The familiar smell of wood and sticky rosin reached my nose as I unstrapped my viola from its cozy spot in the blue, felt-lined case. Perhaps the most nerve racking part of the day was warming-up. Everyone pretended to focus on their own playing but it was an unspoken fact that players were sizing each other up. The feeling of one-hundred people listening in on my scales made me want to play as quiet as a mouse, barely audible to my ears and definitely inaudible to others. But I fought this urge, telling myself all that mattered was how I sounded to the judges. Warming-up was an essential part of a successful audition. Sufficient blood flow in my fingers was critical for them to move with the effortlessness and celerity of a waterfall. My fingers repeatedly flew up and down my scales, immediately adjusting ever so slightly at the sound of a sharp or flat note Although my scales were hardly perfect I convinced myself they would have to do and moved on to my excerpts. For the four years I had done IMEA, I always regretted not practicing more. IMEA was like a midterm paper I started writing the day previous to when it was do, I would finish but it wouldn’t be my best work. My excerpts were sufficient but fragile like an old creaky bridge, one wrong step and it would crumble. Nevertheless I was confident in my ability to perform when it was …show more content…
This year was blind auditions so the two, ponytailed female judges each sat in a too small desk facing the wall like small children in timeout. I stood at the front of the classroom as if I was about to begin teaching a lesson but I felt as if I was about to start an exam I didn’t study for. My mouth was dry and my hands felt like I had gone outside during a blizzard without gloves, my fingers taking additional effort to move. I proceeded to place my viola under my chin and prepared to play. My mind was racing a million miles an hour with last minute reminders, “Don’t forget the B flat! Or the rest….Make sure you really reach for that high A!” My viola felt foreign under my fingers and my bow felt heavier than I remembered. I inhaled one last breath and began to