Mock Orchestral Competitions

[russiantuba]

In particular, adjudication. Why is this always a committee of tubists. In the real world, unless the conductor is a tubist by some off chance, you won’t have any tubists on your panel. I realize these conferences use who is available and qualified to adjudicate these. The prizes have been quite large, including tubas donated by some manufacturers.

Personally, if me, I would rather have a diminished prize and a higher cost, in return of having an actual audition panel present to give comments on the audition. Would anyone else feel the same.

(I’m more posting this to get attention to this concept for future events).

[bloke]

Preach.

oboist, violinist, trumpeter, trombonist, music director...

...but it would difficult to coax the local professional full-time or per-service orchestra musicians to do this (even for dough, unless there were only 10 or 20 contestants). They're surely sick of listening to auditions.

You might think that tuba players would be harder on the contestants, but they would probably be college teachers, and more accustomed to more mediocrity, whereas three of those listed above are likely actual musicians.

[the elephant]

We did this at UNT in the eighties. Mock auditions need to have a committee comprised of the same basic elements as would serve on a real one, therefore the following ought to be used for mock auditions:

a stick swinger who knows orchestral literature pretty darned well
one each of the four strings, four wind, and three other brass instruments
no percussion
no keyboard
no harp
no tuba

Impress THESE folks, who know little to nothing about the physical limitations of the tuba and who will listen to the childishly easy excerpts (musically) and snicker at how puffed up some tuba students are in how they approach these mini-excerpts (far shorter and less complex than anything they would have to execute at a professional position) through outstanding time, rhythm, pitch, clarity, and phrasing. No one there will give a rat's a$$ about the candidate's World Class Sound® or what stupidities they want to share about all their tubas. In fact, most of them will laugh at the person who brings more than two horns on stage during finals. This is God's honest truth, here. They will laugh at you. Make music on one or two horns that is of very high quality with excellent execution of time and rhythm, and with a tone that is very clear and that sounds more or less like a tuba. They neither know nor care about all the ridiculous minutia of tuba tone, what key your horn is in, etc. If you even mention any of this you will be looked at as some sort of excuse maker. Use basic, middle-of-the-road horns and play with flawless time and rhythm. Meistersinger is always on the first round because it is the easiest for a committee to weed out just about everyone because so few tuba players have really solid time. It is pretty much a small bag filled with quarter and eighth notes and NO ONE sounds good on it to these other players. In reality, this is one of the most difficult excerpts to pull off, and it is the one that usually dumps most players in the first round.

No one — and I mean NO ONE — cares about how hard it is to cleanly execute Fountains at speed. No one cares. Either you can play it or you can't. Likewise for the "easy" excerpts. Some young "tuba gods" cannot figure out why such "easy" material is on a list for a pro gig. And these doofuses are precisely the people that the committee is trying to weed out with "easy" excerpts like Meistersinger.

Back to the topic at hand…

In my orchestra, the committee for a section audition is usually much smaller, like maybe six players and the MD, while a principal position committee is at least nine players and sometimes as many as fifteen. The MD gets one vote for every player on the committee. I have heard of outgoing/retiring tubists being asked to sit with the committee in a non-voting capacity to answer questions of committee members when needed. This is by no means the norm, however, but it is (or was) fairly common.

[bort2.0]

Mock orchestral competitions.. Don't mind If I do

[russiantuba]

I have listened to trombone players perform excerpts over the years, but I remember when starting my DMA, one of my bassoon friends was taking an audition and wanted to play the excerpts for me. I didn't know them all, but I remember telling him basics in terms of rhythm, sustain, time, actually nothing to do with style or musicality. He was a solid player, and one thing he mentioned is that he never had anyone comment on those.

I think it was on a masterclass of a european tubist on youtube (or maybe the Cleveland Orchestra principal tubist), where they have to audition for the entire orchestra and a holistic approach to the excerpts.

I wanted to add that at more of these conferences, I am seeing trombonists, hornists, trumpeters, even percussionists and woodwind players on tuba chamber music recitals. Even if they were just "kollij fessers", I think it would offer insight. Based on the responses thus far, I just e-mailed the conference coordinator at ITEA to see if this is something that can be implemented. Thank you all for the insight to help our future tuba generations!

[bloke]

sidebar:

It's always a bit shocking to receive a compliment from a real musician (one who is constantly turning nice phrases, executing difficult passages, and doing so while staying right on the white-line in the middle of the road - intonation-wise). It's somewhat embarrassing, a bit humbling, and - at the same time - coming from such a higher place that one almost wonders if they are getting ready to ask for some sort of favor.

A lot of tuba players spend a lot of time practicing, but many either overlook or don't address basic deficiencies. "Moving to the good" counts for everything, whereas "the amount of time spent playing in a room by oneself" counts for nothing, and it's really easy (doing just about anything not quite right) to become very comfortable with the way we do things.

[YorkNumber3.0]

.

[bloke]

Maybe…

It’s a committee of tubers because of ego stroking and studio recruitment.

Just like the listing of the teacher(s) of each finalist in popular solo competitions, aiding a steady flow of new butts in the studio seats helps keep paychecks arriving. Paychecks good.

This isn’t (necessarily) criticism of studio teachers (although, some fully embrace it…). The system in place just demands what it demands. It has to be very nerve wracking for them in many ways.

A real help to the aspiring would be more of what the elephant described. No one out there GAS about efforts, only results.

Sometimes (always?) a dose of reality is better earlier than later.

You may have a point (re: the panels being made up of tuba teachers, and resisting changing that)...
Up until a big shift in who owned which European factories, competition from good-enough (and a couple of just-as-good Asian manufacturers), and opening up of who in the US was allowed to sell this, that, and the other, a sole US-agent for blah-blah brand of tubas would corral college teachers as "[Acme - y'all know which store and brand to which I refer] Artists". It made them feel important, and it encouraged them to encourage their students to buy instruments from the same store. By the same token, a committee of tuba teachers announcing a "winner" and "runners up" (whereby possibly - were the same applicants to audition for an actual job, no winner would be chosen), really strokes those students - and encourages those students to continue to patronize the tuba-teaching industry.

GENERAL SIDE-TOPIC WORMING ITS WAY THROUGH THIS THREAD: THE PROMOTION OF EXCELLENCE VIA DOSES OF AND EXPOSURE TO REALITY
As a still-quite-active person emerging into old-hood, I've had time to learn that reality-in-general is just a bit too stark for most, and isn't very useful when there is a desire to manipulate others. To a wider and banned topic, we (in the USA) are having more nonsense systematically purveyed to us than - probably - ever before. The systematic purveying of nonsense has always had the purpose of manipulation. More enlightened people (who strive to avoid manipulation) have turned off their televisions during "news" hours, and rely on reality-based sources to report on things which are actually occurring, as well as to summarize the latest nonsense-narratives being purveyed. Finally, those who strive to embrace reality (again: a requirement in the genuine pursuit of excellence) have always been a small minority.

[YorkNumber3.0]

.

[Doc]

...reality is just a bit to stark for most, and isn't very useful when there is a desire to manipulate others.

I wouldn't have said this quite so politely, but this is gospel truth nonetheless.

[russiantuba]

The ITEA conferences coordinator forwarded this idea to Deanna Swoboda, who is hosting the next international conference in Tempe, AZ in 2023 (news to me). The initial concern was paying the judges but they could try to get the ASU brass faculty to sit in is the idea. They have a solid brass faculty, so hopefully they can extend this concept and perhaps have woodwinds and string players included

[bloke]

Is there any reason to not invite some of the ASU string/woodwind/percussion faculty, and perhaps the ASU school orchestra conductor?