By Gordon B. Peters

The full musical resources of a player should be exhausted before looking to others when preparing music. One’s performance must be made convincing through individual personality, rather than others’ ideas. Only after complete study of one’s part and the orchestral score (a direct dialogue with the composer) should a teacher, coach, or recording be consulted. Dry-run auditions with competent listeners are also helpful. The full comprehension and internal auralization of the music should be the priority; what medium (instrument or voice) is used to communicate this understanding is secondary.

Complete preparation and concentration at the audition or performance are the result of self-discipline, organization of time, and methodical preparation. One should arrive at the audition well-rested, early enough to be comfortable, and sufficiently prepared so that only a short warm-up is necessary.

In an audition one functions as both player and conductor. You set the tempo, maintain the pulse, and determine the interpretation. You must project according to the size of the room in which you are playing. Your playing should reflect musical talent, thorough preparation, confidence, and imagination.

The ability to maintain a pulse is often cited as the weakest factor at auditions, followed by inadequate attention to dynamics. Another common weakness is playing crescendi and diminuendi too soon. The former unbalances the phrase, and the latter produces a loss of musical intensity at the end of the phrase. All details indicated in the music must be strictly observed.

The audition committee will be looking for the 5 T’s: Talent (revealed in your interpretation); Technique (correct notes, rhythms); Time (pulse, tempo choice); Tone (quality); and Tune (intonation). Remember that they are seeking a superior musician, not merely an instrumentalist.

The following steps should be used in preparation for any musical presentation:

1. Acquire the best editions of the works available, rather than use an excerpt book. Check the parts against the best edition of a full orchestral score for inconsistencies, omissions, or contradictions.
2. Carefully study the parts away from your instrument, absorbing everything on the page, and noting all the composer’s instructions.
3. Study the music for its indigenous musical contours and apexes, using a pencil to indicate them.
4. Practice singing and conducting the excerpts, with and then without a metronome.
5. Experiment to determine the best tempo if none is indicated. Seek out the one at which the music seems to speak best, in your judgment. Even if the tempo is indicated, experiment a bit, and find the tempo your musical intuition confirms, consistent with all other instructions.
6. Play the excerpt on your instrument, first with and then without the metronome.
7. Make a tape to evaluate your playing, considering such factors as choice of tempi, pulse, rhythmic accuracy, intonation, tone quality, articulation, dynamic contrast, phrasing, and interpretive style.

Only after the above steps are completed should a player consider consulting other resources such as a teacher, audition coach, or recording.

The following ideas are drawn from Deutsch, Leonhard: Piano: Guided Sight-reading, Chicago, Nelson-Hall Company, 1959.

• Sight-reading is basic to a musician’s training.
• The groundwork for pedagogy as we know it today was laid in the 19th century, when repertoire (in depth) was stressed. The art of playing at sight was neglected.
• Repertoire study is thorough only insofar as a student perfects individual pieces. Sight-reading study, however, insures steady development, even though initially imperfection is present at the beginning stages.
• Sight-reading is a skill through which one can acquaint himself with any composition, unaided by a teacher.
• Sight-reading helps to extend musician and technical abilities, and expand knowledge of repertoire.
• To develop the skill of sight-reading, a student should at first aim not for speed but for accuracy and evenness. Concentration and slow motion are the keys.
• To play a group of notes and at the same time anticipate the next group calls for quite a different process of thought from that involved in playing groups separately.
• In sight-reading music as in reading words, we do not grasp the letters one by one, but we take in the picture of a phrase or sentence as a whole and spontaneously grasp its meaning.
• Students who sight-read on their own initiative become strong sight-readers.
• The most effective way for a teacher to help a student in sight-reading is to join in his playing. Joint sight-reading offers the student this experience. The teacher, by playing with the student, can control the latter’s method of practicing so that the student, practicing himself, will do so correctly.
• Nowhere does guided sight-reading, i.e. the teacher playing with the student, show its effectiveness as clearly and quickly as in the problem of time and rhythm.
• Through working on a large volume and variety of music, a student develops a reliable and comprehensive manual sense on his instrument.
• Sight-reading is the most effective method of ear-training.
• After a student has developed adequate facility in sight-reading, he is ready for unrehearsed or under-rehearsed performance.

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© 2008 Julia Rose