Yesterday, I did an audition for a local orchestra. I had learned about it from a few different people the week before, so I had started practicing some orchestral excerpts each night after work. After a few nights of practicing, I got to a point where I felt I could reliably play the two excerpts I had picked.

And so yesterday found me driving to a mysterious building in Salem. I warmed up a little bit, told them I was ready, and then fumbled my way through the two excerpts. I made bizarre mistakes that I'd never made before, and eventually asked to try it again. The second attempt went much better, but even with that, I definitely didn't play it as well as I did back at home. Needless to say...in general I left thinking that I hadn't best represented my playing at all.

They didn't tell me anything on the spot (though expecting that would have been too much), and - naturally - I'm assuming the very worst. So much so that I had a dream last night about a different orchestra sending a terse email informing me that "unfortunately, we will not be offering you a position in our orchestra this year" while simultaneously listing the names of people who had been given a chance to perform a concerto with the orchestra along with winning the seat. I woke up feeling utterly disappointed, and I had (or let's face it: am still having) a hard time shaking that feeling off. And who knows? Maybe the distance between the audition and now has inflated the ineptitude of the performance in my mind and it actually went better than I'm recalling...but for the moment I'm sitting on pins and needles, waiting for the cyber guillotine to drop with the arrival of an email telling me I just wasn't good enough. Dramatic? Such is the life of an amateur musician, I suppose.

Woodstock Writings