Audition for the San Antonio Symphony

I've been having a pretty good summer so far. Working at a running shoe store, teaching/counseling at a jazz camp at school, and teaching private lessons.

About three weeks ago, during the middle of the second of two weeks of camp, I got a phone call from my trombone teacher. He had just heard about a symphony audition for first and second trombone in the San Antonio Symphony. He told me it would be good experience to send in an audition. That was the end of July; the audition was to be sent in by email before August 14th. So I had three weeks to dust off three and learn two more excerpts, record them, write a resume, and send them all in.

After camp was over, I started working on the music more diligently, and this past week, with a TON of help from my great boyfriend, Brian (and his friend's basement), was able to record all five excerpts within the span of two nights. I wrote a resume based off my teaching resume, with more recent playing experiences, and sent the audition in this morning. I didn't know that I was going to be able to do that. Brian did.

I got an email back saying they had received my audition and now I just sit and wait. Honestly, I think it was a good experience. I would be so torn to have to move to San Antonio this year! At least it is only a year. And it would be great to be able to play in a pro symphony.

Anyway, I'm also running a 185 mile relay this weekend and then moving into my own place on Monday... not too big of a weekend.

Trombone Lessons

I taught six trombone lessons today, from 11am to 4pm, and it was a lot of fun! It seems like all of my students are happy to be at their lessons and are practicing, even though it is summertime. Maybe not as much as I'd like, but we haven't really set down practice goals for the students. Maybe if I give them a practice sheet and have some type of board where I keep track of all their practicing, they will be more motivated?

That may be the next thing I add to my teaching goals. I already have all of my students doing 1) warm-ups that all include buzzing specific pitches and expanding range and flexibility, 2) exercises that improve the quality of sound production, and 3) rhythm exercises that improve their sense of time. Then there are different things that my advanced students are doing, such as learning scales and chords, and my younger students are learning to play by ear at the same time as learning to read notes.

I was especially happy to witness the progress made by my youngest student, who just finished the second grade (he's so small he can't reach past 5th position!!). His sound quality is very good for such a young player, and he has a great ability to hear the right notes! He is working on playing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." He learned the first phrase last lesson, and was playing it almost perfectly this week. So we moved on to the second phrase and are working on rhythm exercises that are in 3/4, since that is the time signature of the song.

Days like these, I'm happy to be a private lesson teacher.