I’ve been working on an analogy for the non-orchestral players out there for what an audition for a symphony orchestra is like in terms that can be readily understood. I’m not totally sold on the one at which I’ve arrived, but I think it is, at least, close enough.

Imagine that you’ve got fifteen to thirty pieces of prose, some very technical (mathematical formulae, foreign language characters, etc.) and others straight prose with some poetry (odd meters with odd line breaks and capitalization) thrown in. You get these a month or so in advance. You have no idea how many people will show up to compete against you (we had fifty-six in this most recent audition but hundreds may show up) but if you are chosen then you will receive a full-time, fairly well-paid job as the result. You’ve trained since you were in elementary school for this.

The job audition: You are seated behind a screen so that your identity is anonymous. At any point in time during the process that screen can come down so the committee can see you (thus dramatically increasing your nervous reaction as you may know some of them and you also may wish to audition again down the road!) and you are aware of this, though it will come down for everyone, not just for you. On the other side of that screen are seven to eleven people who all think/know that they can do what you’ve come to do at least as well as you can hope to do it and they do it every single day under pressure with literally thousands of people watching them. What are you to do? You are to type exactly what you’ve been given into a computer. This typing consists of not only typing what you’ve been given to type, and some of these bits you’ve been given ahead of time will take you three to ten minutes to get through, but also adding your choice of font, font-size, font-style, and placement on the page all while not ever being able to reach for the delete or backspace key. In addition, some of these are timed – you must complete them in a very specific (down to the half-second) amount of time. Your choice of formatting must be done within the realm of a very specifically-defined and somewhat narrow range of historically and stylistically correct formatting options which you are expected to thoroughly know with any guidance from the committee. There is room to maneuver, not much of course, and how you handle this will count in the commitee’s choice. The whole time that you are typing, the committee sees exactly what you type as you do it and will judge every thing that you do, all the typos included, against those competing against you. Every little thing counts against you. Every little thing. You go through you ritual and then go and wait. Every five people the committee votes on which, if any, of the auditionees moves into the next round. After everyone is heard, there is a semi-final round, and then a final round with those that pass the semi-final rounds. Once someone is chosen they may be subject to a resume review and even a week of typing next and with those who sit on the committee. At that point, no one may be chosen.

Pretty daunting, I think just about anyone would agree.

Tomorrow, I have direct comments on auditioning in general.

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