Audition #3

Audition #3 was for another north shore community orchestra. This orchestra was looking for an assistant 1st horn. The list of excerpts included Til, Tchaikovsky 5th Symphony (1st horn solo), Shostakovitch 5th Symphony (the low part part), the Eroica Symphony horn trio, the Brahms Symphony #1, 4th movement, and a Mozart concerto. Several of these had been on my other auditions and it was a manageable amount of music for me. Because the scheduled audition conflicted with Meet the Teacher Night at my school, I auditioned a day early, at the conductor's house.
The conductor was very pleasant. He had me set up in his living room. At this audition I was feeling confident and not nervous, and I played better, too. The trill on the Mozart still didn't respond for me and he asked if I would like to try it again. The second time around the trill wasn't much better, but then the excerpts went well! On the Shostakovitch I was trying to play tastefully. I had been told in the past not to play too loud on that excerpt. This conductor asked me to play it again "with more buzz." To me, "buzz" means what you do with your lips and so I tried for a fuller sound. He asked again for more buzz and this time it occurred to me that he wanted more nastiness or raspiness in the sound. I asked and he confirmed, so I let loose a little more, and he seemed pleased. I thought my strongest points were playing musically with a pretty sound.
One audition to go!