Posted by Nice Answer/Story on June 11, 2003 at 22:42:26:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Navy Band Results? posted by Question for Karl on June 11, 2003 at 09:35:42:
The same qualities that anyone looks for, among them: glorious, consistent tone; outstanding musicianship; excellent preparation; flawless rhythm, tempo, and intonation. Very few people possess all of these qualities and can also display them under audition pressures (certainly not me); so we try to find someone with enough of these qualities to contribute to our ensemble.
One additional skill needed that differs from most orchestral auditions is sightreading. We had some difficult, and sometimes obscure, examples. Why? It's a skill we need in the performance of our duties, when someone with stars on their shoulders (or an official seal on their podium) says "Hey, can y'all play _____ __ ____ ?" We HAVE to pull it off.
But the other reason for the emphasis on sightreading is to see if the player can keep their cool under pressure. A Story: on a ceremony at the Pentagon, the conductor decided we didn't need to bring any music (we have a couple handfuls of tunes we all have memorized) as the ceremony was short and our part minimal. Of course, something delayed the start of the ceremony, and an aide rushed up and says we have to fill the time. No problem, until the conductor calls up a tune that wasn't one of the handful!--(he was new on the job). 30 seconds of whispered discussion amongst the musicians and we had the key and enough of the melody to make it work.
Another Story: a particularly tuba problem--another new-ish conductor was leading us at the dedication of the FDR Memorial. For most ceremonies, we usually play BBb sousaphones in a small stand-up sized band. But for this, with a full-sized concert band, we all played CC tubas. Again we ran short of music (due to unforseen Presidential delay), but this time we were only asked to play memorized tunes--which we had all memorized on BBb's! Try pulling the mental twist of transposing memory in front of 10,000 people with a TV camera in your face, and you'll understand why we put candidates under musical pressure.
We heard some very fine playering: I'm sure we will find someone who can help us live up to the title: "The World's Finest" the US Navy Band.
Karl "transpose A to B except after C?" Hovey