Wyoming All-State Band auditions, 2017

It's All-State time here in Wyoming, and I just put together an instructional video for all of you brave auditioning souls out there. Here it is, and the notes that follow are a review of what I'm demonstrating in the video:

You can download all three excerpts (two for flute, one for piccolo) and scales here. Scroll to the end for the optional piccolo excerpt. Some tips and resources, which I also touch upon in the video:


Etude #1: The accents create a sense of a march style here, and clean technique is clearly on display.

• The spaces between the notes must be even, and all fingers must move as a rhythmical team to avoid "flams" or accidental grace notes.  Practice rhythms can help: turn each triplet into 

                           and 





to force the fingers to get to different notes cleanly and quickly.  Always practice with a metronome, and insist on 10 perfect repetitions in a row before moving on to the next tempo.

• When slurring from E to F#, you can use the alternate F# fingering (RH 2 instead of RH3). This fingering is flat, so only use it in fast technical passages like you have in measure 13.
• Each phrase has a clearly marked dynamic, and they must all sound different.  Map out your dynamic range on a single stable pitch: piano is the quietest sound you can make with a focused sound and excellent pitch, mezzo piano is one obvious notch louder, mezzo forte another step louder, etc. Fortissimo should still be in tune. To get louder, you drop your jaw (it should naturally go down and back at the same time) in increments for each louder dynamic. Conversely, to get quieter, your jaw will come up and forward slightly, like saying "oooo".
• Accents should be produced with a firm tip of the tongue right where the back of your front teeth meet the roof of your mouth (where most people say "two"), and plenty of fast air behind the sound. If you find that you are cracking on these accents, drop your jaw a little bit and aim your air slightly lower into the headjoint.

Etude #2: This lovely, mournful ballad measures your ability to sustain a phrase and play expressively.  Good breathing capacity along with efficient air use, clear tone, and flexible vibrato are your goals.

• Practice breathing out-of-time: with the metronome on, play a phrase in time, then give yourself two full beats to breathing, completely filling up from the bottom to the top, then play the next phrase in time, etc. After doing this for a week, limit yourself to one beat of breath, then finally, breathe in time. Continue to mimic the sense of fullness you had when you were taking two luxurious beats to breathe. 
• If q=60 is too slow for you to play beautifully, start by practicing at the slowest comfortable tempo you can do, then gradually slow it down in increments. You haven't perfected a tempo until you can play in tune, with clear tone and dynamics ten times in a row. 
• Be sure your vibrato depth/speed matches your volume--shallow and slow for piano, deep and fast for forte. Practice whole notes crescendo from piano to forte, then decrescendo back to piano ("diamonds") and experiment with your vibrato to fill up, but not go beyond the borders of, your sound at every volume. 
• As with etude #1, map out your dynamics
• It should go without saying, but...PRACTICE YOUR E-flat MINOR SCALE!

Piccolo Etude: You will be judged on beauty and continuity of sound, clean fingers (of course), and control of pitch. The fingers should be easier than flute etude # (use the 10x rule for all woodshedding), but sound can be more challenging on piccolo. Some thoughts:

• Play the piccolo like you play the flute: keep your throat open, tongue relaxed, and some space between your back teeth like when you say "ah". Use fast spinning air like you do for flute.  This will ensure that all of your notes speak evenly and have depth.  Beauty of sound can be practiced like you practice it on flute, with long tones, "diamonds", and octave slurs. 
• Your piccolo is not as acoustically "correct" as your flute, so you'll have to do more to control pitch.  Learn your tendencies with a simple "Pitch Tendency" sheet.  Turn on your metronome, and once you've tuned to an A, play and hold every single individual pitch, from low D to high F. Write down your specific tendency on that note (like "+20" or "-10"). Then take notes on what you have to do to get it in tune.  You should not need to roll in and out drastically, which hurts sound quality. Instead, drop your jaw to get flatter, or pucker to get sharper. In the context of this etude, you will know where to blow each note so that they are all in tune. 

Scales: Visit my blog post, "Tips for Creative Practice" to keep things fresh (and accurate).

Good luck, and enjoy the process!