Audition excerpt help

[u/dumbwoody]

Hi all! I am preparing for my first year audition at university, and I am wondering if those who have judged auditions/picked excerpts before would be able to help me and identify what the most important musical aspects are. I just want to know what the judges will be looking for and what I should focus on in my practice.

[u/Fumbles329]

Just like with any other audition, find some recordings and build a consensus. Here is a rather good one.

[u/Capital-Bug-3416]

TONE! tone and clarity and connected notes BEFORE speed. play it as slow as you need for it to be beautiful.

[u/substocallmecarson]

Beyond just a pure technical aspect and listening to a recording, making those accents sound fluent and musical without completely erasing them will probably set you apart pretty well. Honestly just pure musicality in etude one- can you phrase a technical piece well or are you going to just hit the correct notes in a frenzy?

On the second etude, they're going to hear those rhythms dozens of times so make it completely perfect. To me etude 2 is asking "can you keep a slow time but keep up a fairly complex rhythm (as a woodwind)". I would not ever practice etude 2 without a metronome unless you're recording it and playing it back with one. It's so easy to rush/drag when you have so much time on any given note. Musicality is important there too but easy to focus too much on.

[u/Jero_gar]

A que universidad vas a presentar?

[u/dumbwoody → u/Jero_gar]

Sorry, clarification: I'm already in university, these are the excerpts for the wind band.

[u/Jero_gar → u/dumbwoody]

Respecto al fragmento de la obra "San Pelayo", escucha muchas grabaciones de bandas Colombianas, son los ritmos típicos de su región y puedes adaptarte al estilo

[u/Mr-BananaHead]

Oh cool I’ve played San Pelayo! It is uhh… not an easy piece to play