieces perfectly. It was going okay but I started getting really dizzy and I for sure needed to spew chunks. My mark time got off, then my playing got off. I didn't even make bass drum and was stuck AGAIN playing an instrument I didn't want to in marching band.
*P.S., It's my junior year, I'm on bass 5 now
My sophomore year audition for region band I got really really freaked out. I was the first kid in 15 years at my school to go to region band auditions. I got in there, anxiety full blown, played my scales. They were alright but then it was the etudes. I played them with absolute adrenaline running through my veins. Five measures in I realize I played the wrong section, said “oh shit”, finished, and left the room crying. Absolute win I must say 😂
Not an audition but it was a solo. So my band director told me to play the song Argosy. It had chimes and marimba as I had to go to marimba while the chimes were by me. My mallet for the chimes fell onto my foot midway as I was struggling to play with my right hand while squatting to get the mallet.
Megalovania is a difficult song to play as it was originally written with 16th notes everywhere and a few 32nd note runs. There are definitely harder songs like Flight of the Bumblebee but there is no way you can play Megalovania without practicing.
When i was a freshman i tried out for district clarinet, there was a part where they told me to play various scales from memory, which i did pretty good at, but then they hit me with an e minor, and i completely drew a blank, so instead, i just redid my chromatic scale. The judge looked at me with the worst death stare ive ever seen, of course, i didnt make it, and to this day, i still dont remember how to play e minor.
It’s the same as G Major but starting from E
Not Marching band but one time I was auditioning for a local rock band. I had my sticks and pedal since they said there would be a house kit to play and they didn't want a ton of people with their drum kits there. Almost immediately I realize that the kit is something they probably got for free on the side of the road. Bad heads and cymbals and it was all out of tune. Nobody who auditioned could make it sound good and not understanding why the band stopped us a few bars in saying we werent good enough. Nobody made the band that day.
I had one similar to tony. In my rehearsal for solo and ensemble. I practiced on a marimba. And I didn’t bring mallets cause i forgot. The only mallets I found in the percussion room were rubber. So I used soft rubber mallets on a crappy xylo
playing tuba, on my way to region band auditions. i'm in the backseat on my way there, and since it's a school horn, i didn't have a case/anything to really protect it. it's in the backseat and we go over a speed bump a little too hard, and the instrument flips over and hits against the seat. they're not cushioned seats either, so all 4 valves broke at the stem - just split in half. obviously, had to sit out of the audition that year.
Why not just borrow someone else’s tuba that’s what I did
Okay, so I was playing drum set for Bohemian Rhapsody at a concert, we had just played a piece only for mallets, and my friend was in charge of cutting the snares of then back on after (I was playing the mallet piece), but he decided to not cut the snares back on.... at first, all snare hits were rim knocks, so i didn't notice, then I got to my first fill of the piece and of course, the snares are off. I stay calm and try to turn the snares on before my next fill, but I miss and just end up looking like an idiot. Somehow I kept a straight face the whole time though and the band director didn't even notice and he was super happy about the piece (I had never played drum set and I had learned the piece in only 2 weeks as a freshman)
It was my 8th grade year and I was playing at the solo and ensemble festival. I had originally planned to play a tenor solo and a marimba solo, but I barely practiced and so I had to drop the tenor one. As for the marimba one, I only knew like half the piece. The second half had a lot of accidentals and I only started practicing the week before the festival. So I went in there, told the judge that I only knew half the piece which was a stupid mistake as he chewed me out for it. Anyway when results of what we got(1 being the best and 4 or 5 being the worst), I was the only one in my percussion section that didn't obtain a 1 and only got a 3. I was actually planning on just not going to the festival at all but when my teacher found out he was really pissed, telling me that I was gonna receive a 0 and get the least important parts for the rest of the pieces we were playing later in the year. I was starting to really dislike band because of how strict my teacher was since I was in the top band and he had super high expectations for us which is why I quit band when I started high school earlier this year. Somehow I was second chair but maybe that's because I was one of the two people that made all region band in the first semester.
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w carteaux
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I was trying out for district band in 7th grade. I’m a euphonium player so all I had to bring was my instrument my music in my mouth piece. So I bring all those things in and we start walking to the audition room. Then, we get into a hallway where we can’t talk. Then, I drop my mouthpiece, to my surprise it doesn’t fit into my instrument due to the massive dent in the mouthpiece , but I can’t say anything to the proctor because we can’t talk in the hallway. So I had to wait until we got to the audition room tell them about my mouthpiece. So the proctor told me to run all the way back to the warm-up room and grab my back up mouth piece. I ran back to the warm-up room got t I ran back to the warm-up room, got the mouthpiece and did my audition. My audition was terrible because I had never used the backup mouth pice before. I got cut.
This past summer I auditioned for a band camp and I walked in and they asked me to do the sightreading and I randomly started coughing during the middle of it. This isn’t so bad except for the fact that I play saxophone. But I still made first chair in the top band so I’m pleased.
one of the juniors last year during district auditions played sad by xxxtentacion
what instrument
@@phenylmusic it was either sax or french horn