Preparing for an audition takes discipline and consistent practice. It is best to start practicing the audition material as early as possible and improve incrementally every day. While warming up, spend time building the specific skills you will need to be successful. In your University of New Mexico audition you will be judged on sound, rhythm, dynamics, style, phrasing, articulation, and range. Every one of these facets is affected by how well you breathe. Make sure that your warm-up routine includes breathing exercises, as well as work in each of these specific areas.
There are two main practice techniques that I recommend. The first one is to identify the toughest licks in each piece and put brackets around them. Then begin with those bracketed sections every day. You may spend as much as 50% of your practice time on these sections alone! When you make progress on the challenging parts your general abilities will have improved, and you may be surprised at how quickly you can learn the rest of the piece. And when you sail right through the toughest parts at the audition, the brass faculty will surely be impressed.
How should you approach these difficult passages? It is extremely important that you practice them slowly, at a tempo where you will sound great the very first day. This may mean practicing some sections of the pieces at less than half the suggested tempos! Use a metronome and keep working on a section until you love the way it sounds. Then move the metronome up a few clicks and make it sound great at that tempo. After several weeks it is best to play sections of each piece daily at three or four practice tempos, from very slow to moderate and then fast. At the audition you should play all of your pieces at tempos that show you at your best…even if you play slower than the directions indicate.
A great practice technique is to play the trombone without actually buzzing your lips! Blow air through the trombone in rhythm, move the slide, articulate, and make phrases, but the only sound that you will hear is air. This exercise is a great teacher. Take any difficult section and try this. When you switch back to actually playing the trombone you will probably notice a big improvement.
Another practice technique is to buzz difficult parts of your audition material on your mouthpiece, while occasionally checking for pitch accuracy at the piano. It is best to not use the tongue after the first buzzed note, which will give the effect of a glissando between notes. This helps train the air to be continuously flowing. It also trains the ear to hear the more difficult intervals, which in turn will increase accuracy.
In your preparation, make sure to take time to think about the mood of each piece, or an imaginary story that the music might tell. The music will come alive to the listener if you are clear about the emotions you want to convey. You are a storyteller in sound. You can imagine that you have been asked to play these pieces to accompany a movie. Think about what kind of movie it would be. Picture the movie playing on a big screen if front of you and be dramatic!
One of the best ways to prepare is to play mock auditions for family and friends during the last couple of weeks before the audition. The people who do well at auditions are very thorough, and have probably played their audition material in a pseudo-performance situation four or five times before the day of the real audition. Breathing is crucial to playing your best, so when you play mock auditions make it a goal to take really big breaths. If you are the kind of person whose pulse goes faster when you are nervous, get used to it ahead of time by running up and down a few flights of stairs and then playing through your audition. At first this may be very difficult, but by the fifth or sixth attempt the Law of Accommodation will take effect, and you will be able to play well, even with a fast pulse.
In summary, start right away with a warm-up routine that builds your skills on the trombone, do breathing exercises every day, practice the toughest parts slowly using some of the practice techniques that I have discussed, and you will be well-prepared for your UNM audition. Play several mock auditions for friends and family as the audition draws near. Careful attention to all of these details will result in an audition for UNM that will show you at your best.
