Piccolo Explosion
May 26, 2011I was recording myself again, this time on piccolo, learning many valuable things, and decided to use separate tracks for each excerpt in the same session. This is what you get when you play all five together at the same time.
Warning: piccolos are loud and very high
Can you pick out any of the excerpts??
Piccolo explosion by ItIsLeeann
One way in which audition prep is not like cycling training…
May 17, 2011When I told one of my closest friends that I was going to take this audition, she was all excited for me (which was sweet), and said something along the lines of how great it must be to have some fun stuff to work really hard on until then! Mind you, she’s a talented cyclist and wonderful person, but not a musician. Somewhere there was a comparison to cycling training (and there are plenty of similarities with the athletic training process) and I found myself explaining a large percentage of why I dislike the orchestral audition process, in cycling terms.
For a few months prior to the goal date (in this case, one month to the audition date was when I decided to give it a go), your coach gives you 12 different routes, each only 2 blocks long, maybe one that’s 3 blocks. You then have to ride each of these every day for a minimum of 2 hours total a day. Some of these routes you’ve trained on many times before, but that doesn’t matter. You’re starting over. As each day goes by the goal is to make each route look and feel the same way, very technically solid, and at the end of it all someone gets to stand at the end of each and decide if they like your cadence, how you’re breathing, or the angle of your feet or wrists. It’s technical, it’s to someone else’s standards which are mostly preset and also partially to be determined in the moment where it counts, and the process itself can lean a bit passionless. But the reward is great, if you work hard enough, are good enough, and are a bit lucky.
I really do not like orchestral auditions. But I go to concerts and I sit in the audience, my heart practically leaping out of my chest I want so badly to be up there. There is no way to really explain what it feels like to be sitting in the middle of an orchestra. So, round and round we go. I have other creative musical outlets and projects and will continue to work on all of them. It’s safe to assume I would regret not at least trying this time, though.
For your listening pleasure (haha), and to demonstrate a bit of the process, I am sharing some of what I recorded earlier. I was recording my excerpts because it is the only way to really hear what is going on. It’s an incredible tool, and always a bit eye-opening, to say the least. I would say you can try to guess the half-speed excerpt but I’m pretty sure SoundCloud shares the name. This is from Swan Lake, and it’s a bitch. The goal tempo is 144 bpm, and this recording starts at 90-ish. This recording has me playing twice all of the way through at 90, then slightly faster, and then just a bit at the goal tempo. Notice I stopped before the part that’s crazy difficult to play clean up to speed, not that the rest of my example was clean either (I have just under 3 weeks to get it there… I’ll be fine.. I’ll be fine.. I’ll be…) 
Swan Lake no 20 by ItIsLeeann
Finally, I was recording some Mozart Flute Concerto in G with a metronome because I’ve been playing it so long that it’s sometimes necessary to check in, and my 3 week old cold/cough caught up with me. I also had a bit of metronome aggression. This may only have been hilarious to me when listening back because I’d been listening to a lot of myself tonight, but here it is anyway.
Newest Danger Mouse project
May 15, 2011I found this last week and was thoroughly impressed. My first thought was that while myself and other hipster/artsy/trained types may really dig it, that it’s popularity will likely stay within that realm. Then, upon really listening to it, I realize that with Danger Mouse being who he is, along with Jack White and Norah Jones, this project has the potential to really open up a lot of younger (read: the nearing-30 Gen Y and younger, their core audience) listeners to more classical-leaning music. There has been a lot of genre-blending and borrowing lately with popular music, but few go this far into the classical world. I’m sure those that search for it can argue that point with me, but I’m thinking more along the lines of those in the popular eye.
Whoever you may be, you should give it a listen. You just may be pleasantly surprised.
Danger Mouse And Daniele Luppi, ‘Rome’
Another article about music and the brain
May 15, 2011But so worth reading.
To Tug Hearts, Music First Must Tickle the Neurons
I have been back at work on excerpts, wishing I could be this consistent with my practicing when I don’t have an audition coming up. I was neck deep in learning digital music production and recording and I think the decision to audition came at the right time. I now have a month straight of not much besides excerpts for hours a day. I have no doubt that I will come back refreshed and newly inspired for creative outlets.
