Audition Advice

[PigLord]

Hello everyone,

I am going to audition for the ensembles at my school soon, and I have chosen to use Arban's Carnival of Venice and Rochut 8 as my audition material. I have learned the Carnival of Venice to the point to where I am playing it at around 50 BPM when the piece is marked at 88 BPM. If I play it tastefully at around 50 BPM, do you think this will be considered unbearably slow by the audition committee? And, is so, should I then work non-stop to get it to where I can play tastefully closer to 88 BPM? Thank everybody for their time.

[Eupher6]

Audition Advice

Forgive the silly question, perhaps, but are you talking 50 bpm for the dotted half note, meaning each measure at 50 bpm?

That's a pretty healthy tempo, I'd say.

On the other hand, if you're talking 50 bpm of the quarter note, that's excrutiatingly slow -- it's good to practice at that tempo to get clarity and develop muscle memory, but the piece is supposed to be played at around dotted half note = 60 bpm or so. A bit slower would not be wrong.

Need more information to answer your question properly, but practice till you're sick of the piece and then practice some more.

I'm working (again) on COV and I have a lot of work to do....

[PigLord]

Audition Advice

Thank you for the response. I am sorry for the confusion, I mean the dotted quarter note on the BPM's I state.

[Eupher6]

Audition Advice

Okay, you're playing an arrangement in 6/8 - the arrangement I'm currently playing is written in 3/4.

Based on that, I'd say if you're playing it cleanly at 52, that's a nice speed. You may want to work on getting it faster, but if your audition is right around the corner, that may not help you so much. Just work on getting it solid at that speed, under all sorts of conditions -- I remember Dave W. suggesting practicing the piece with the TV on -- that's a great way to prepare for the unexpected and allows you to focus on making music rather than just playing the notes.

[carbogast]

Audition Advice

I imagine the audition committee wants to assess your musicality and technical level and place you accordingly. If you play at a tempo you can't handle, you won't be able to show either; there's a danger that you're showing them what you *can't* do. Not a good strategy! Otherwise, 50 bpm seems like a very nice tempo.

[PigLord]

Audition Advice

Thank you very much for your responses! I have around a couple of weeks until my audition, so I might bump it up a couple BPM, but I will probably focus on refining from now on.