Since the music was released in July, band students have been practicing their etudes for TMEA Region auditions that held on Dec. 3, 5, and 7.
According to assistant band director Cecily Yoakam, All-Region challenges students to be a better player and person.
“All-Region music is usually much more challenging than our band music we play in class, and that forces students to grow as players,” Yoakam said. “It also forces students to play as individual performers, which ups accountability and allows students to succeed as individuals. Performing alone and preparing for a challenging audition such as all-region helps students develop strong skills not only as a musician, but as a person too. It teaches you time management, stress management, goal setting, and problem solving. If you can figure out a tough etude and how you deal with stress and pressure of an audition, then you can tackle just about anything else in your life.”
To prepare for auditions, students submitted recordings of the music on canvas and had master classes which is where they work on music with their lesson teacher.
“Masterclasses are great for students who don’t have a private lesson teacher to help them prepare their music,” Yoakam said. “It gives students an opportunity to be heard one on one and get individual feedback from someone outside of Mrs. Hinojosa or myself. It still might not be perfectly individualized but it does help give students the chance to ask questions and play for their peers in their sections. The canvas assignments helped break down the etudes. We really wanted to help guide students through the practice process of learning an etude. Too often we learn the entire etude without any sort of detail and just sort of slop through it. Breaking down the etudes hopefully made it more digestible and helped students learn how to practice and break things down.”
For some, being productive with practice time can make all the difference.
“I spend about an hour a day leading up to the auditions and an hour may seem like a lot but it’s not that much time if you’re productive and it can really help you,” sophomore Navdeep Suresh Kumar said. “I would say when you’re practicing don’t keep playing the parts you’re good at, try to focus on the measures you’re bad at. Just spend five to ten minutes on them because you don’t want to feel nervous about certain measures leading up to your audition because that’ll just make you feel bad about your audition.”
In the region room it can be easy to get nervous playing in front of people, but positive self talk can aid any stress.
“I try to think to myself and not pay attention to anything that’s going on around me,” senior Ethan Kim said. “I just think through the music I’m about to play. I like to think through my nerves and whatever is making me nervous or anxious, I’ll think myself through it and convince myself it’s ok.”
One way students prepared for region and relieved their nerves for the audition was playing in front of other people.
“One of the most important things I did [to] prepare was I tried to play for a lot of people,” Kumar said. “I didn’t do that last year and I think that’s why I got so nervous at some of my auditions. Play for your friends, play for the directors and just try to get into the habit of playing while you’re nervous because that will simulate the audition experience.”
Goals can build someone to be better but for Kumar, it’s essential to not let one result break someone or define their ability.
“My goal this year is to make All-State. It’s good to have a goal but [don’t] see the goal as the final result because last year when I didn’t make All State I felt really defeated so I would say have a goal but don’t think of the result too much,” Kumar said. “I think that’s something I struggle with-like I’m not worthy if I don’t do good but that’s something I’m still trying to mature and get better [at] because the only person you can please at the end of the day is yourself.”
