Slice of Life #24 - My Piano Auditions



March 24th, 2013

So, remember I said last week I was going to have piano auditions today?
At 9:00 AM, I woke up. Frantically, I brushed my teeth, shoved breakfast down my throat (how often do I eat quickly?) and rushed to the piano to practice just a couple thousand more times. That usually never happens. On the first couple of days of spring break, I usually catch up on sleep instead of playing piano.

I had played for about 4 hours straight on Saturday, trying, TRYING to play my piece with zero mistakes. Of course, last minute cramming never works. Especially when your song is full of places where your finger has to reach notes an octave apart. That never works then your hands are tiny like mine. So in the end, I had to be satisfied with a decent piece that at least didn't sound like trash...I still made a couple of mistakes where my fingers couldn't reach the octaves. mehhhhhh

When I got to the audition, I didn't even know who my judge was. I was waiting in the hallway for her to call me in, when a lady walked out of the bathroom and said hi to me. I thought, "Well, that must be some random teacher in the building because I think my judge is in that room listening to a student play piano." Sure enough, I heard music. However, it turns out that the room I was supposed to go in was empty, and the music was coming from upstairs. The lady turned out to be my judge. After I nodded hello, she beckoned me inside the room I was supposed to be judged in, and I finally realized this was my judge. I internally facepalmed myself and said good morning.

After playing through my two pieces that are somehow a little easier than one of last year's pieces, I could see my judge writing furiously with her pen on her comments page. I knew I had made a couple of mistakes...I've actually never made a mistake during auditions before. It's just that this year, I've had less practice time. I don't know if this is a good sign...musicians tend to be lazy when it comes to writing things, and I've never met a judge that wrote down good comments. Usually, they can only summon the energy to write areas to improve upon. A page full of marks...I'm guessing that's not a good thing?

Also, the piano was weird. It was one of those pianos where if you press down on the pedal, it doesn't really go down--the little pressure you put on it is enough to make the notes blur. The keys were really slippery and almost TOO easy to push down, resulting in difficulty for me to make parts of the pieces pianissimo. So....almost everything sounded too loud. >.<' Another problem: my dress was so, so, so long. It was lavender, and actually pretty this year, but it was definitely meant for someone taller than me. Every time I walked up stairs, even though I basically held up half my skirt, I was afraid of tripping. The skirt bottom almost brushed the ground.

Anyways, afterwards, I went shopping. I know. LE GASP. I almost forgot what shopping was... But I got so tired, since I don't exercise as much. After only a couple of hours walking around the Jersey Shore Outlet, my legs started to give way. Now I'm sagging at my desk pounding out this post. :D