Last weekend was Kevin’s tryout for the Middle School All-State Orchestra
Last year, Kevin could never fully master the etude he had to play….but that performance and his sight reading was good enough for the fifth chair. This year, Kevin was able to play it without error, although, the last line was certainly the most challenging.
I think Suzanne went with Kevin to the audition last year; this year I went and stayed in the practice room while Kevin went off to perform. The viola player (‘she’…we’ll refer to her as ‘she’ for the rest of the post) that was going to audition after Kevin was warming up while I waited. And, it was interesting to hear the differences
Tone: may or may not be the right word. Artistry maybe? Anyway, she was definitely more artistic/tone-y than Kevin….the piece above goes pretty quick, and she would slow down before the rests at the end of each musical ‘phrase’ to add vibrato and ‘flair’ to the etude. But, when you do that, you sacrifice…..
Rhythm: when Kevin practices the piece, if there’s one thing he is consistent on, it’s the pace. With a metronome, without, he performs it at the speed that the orchestra is going to perform it at. The upshot of all that is that Kevin doesn’t have the ‘time’ to add the flourishes that ‘she’ did…..and we wondered after the tryouts what the judges would find more important. We’ve had the chance to ask his orchestra teacher (at p/t) and his private teacher and they both agree that in the end it’s going to come down to what the judge who listens to both recordings values more…..but both thought that the rhythm would be valued more.
Accuracy: I think ‘she’, if she did what she did in warmups, made more errors than Kevin (who maybe makes one error, tops) in the etude. She seemed to be having some issues in the scales they have to memorize also….
Scales: The students have to memorize four 2-octave scales; the first three, according to Kevin, range from easy to medium, and the last, the chromatic, is hard. She performs the scales at about the same speed…about half a second for each note, but, seems to have some difficulty in hitting the notes correctly. Kevin, based on his private teacher’s advice, draws these notes out on the first three scales to show his tone and vibrato (at least a second on each note), and, on the fourth scale (the hard one, the chromatic) he speeds it up to about her pace (it’s harder because you have to shift more, and I believe the thinking is to do it faster shows you have the command to do it faster). She goes slower on this scale.
Sight Reading: Have no idea how ‘she’ did, obviously, but Kevin reports he did good, but maybe not great. I think I’ve come to believe he’s being unduly hard on himself…he says he made a mistake on the rhythm of the notes near the end of the piece, but, says he did a good job on the tricky rhythm at the beginning, and, if he hit that and hit all the notes, than he did better than he thinks he did…..
So, what does it all mean?: God only knows. Kevin was happy with his preparation and his performance, so, that’s about all we can ask for. Will be interested to see how it plays with Kevin, and she, and Kevin’s viola ‘partner’ and where they end up in the ‘ratings’ (the other 8th grade viola is about as good as Kevin….when he tried out he was so nervous he flat out forgot the chromatic scale……we wonder how that will affect HIS placement).
