I have not met many musicians who love the audition process. They can damage the environment is very nervous and make us feel inhibited, tense, sweating, fear, no training, not sure what is expected and disturbed by the little things that are not generally known. No reaction is ideal for situations where we are supposed to show how good we are playing our instruments.
If you suffer from this problem, they can be overcome, and perhaps the best medicine is just to go out and gain experience by participating in hearings and become comfortable with the process.
But to save you from wasting too much of the hearings mistakes and you learn the hard way, here are some tips that we hope will help you prepare for the next hearing.
1. Do your research
2. Prepare, prepare and then prepare again
3. Arrive early
4. Warm
5. Act confident
6. Be yourself - beautiful
7. Stay relaxed
8. Take the "essential" equipment
9. Try to find what they want.
10. Do not be discouraged.
1. Do your research
The more you know about the staging, the best you can prepare. What music is it? What equipment do you need? The cymbals, drums, sticks? What kind of game you should refresh? What should you wear? What kind of person would you be trying to impress. This allows everyone to understand what is required.
2. Prepare, prepare and then prepare again
I'm never in a musical situation and think, "Shit, I'm better prepared than I knew all the music, I felt relaxed and I played very well .. What a fool!" But I have to go to many situations wish I had more opportunities to practice the knowledge, or more than is necessary. Learn music if you can. Get the tape, make your own graphics and practice until you know in your sleep. Still on the logistics of things, where is the training studio for an audition? Where can you park? What equipment will they provide? Make sure you leave nothing to chance for your feathers ruffled.
3. Arrive early
Precision is one of the biggest things we hear of top musicians all the time. Do not be the one who keeps everyone waiting, especially if you have a drum kit to build. Go early, get relaxed and ready when they call you.
4. Warm
Warming. You only have one chance to make a first impression so do not let it become one of the wrecks, logs sounded stiff nerves. Even if you just took a practice pad and go through your warm routine to do so. Flex, focus your thoughts and actions are also help you relax.
5. Act confident
Even if you shake inside, confident and competent persona project and you will find a much better light. This does not mean you have to do on her and steal the show, but at the end of the day you audition to be a player who can get to the stage and perform.
6. Be yourself - beautiful
Being a good person. Why would anyone choose someone who is hard to spend all their time? Experienced professional drummer Gregg Bissonette said, "has 50 percent of the work has nothing to do with the battery game was like the person you are. Will you be the positive and lifting session, or negative and complain? "
It's like saying: "Some people illuminate the room when they entered, some people light up the room when they leave." Which would you want in your design environment?
7. Stay relaxed
The enemy psychological often our own worst enemy. Our brains are sometimes out of sabotaging us and we must learn to control it. Practice relaxation techniques in the peace and quiet of your own home so that when you need to call them, they are well trained and have more jobs. Maybe you have some breathing exercises that help. Perhaps the heating coil specific routines. Perhaps visualization exercises. In 2010, the hearings of Dream Theater drummer Mike Mangini successful candidates spoke calmly in the hearings have to be viewed in hearings before I was there. She had imagined made a mistake with the band so that when he actually made a mistake in hearing, she was comfortable with it. Whatever works for you, just make sure when you are there you can focus on music and have fun doing what you enjoy doing.
8. Take the "essential" equipment
It is often not practical to take a full drum kit of the hearing, which leads to a bottleneck guitarist and singer can not share, an instrument that we play are foreigners and probably sub-standard . However, it is always useful to take some key elements of the drum key to reducing these potentially damaging situations and allows us to focus on our work. These elements may include cymbals, snare and bass drum pedal.
From my own experience, several years ago I went to a training studio in West London slum to a hearing. I took very little with me and when I sat in the kit, I found the bass pedal is not only bad, it's almost unplayable. No time to take it apart and try to make it work so I have to play. In a pressure situation - nervously audition where I had to see to read music, I do not know - it's just still distract me, leaving me confused and made me play very. I started reading the notes wrong and make bad decisions like going to the ride cymbal in time does not deserve.
As an MD and the agent smiled and said goodbye, I knew I had blown. I left the room and smiled wearily waiting at the hearings next drummer. I looked down and saw his stick bag, his cymbals, snare and ... well maintained and perfectly played the bass drum pedal. Lesson learned the hard way for me.
9. Try to find what they want.
Perhaps the hardest thing for you that's what they want. Do they want someone to interpret the music in their own way? Do they want someone to play note for note like the note (if you join an existing group or a show)? Do they just want someone who looks good, even if they can not offer a lot of music? Referring to Dream Theater auditions, some of them world-class drummers played the role that previous drummer, Mike Portnoy, a. Others have chosen to interpret the parts are slightly different and it was revealed that the group really wants to be chosen as the original part that is what they were doing and what the fans wanted to hear. See if you can work if the technical ability, sight reading, stage presence and performance, or the news and the groove is the key to your hearing.
10. Do not be discouraged
Sorry, I know I'm being negative, but it's just a fact ... not everyone can be successful in every hearing. I doubt there is a successful musician who has not heard a story failed to tell. But if this happens, get over it. This does not mean that you are a bad drummer. This does not mean you people are horrible. It may be that you have the wrong colored hair, wearing the wrong t-shirt, do not spin your stick pretty, twirling your stick too! Who knows what they want. The best thing you can do is to record everything that can be attached (as my experience pedal bass) and make sure you do not do it again. If you do not forget, returned to practice and we look forward to the next opportunity. Continue to improve, keep going to auditions and your chance will come.