Scale Biases

“Play any scale you would like,” the violinist said to me. Play any scale? Saying this to a well-trained musician is like telling a mother to choose her favorite child from her many children. There are biases of the difficulty of each scale to every person, especially depending on the different strengths and weaknesses for each instrument. My auditioner was a violinist, and I was a flutist. There is a major difference of scale biases between someone who plays a wind instrument and someone who plays a string instrument. My head was a ping-pong table of different options bouncing back and forth: C, G, D, A, E, B, F sharp, D flat, A flat, E flat, B flat or F major. “Well, what scale are you going to play for me today?” I had felt like so much …show more content…
There were three excerpts that I had prepared, each one more difficult than the last. I of course wanted to be in the highest orchestra, but I was uncertain which excerpt was for that level. “Do you know which excerpt is for the Concert Orchestra?” I asked. He shrugged and looked upset. I felt like a bad dog being hit in the head with a newspaper. “Don’t you know?” he said to me. After no response he declared, “Okay well next time be more prepared with this. I think that this one is for the Philharmonic Orchestra and that this one if for Concertino, so just play the other one,” he explained to me, but he didn’t seem sure. “And don’t forget that no matter which piece you play, you can always be bumped down to a lower level of orchestra.” I nodded my head showing that I understood and put my flute up to my lips, ready to play.

The worst part of my audition at Midwest Young Artists was that it was on video tape. Well, not the kind of tape that would get me internet famous on Youtube, but the kind of tape where Midwest Young Artists can look back on it if I step foot inside that building again. Especially since about a week later, I found out that I had made it into the lowest orchestra for my age group,