Band #2: The submission
Oh man, how musically nerdy am I? I'm having to number the bands I'm in to keep them straight. We'll see if I come up with names for them or something.
Anyway, when last I left off with the new band, I was prepping for my online audition, wherein I needed to record myself in order to submit the excerpts. I was having a devil of a time with things. I finally broke down and emailed Dr. K to say, okay, I've figured out how to record myself, but can't figure out how to get the separate recordings into one file (which, based on the info given in the audition notes, was what he was looking for), and from there, how to get said file to him. Now, I'm going to put this here: The man is a doofus. He has done this before, where he has replied to an email without fully reading the email, and here it seemed like he read only the last line I'd sent, so that he'd replied on what platforms to upload the file into the cloud in order to file share. ...Okay, but how do I put the file together? I'd mentioned having an iPad, and having Voice Memo, so his reply was, use Voice Memo. :) ...Okay, now you're pandering to me. I finally broke it down to say, I have Recording A and I have Recording B; how do I merge them into one single recording, Recording C? At that point he finally said that I could chuck 'em into a file folder and simply send that to him. Aha. You couldn't have said that three emails ago? Sigh.
Now the hard part: The actual playing. I had taken recordings of myself last week, and I did so this week. I was asked by my parents to warn them when I was recording, so that they wouldn't interrupt me. There were eight total components to this, starting with a scale; those auditioning were told to play a chromatic scale from your lowest comfortable note to your highest comfortable note. I was super bummed that I had to omit my top two notes, because they neither came out fluently nor sounded good. My tone is too airy at the very top (double high C# and D), and I was having to struggle to get them out. If I went to high C, I was able to maintain the flow of the scale. It's still three octaves plus one note, which should suffice.
There were then seven total excerpts, four flute, three piccolo, interspersed. Some of them were fine, and it was a matter of picking the version I liked best. Some were not as fine, and it was a matter of picking the version I hated least. Most were on the short side, say 20-30 seconds; the Debussy was nearly 2 minutes. Ugh. To help me out, I labeled the recordings (say, E1, E2, E3, etc.) so I'd at least know where I was, since otherwise they were labeled "new recording 1" and so on. I treated it like when you go to the eye doctor and you're asked to choose between lenses, flipping back and forth; I'd compare two, get rid of one, then compare the winner to the next one. Some excerpts, with obvious flubs, were easy to delete. Some I had to choose, what do I want to focus on? I wanted to make sure I had the best tone possible, so for one piccolo excerpt where my trilling wasn't great, I still used that version because I couldn't negate the rest of it for two short, weak trills when my tone was great. Another, on flute, my tone was fantastic, but I had to go with a different recording because that one overall had the better counting. At least, I think it was on flute. I spent two hours Monday night and another hour and a half last night going through everything. I wish I'd had more time, say another week or two, but it is what it is. Also, I'm self conscious about this since he's never heard me play, and I don't know who my competition is. I don't think I'll be the best player since, honestly, my musicality could've been better. I was focused on being as close to tempo as I could, though I had to go under tempo on a couple pieces to get them done cleanly, and I was most concerned about counting and getting the notes right and sort of ignored any dynamic markings for the most part, for example. Yeah...it's kind of a whole package situation. Oh well. Last chair it is. Though I will say, of the two hardest parts for me, I did manage to get one pretty decent, to the point where I cheered after I finished that recording. OMG. That's the Schoenberg one that sounded like Gargamel's castle.
I'm hoping I sent it off okay. I created a file folder, complete with a name fitting the audition info specifications (minus file name--you can't really tell file extensions on an iPad that I've seen), and copied the final selections into it on my iCloud Drive. Oh, gosh, I had a freak out last week where I was fit to be tied, realizing I couldn't share any files without setting up the internal mailbox on here. Apple really needs to realize that some of us are private and don't want certain things they way they present them, like I'm not comfortable having my regular email just open so that anyone using my iPad can peek inside. Luckily I slept on it, and I woke up in the morning remembering that I have a device-only email, created for my phone, so I decided to use that. Bonus: I can now regularly check that email again. My Gmail app on my phone got borked a couple of years ago and has never worked since, like it should've gone through an update and didn't (and that's prior to having the storage issues on my phone, too), and I never think to manually check it. It's where my Duolingo emails go, so nothing groundbreaking, but still good to look at periodically. Anyway, I think I was able to figure things out, and I submitted my recordings last night. They're due by midnight Friday into Saturday. I was so relieved that it was over that not only did I sleep through the night (I haven't much of the time lately; I kept waking up with flute music running through my head), I overslept. It was only until 6:45, but I'm usually out of bed around 6:25, so that was a shock. I can't recall the last time I overslept on a workday.
Anyway, when last I left off with the new band, I was prepping for my online audition, wherein I needed to record myself in order to submit the excerpts. I was having a devil of a time with things. I finally broke down and emailed Dr. K to say, okay, I've figured out how to record myself, but can't figure out how to get the separate recordings into one file (which, based on the info given in the audition notes, was what he was looking for), and from there, how to get said file to him. Now, I'm going to put this here: The man is a doofus. He has done this before, where he has replied to an email without fully reading the email, and here it seemed like he read only the last line I'd sent, so that he'd replied on what platforms to upload the file into the cloud in order to file share. ...Okay, but how do I put the file together? I'd mentioned having an iPad, and having Voice Memo, so his reply was, use Voice Memo. :) ...Okay, now you're pandering to me. I finally broke it down to say, I have Recording A and I have Recording B; how do I merge them into one single recording, Recording C? At that point he finally said that I could chuck 'em into a file folder and simply send that to him. Aha. You couldn't have said that three emails ago? Sigh.
Now the hard part: The actual playing. I had taken recordings of myself last week, and I did so this week. I was asked by my parents to warn them when I was recording, so that they wouldn't interrupt me. There were eight total components to this, starting with a scale; those auditioning were told to play a chromatic scale from your lowest comfortable note to your highest comfortable note. I was super bummed that I had to omit my top two notes, because they neither came out fluently nor sounded good. My tone is too airy at the very top (double high C# and D), and I was having to struggle to get them out. If I went to high C, I was able to maintain the flow of the scale. It's still three octaves plus one note, which should suffice.
There were then seven total excerpts, four flute, three piccolo, interspersed. Some of them were fine, and it was a matter of picking the version I liked best. Some were not as fine, and it was a matter of picking the version I hated least. Most were on the short side, say 20-30 seconds; the Debussy was nearly 2 minutes. Ugh. To help me out, I labeled the recordings (say, E1, E2, E3, etc.) so I'd at least know where I was, since otherwise they were labeled "new recording 1" and so on. I treated it like when you go to the eye doctor and you're asked to choose between lenses, flipping back and forth; I'd compare two, get rid of one, then compare the winner to the next one. Some excerpts, with obvious flubs, were easy to delete. Some I had to choose, what do I want to focus on? I wanted to make sure I had the best tone possible, so for one piccolo excerpt where my trilling wasn't great, I still used that version because I couldn't negate the rest of it for two short, weak trills when my tone was great. Another, on flute, my tone was fantastic, but I had to go with a different recording because that one overall had the better counting. At least, I think it was on flute. I spent two hours Monday night and another hour and a half last night going through everything. I wish I'd had more time, say another week or two, but it is what it is. Also, I'm self conscious about this since he's never heard me play, and I don't know who my competition is. I don't think I'll be the best player since, honestly, my musicality could've been better. I was focused on being as close to tempo as I could, though I had to go under tempo on a couple pieces to get them done cleanly, and I was most concerned about counting and getting the notes right and sort of ignored any dynamic markings for the most part, for example. Yeah...it's kind of a whole package situation. Oh well. Last chair it is. Though I will say, of the two hardest parts for me, I did manage to get one pretty decent, to the point where I cheered after I finished that recording. OMG. That's the Schoenberg one that sounded like Gargamel's castle.
I'm hoping I sent it off okay. I created a file folder, complete with a name fitting the audition info specifications (minus file name--you can't really tell file extensions on an iPad that I've seen), and copied the final selections into it on my iCloud Drive. Oh, gosh, I had a freak out last week where I was fit to be tied, realizing I couldn't share any files without setting up the internal mailbox on here. Apple really needs to realize that some of us are private and don't want certain things they way they present them, like I'm not comfortable having my regular email just open so that anyone using my iPad can peek inside. Luckily I slept on it, and I woke up in the morning remembering that I have a device-only email, created for my phone, so I decided to use that. Bonus: I can now regularly check that email again. My Gmail app on my phone got borked a couple of years ago and has never worked since, like it should've gone through an update and didn't (and that's prior to having the storage issues on my phone, too), and I never think to manually check it. It's where my Duolingo emails go, so nothing groundbreaking, but still good to look at periodically. Anyway, I think I was able to figure things out, and I submitted my recordings last night. They're due by midnight Friday into Saturday. I was so relieved that it was over that not only did I sleep through the night (I haven't much of the time lately; I kept waking up with flute music running through my head), I overslept. It was only until 6:45, but I'm usually out of bed around 6:25, so that was a shock. I can't recall the last time I overslept on a workday.