We made it to the JMU campus just as the sunrise caught up to us, and found our way to the parking deck and music buildings. We pulled into a spot on the second level and took the staircase down to the ground. It was bitterly cold there, a different sort of cold from what we have here at home. The frigid air permeated right through our layers of jackets and nipped at our skin, numbing it and making our jeans scrape painfully at the backs of our knees. We made it inside only to be greeted by a claustrophobic warmth, and I fought through the crowd of instrument-clutching students and their equally flustered parents to find my band director and receive my payment ticket. He greeted me with a halfhearted smile, but I could feel the warning in his gaze. Make me proud, he was thinking. Represent our school. Don't screw this up, Amber. Don't make this a waste. I'd thought I was nervous before, but that was nothing compared to the panic I felt as I struggled to smile back at him. My lips trembled as I tried to make my facial muscles compose themselves, a knot formed in my throat, and my eyes threatened to spill over from shame. I think he could tell, because he quickly looked away. I guess he felt awkward or something.
I turned in my audition packet to a group of college guys at the registration table, where I received my audition number. 1. I was number 1. The first one the judges would hear, the first one to attempt the sight-reading, the first one to be finished and get to come home. I was both relieved and terrified. I proceeded nervously to the percussion warm up room, where I sat with my drum and mallet bag in an awkward posture-perfecting chair near the door and picked all of my nail polish off in my anxious panic. The room slowly filled with the people who would be competing with me, mostly guys from all over the state. I literally think there were about 6 girls in there, including myself. People warmed up on their snare drums and the provided timpani and xylophones. Some even worked on their tambourine-playing and triangle technique. The room was dominated by the complexity of our prepared piece, played overlapping itself by 72 percussionists from all over Virginia. It was almost surreal, how we had all learned the same music, and played it together, although almost none of us had even met each other, and would probably never see each other again. Almost nobody spoke, not only because it was so ear-grindingly loud but because we were either too nervous to open our mouths or too competitive to try to make friends. For me, it was both.
I sat there from 7:45 until 9:30. Auditions started later than they were supposed to, which was horrible. I just sat there and observed my competitors. There were the ones who were obviously drummers, not percussionists; they were twirling their drumsticks in ways usually reserved for the football field. Some were from the really wealthy schools, who looked sneeringly at the warm-up instruments provided to us, because they were apparently used to better ones. Some were obviously forced to audition but didn't really care at all, and some were still in the process of learning their music, even daring to ask others how to count rhythms. It was ridiculous. It wasn't anything like what I had expected. Of course, many of them were much better than me. I knew that before I agreed to try out. But I didn't expect such a wide range of players.
Finally auditions began, and I was first. Apparently it was a big deal for a girl to be going first, because the four guys in my group whistled in awe and looked impressed. And maybe even jealous, I guess because everyone in that warm up room watched me leave, and knew that I was number one, not them. I went into the first room to do snare, and I won't go into all of the details of my audition because it would be too boring, the majority of people wouldn't know what I was talking about or wouldn't care, and it was rather painful anyway. I'll just say the sight-reading was worse than I expected. Like my prepared piece, it didn't look like music at all. I sortof butchered it. I'm not proud of that.
At that point I was beginning to panic and lose my head a little, and I had cottonmouth like crazy. I forgot that I would have to use my snare drum again and started to dismantle it, actually, because I was that flustered and confused. I went to the mallets room next, which was significantly better than in the snare room, but still not my best performance. Nerves were really starting to kill me at that point. In the timpani room, I don't even remember what happened. Everything was getting really chaotic, my hand was bleeding all over my mallets from an old blister that chose a really bad time to pop, and I was nearly in tears. The audition assistant was staring at me as well, because that was his job, to make sure I wasn't having any sort of problems. But at that moment, I hated him. I wanted to yell at him to leave and go and get me a bandaid and stop staring at me because I knew I sucked and he didn't need to make fun of me. But I couldn't (thank goodness) because we aren't allowed to speak in audition rooms. So I held my tongue.
In the last room, I felt about ready to faint. I managed to get everything set up in under 30 seconds, which was a miracle because there was so much to do and at the point I was completely going insane. I'm sure I looked like a complete madwoman.I sure felt like one. I played my prepared piece (I mean, I suppose I did. I actually don't remember. That happens to me when I get too panicky.), grabbed all my stuff, and walked out. I never want to set foot in those rooms again. I hate them. I hate how they made me feel, and I hate how they showed me how weak of a player I am. They made me hate percussion. I've honestly been forcing myself to play ever since.
I stopped by the warm up room to wish my friends from my district good luck, and to gather the rest of my things. I said a quick goodbye to my band director, avoiding eye contact at all costs because I knew if I looked at him I would lose it. I located my dad and headed to the parking deck, where I counted my mallets to make sure I hadn't lost any in my panic (I hadn't) and ate a sandwich before I fainted.
All the way home, I tried to admire the mountains, but I was too worried about my performance and too distracted by the abundance of people texting me, asking me how it went. I finally felt free, however, and that was totally worth it. It was great to go first and get out of there before 10:30, and I still had time to go home and get some essays done before having my first Girl's Night in over a month. Freedom was something that I didn't realize I had missed so much, and I still haven't gotten over actually having time to enjoy myself yet.
~ ~ ~
So it turns out, I got 59th chair. Out of 72. After all of my hard work, I was extremely disappointed in myself. I felt like I had wasted my entire month, been miserable all for nothing. That is, until my percussionist friend encouraged me. He was proud, and he didn't think I wasted my time, because having such a difficult musical experience made me a better player. Plus, now I know what to do when I try out next year.
Maybe next time, my states story will have a happy ending instead. For now, #59 is fine with me.
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