Excerpt 1, Take 2

False start.

The recordings are for audition cds. I had assumed I wouldn't have to make audition cds anymore, since I'm done with summer camps. Screw you, unnamed symphony. Unless you hire me, in which case praise your high paying yet slightly union-troubled ass.

Used to be, back in the day*, somewhere in this great country a violist would retire or perhaps be taken out by union sanctioned hitmen on the job for a recent graduate with a quillion dollars of student loan debt and expensive taste in name brand diapers and soft drinks.

A JOB OPENING would come to exist. Hundreds of violists would dust off their various rollercoasters of technical whizardry from Don Juan, their first-three-pages of the Bartok concerto, their sassiest (while remaining entirely rhythmic and soft but focused and consistent while sounding easy but confident) Mozart 35's. Hundred dollar checks would be sent to the symphony with the JOB OPENING, and if you showed up for the audition or gave proper notice that you had decided to live without anything LOOOOOOOOOOming over you for the next month or so and were NOT coming to their town to play for 4.3451 minutes for 5 bored and combative people behind a screen, thank you very much--- then you got that check back. If you flaked, they cashed the check and bought doughnuts for the brass section to chuck at the sound shields protecting the last stand of violas during the next rehearsal.

If you did show up, you would be in a room packed with more promiscuous folks than even a NASA astronaut convention could bring together. (I hope the people in charge of protecting our future have this in mind- we should all be aware of our surroundings, right, NSA?) Anyway, they would somehow narrow it down from hundreds to like, 7 or so, and then to 3-ish and then one or none of those would get to have health insurance and a "cushy gig" for as long as the orchestra remained in existance or the hitmen struck back. Or, there would still be a JOB OPENING and every single person who applied, prepared and traveled had wasted their money & lifeforce points.

Now, because as you can imagine auditions were such a hoot, a wrinkle has been added. No one told me, but it's probably been there a while. A Seartain Symphony has begun to require anyone who has yet to win a major job to send a cd of 7 excerpts and one movement of Bach
(Geeze, you guys, I totally just spelled that Back and had to go bach. See how you can end up almost getting something perfect and having to go bachk and do it over and over and over?) (Also, see how dulled a sense of humor becomes after recording oneself for several days?) (Really, really dull.)
in order to be given the honor of playing for them in person. It doesn't matter what's on your resume, unless it says "Section member, So-N-So Symphony"** somewhere on it.

So this isn't some cool "recording" like as in "studio" or "for money" or "glamour shots on the cover". Plus, remember, I play the viola- and I'm not that into self-tanner, so it's boring old home recordings for me for now.


*Phrases like "back in the day" drive me nuts. Also "and whatnot" (what not?), "know whut i'm sayin" and "and a bag of chips".
**Quote marks are also*** a terrible habit and annoy me greatly. I'm so agitated now, I'm leaving.
***I use "also", "so", and the comma way too much. Do NOT go back and look, I'm sure you've noticed before.