This was the day that I had prepared for. Reluctantly waking up at 9:15, my family made the one and a half hour drive to a high school in southern New Jersey for the all-states auditions. After my brother and I made it in to the central Jersey regionals orchestras (my brother was in the middle school one while I was playing for the high school one), we continued to practice for the all-states, which includes participants from all three New Jersey regions.
The all-states system was weird. Ok, not weird, but different from regionals. In regionals, the warm up room is usually a huge room such as the cafeteria or auditorium. After you feel that you're ready, you enter a hallway. You have three rooms to go to, solo, sight-reading and scales, which you can go in any order that you like. In all-states, they assign you to one of two warm up rooms, in which you stay inside as moderators call five audition numbers consecutively at a time; only when you hear your number can you go outside at wait in line. They did this so to prevent players from "cooling down" while waiting for hours in a long line and not being able to play.
Since I had to wait for about three hours and was bored out of my mind, I ended up practicing for about two hours in there. By the time they called my name, I felt pumped. My solo playing, as usual, wasn't my best, because of nerves. At the end, during a tremolo, my bow kind of went on my bridge, causing a loud scratchy sound. Oh well. That could have been worse. The scales and sight-reading was pretty good, because for some reason I never get nervous for those. I guess it's because I usually do really well in scales, and even though I suck at sight-reading, everyone complains about how they stink at it too, which makes me feel a tad bit better. Plus, I have a kind of "yolo" attitude when I do sight-reading.
Ah yes, and it was my brother's birthday. He's 12 now. I can't believe he'll be a teenager next year. Today my kungfu master lectured my brother on how it's the Chinese Year of the Snake, my brother's year, and so this year he must be calm and mature. According to my dad, it's a custom to do so, or an accident could occur later on in life.
The all-states system was weird. Ok, not weird, but different from regionals. In regionals, the warm up room is usually a huge room such as the cafeteria or auditorium. After you feel that you're ready, you enter a hallway. You have three rooms to go to, solo, sight-reading and scales, which you can go in any order that you like. In all-states, they assign you to one of two warm up rooms, in which you stay inside as moderators call five audition numbers consecutively at a time; only when you hear your number can you go outside at wait in line. They did this so to prevent players from "cooling down" while waiting for hours in a long line and not being able to play.
Since I had to wait for about three hours and was bored out of my mind, I ended up practicing for about two hours in there. By the time they called my name, I felt pumped. My solo playing, as usual, wasn't my best, because of nerves. At the end, during a tremolo, my bow kind of went on my bridge, causing a loud scratchy sound. Oh well. That could have been worse. The scales and sight-reading was pretty good, because for some reason I never get nervous for those. I guess it's because I usually do really well in scales, and even though I suck at sight-reading, everyone complains about how they stink at it too, which makes me feel a tad bit better. Plus, I have a kind of "yolo" attitude when I do sight-reading.
Ah yes, and it was my brother's birthday. He's 12 now. I can't believe he'll be a teenager next year. Today my kungfu master lectured my brother on how it's the Chinese Year of the Snake, my brother's year, and so this year he must be calm and mature. According to my dad, it's a custom to do so, or an accident could occur later on in life.
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