Audition Preparation: How to Practice Orchestral Excerpts

As I've written about earlier, I am currently preparing a selection of viola audition excerpts for an audition and a scholarship. For anyone who plays an orchestral instrument, learning excerpts is an unavoidable part of getting an orchestral job, so it's important to learn how to effectively prepare and practice them. Once you get the hang of it, doing excerpts can be rewarding and even fun to play! Here are some of the tips and rules I go by when working on orchestral excerpts:

1. Start slowly!
Learn the notes and rhythms and dynamics correctly the first time by playing so slowly you can't get them wrong or miss any detail in the music. It doesn't matter if that's at quarter note (or crotchet) = 40 on the metronome. This is so important, because every time you play something wrong, even when just learning something, you are building in the wrong habits.

Learn so that you are able to sing the notes as well, so that your knowledge of the music is rock-solid. This is especially important for excerpts with a lot of accidentals or unexpected notes, because playing any note wrong in an audition (even if the passage is really complicated) is simply unacceptable.

2. The metronome is your best friend...
And worst enemy (when it starts to drive you crazy). No one can argue with the metronome. There have been times that I've practiced an excerpt, and then put a metronome on to discover that I am rushing a section of it. Do not let these issues go undiagnosed - use the metronome to find out where you tend to rush or drag, and then use the metronome some more to treat these issues! You can use it for subdivisions too, putting it on twice or four times the actual speed so that the metronome beats smaller divisions of the beat you are playing for extreme precision.

3. Look on Youtube, watch videos
Watch other people playing the excerpts you're doing, if they're standard ones there will probably be videos of people playing them on Youtube. There are even some videos on how to practice standard excerpts like Don Juan and Mozart 35, with specific practice techniques for the commonly difficult parts.


4. Listen to recordings of the piece (with full orchestra)
You've got to know the context of your excerpt as well as be able to play it so that for example, if there's a flute solo above what you're playing, you're not ignorantly blasting out your less interesting line. The audition panel has heard and probably performed the work multiple times, they will know how your part should be played and which nuances you should use. Not to mention the correct tempo. You've got to know that too. Listen to multiple recordings to choose a version that seems consistent.

Some people like to play along with recordings too. Personally I don't (lest I start to develop any undesirable characteristics of the recording), but I prefer to visualize what it would be like to play the excerpt in its orchestral context while I'm listening.

5. Use short bursts of practice
Excerpts are short, usually a few lines to a page in my experience. You can most effectively work on these snippets of music by going through them and working on any problems, putting the instrument down for awhile to let your brain absorb the information, and then going back to it after a little break and some mental visualization. This is more productive than hammering away at five lines of music for two hours hoping it'll just magically improve with repetition.

Repetition is better when you have learned something well and are aiming to improve your consistency.

6. Engage your brain with different practice techniques
So you've learned the excerpts pretty well? Good. Now, practice them with rhythms, difficult bowings, at different speeds, anything to engage and challenge your brain. String crossing passage? Play it on all open strings for bow work. Left-hand passage? Do it without the bow, making sure your hand is relaxed. These techniques will ensure that you know the excerpt inside out, and can recover quickly if a minor mishap (like doing a wrong fingering or bowing) happens on audition day. Practice runs from the end, (or top if it goes up) working backwards, like Roger Benedict says to in his Youtube tutorial on Don Juan, so that you always get the final arrival (or top) note even if you happen to miss one at the beginning.

7. Play for people, and record yourself
Finally, play for people. Play for other musicians to get musical feedback, and play for non-musicians to get practice playing your excerpts in a higher-pressure situation than you would get practicing by yourself. You can even imitate the audition situation and play to them behind a curtain or screen if you wish.

Record yourself as well, you are your harshest critic and you are the one with the power to change how you sound. Do this multiple times to keep track of your own progress - it could happen that an excerpt you were once happy with has since deteriorated or become interpretatively too free or rushed or other flaw you've stopped noticing because you think it's still all good. Regularly checking up on yourself will prevent this. Even if you've reached a point where there's nothing to change in your recordings it's reassuring to know that you are staying ultra-consistent.

Also, if you have the chance, talk to teachers and members of orchestras who already know how to get into an orchestra and may be able to tell you what you need to focus on so that you get in too. Maybe they have advice for how to approach the audition day as well.



Are there any other techniques musicians out there use for working on orchestral excerpts?

Happy practicing, and good luck!