- Apr 20, 2004
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What's your best/worst/weirdest audition story-- for a band, for music school, for a professional gig, whatever... ?
Mine would have to be when I had to audition for the MFA percussion performance program at California Institute of the Arts. I was freaked out initially when I read that CalArts' auditions were happening in a week and I had no material prepared. In a panic I called my percussion instructor at UCSB (where I was finishing my B.Mus.) and told him what was going on... His response? "Oh, just give DJ (the percussion teacher at CalArts) a call, he's an old friend of mine."
So I called up DJ asking about the audition and he was very vague-- "Oh yeah, the audition... don't worry about it man, just come on down with whatever you're working on in your lessons, we'll play some duets and have a little chat." End of conversation.
Day of audition arrives... I show up at CalArts not knowing where anyplace was and by chance meet another MFA perc student outside the perc room. He shows me in, and there's sawdust and boards and stuff all over the place. He explains to me that DJ was building some cubbyholes for everyone's mallet/stickbags...
DJ shows up and we exchange introductions/pleasantries; he tells me I can go ahead and warm up, then nonchalantly asks: "hey, do you mind if I finish these cubbies while you're warming up?" Not at all, i respond, go right ahead. Next thing I know, I'm playing some quiet marimba etudes as my warmup and DJ's laying into these cubbies with the power saw, the drill, just about everything causing this huge ruckus... I could barely concentrate from all the chaos-- the sound, the flying sawdust, etc. I think I ended up practicing snare after a while just to compete with the sound...
The actual audition, on the other hand, was super-chill and went smoothly (I ended up getting into the program and getting some scholarship money to boot). The strangeness of the pre-audition warmup has stuck in my mind though as one of the very odd and amusing experiences I had at that school...
Mine would have to be when I had to audition for the MFA percussion performance program at California Institute of the Arts. I was freaked out initially when I read that CalArts' auditions were happening in a week and I had no material prepared. In a panic I called my percussion instructor at UCSB (where I was finishing my B.Mus.) and told him what was going on... His response? "Oh, just give DJ (the percussion teacher at CalArts) a call, he's an old friend of mine."
So I called up DJ asking about the audition and he was very vague-- "Oh yeah, the audition... don't worry about it man, just come on down with whatever you're working on in your lessons, we'll play some duets and have a little chat." End of conversation.
Day of audition arrives... I show up at CalArts not knowing where anyplace was and by chance meet another MFA perc student outside the perc room. He shows me in, and there's sawdust and boards and stuff all over the place. He explains to me that DJ was building some cubbyholes for everyone's mallet/stickbags...
DJ shows up and we exchange introductions/pleasantries; he tells me I can go ahead and warm up, then nonchalantly asks: "hey, do you mind if I finish these cubbies while you're warming up?" Not at all, i respond, go right ahead. Next thing I know, I'm playing some quiet marimba etudes as my warmup and DJ's laying into these cubbies with the power saw, the drill, just about everything causing this huge ruckus... I could barely concentrate from all the chaos-- the sound, the flying sawdust, etc. I think I ended up practicing snare after a while just to compete with the sound...
The actual audition, on the other hand, was super-chill and went smoothly (I ended up getting into the program and getting some scholarship money to boot). The strangeness of the pre-audition warmup has stuck in my mind though as one of the very odd and amusing experiences I had at that school...
