No, not the chinese food... my horn chops. I've been putting this post off until I had enough time to reflect on the process of auditioning. Two in one month. The second was today. I'm exhausted. My chops, though, are on fire. Both auditions were personal bests for me.
After the first round of my first audition, I thought that I had become someone else. I think I played one note poorly. That's never happened to me before. I'm strong on musicality, weak on technical prowess. I nick notes all the time... The second round was rough, though, more like what I might have expected from myself. I didn't win the audition. I think I got second or third. The standings are still unclear. But I was extremely happy with experiencing what it's like to do well at an audition. It definitely helped boost my confidence for future auditions.
The second audition was a long shot for me going into it. I was underprepared. Two weeks of work on that amount of music (three excerpts I had never even heard before!) was not enough time for me to really dig through all the layers and gain enough confidence in my preparation. One excerpt, in particular, was really giving me grief. It was the last one that we had to play in round one, and I didn't pull it off. On a different excerpt, I played one note weakly when I ran out of breath towards the end of it. And I nicked a couple of notes on other stuff, but not memorable enough (to me). But in spite of that, I was extremely pleased with my ability to focus on playing well and use the incredible, nervous, audition energy productively. My chops felt really solid.
Nevertheless, I didn't advance to the second round. Looking back, I wasn't really out of my league. I might not have won the audition with more preparation, but I might have advanced to finals, and perhaps gotten close. The guy who won is terrific. I'm very happy he won.
Auditioning stinks, but there are some really good things that come of it. More on that in Part II.
For some, mid-life crisis happens around 40. A red corvette might be involved. Maybe a jump from a perfectly able aircraft. Perhaps a marathon (or a triathalon) is required. But it's a right of passage. We all make it, if we're lucky enough to exist that long. Mine might be occurring early? 
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Sliding down
There was a day when Mabel was our only child. When people came over to visit us, I'm sure we were annoying. We'd actually compare our dog to their kids. And sometimes Mabel would win the Best Kid Award. I mean, she had some pretty impressive tricks when compared to some 1 year-old humans... (would sit on command, could stand up, cleaned the floor, didn't need diapers, etc).
