Ugh, February is so stressful for my students

[keylimepie]

(sorry so long...)

I wish I could post on here more, but my work schedule is weird and computerless. Anyway, I just wanted to vent. I teach private violin lessons, and this time of year can be absolute hell for my students. Back when I first started teaching, I had mostly beginners and small children, so they didn't experience the spring stress the way the older kids do.

Now, I have mostly junior high and high schoolers, plus a few adult students. Currently, I have FIVE high school students auditioning for music schools (four for state universities and one for a couple of conservatories). They're all FREAKING THE FUCK OUT. I'm sure I was like this back when I was auditioning too, but whew. This boy just left after a craaaazy stressful lesson. He's auditioning at two schools, one in-state and one in California, and he has one audition this coming weekend and one the following weekend. So, he came inside, obviously stressed out. He looked exhausted, and he was fumbling around with the music, trying to get everything out quickly. He was saying that he's worried about having memory slips in his audition, he doesn't think his Bach is well enough in tune, he didn't get to practice enough for the past couple of days because of some huge English paper. I was just trying to keep everything low-key, okay, it's okay, you sound great, let's just go slowly over a couple of parts. As he was playing through his pieces, I could tell he was just frazzled. I KNOW he knows this music really well because I heard him play it flawlessly last week. So he finished his run-through, and he obviously knew he made some mistakes. I was trying to be super duper encouraging, because I know it's just nerves and anxiety. Anyway, he completely broke down in tears, sobbing that he was just so stressed with school and practicing and auditioning (not to mention there's another audition coming up for him -- he's vying for concertmaster of a youth symphony here). So we put away the instrument and just talked about this stuff. By the end of the lesson, he felt ready to try one more time, and he played his Bach much better.

UGH! I remember so vividly what this was like -- just thinking about it makes me queasy! I still get like this sometimes before important performances or auditions. Everyone goes through this; I know he'll be fine. He's a great player.

I have another student coming in half an hour who's similarly stressed out, but she's already had both of her auditions, so she's just waiting to see whether she gets in. Which is a whole other kind of stress! That awful helpless feeling! lol

[Jalapeñomel]

I remember auditioning for college, and it was so unbelievably stressful, I hated it. I was also an arrogant MFer, big fish in a little pond, so I had no idea what I was in for.

[keylimepie]

Feb 6, 2013 15:09:55 GMT -5 Lucy Honeychurch said:

January and February are stressful if you're any kind of HS musician, I think. It's when districts/states auditions are, and ensemble festivals and etc. I always remember post-Christmas as being a flurry of stage fright and rehearsals with the pianist.

YES. Regionals, All-State, festivals, youth orchestra/band/choir, recitals, new repertoire. Add in AP classes and hormones and you're doomed.

[MWOS]

little known MWOS fact:

I started out as a music major. I will never forget the stress of auditioning for college. You build your grades and your extracurricular activities and your essays over weeks and months and years. But as a musician, it comes down to one performance.

I maybe just peed myself a little, and this all happened 10 years ago.

[keylimepie]

Feb 6, 2013 15:12:23 GMT -5 MWOS said:

little known MWOS fact:

I started out as a music major. I will never forget the stress of auditioning for college. You build your grades and your extracurricular activities and your essays over weeks and months and years. But as a musician, it comes down to one performance.

I maybe just peed myself a little, and this all happened 10 years ago.

What do you play?

I'm in a doctoral program now, and I thought to myself before walking in the door to audition for it, "Wow. Two degrees, countless hours of practice, tons of applications, teaching experience, a shit ton of music classes, and everything else I could possibly do, and all that matters is how I play this Tchaikovsky concerto right now."

[MWOS]

My main instrument is clarinet. I took a semester each of flute, sax, and trumpet and a year of piano before I switched majors. I have never hated ANYTHING like I hated our clarinet studio. We were required to perform at least twice a semester.

"I really like the way you put a reed on your instrument, but everything after that was shit"

That said, I have incredible memories from the last couple years of high school. Being recruited by a university, accidentally auditioning for a prestigious fine arts camp and getting a full scholarship. Driving my band director completely batshit insane. It just wasn't meant to be my career.

[keylimepie]

Feb 6, 2013 15:26:41 GMT -5 MWOS said:

My main instrument is clarinet. I took a semester each of flute, sax, and trumpet and a year of piano before I switched majors. I have never hated ANYTHING like I hated our clarinet studio. We were required to perform at least twice a semester.

"I really like the way you put a reed on your instrument, but everything after that was shit"

That said, I have incredible memories from the last couple years of high school. Being recruited by a university, accidentally auditioning for a prestigious fine arts camp and getting a full scholarship. Driving my band director completely batshit insane. It just wasn't meant to be my career.

Awesome! And UGH about your clarinet studio. I had a REALLY condescending and arrogant professor for one year in college, but fortunately, I was able to switch after that year into the studio of the teacher I loved. But man, that one year... I almost quit. It was one of the worst experiences of my life.

[keylimepie]

Feb 6, 2013 15:38:37 GMT -5 Lucy Honeychurch said:

Feb 6, 2013 15:26:41 GMT -5 MWOS said:

Mary!  *squees with glee*  I played the clarinet for fifteen years.  I have nightmares of the adagio of Mozart's concerto and those fucking auditions behind screens.  And broken reeds.   I never had replacements.  Once I had to use a used reed of someone else's because I had no new ones and we were five minutes from a concert and I had a bunch of solos. 

Do you still have all the recordings?  B/c I can't bring myself to get rid of all my cassette tapes of concerts, like anyone needs another shitty recording of Candide, but still.

I don't like screened auditions. I don't like playing them and I don't like judging them. I understand the point, I really do, but they make me uncomfortable.

[MWOS]

Oh yes. I have boxes and boxes of things from back in the day. Recordings, sheet music, more fucking tshirts than you can imagine. Actually, over Christmas, my mom surprised my sister and I by taking us out to dinner and our old lesson teacher was there! I auditioned for college on the Rondo section of Mozart's concerto. It was also the solo I learned in 8th grade. I was gifted. :flips hair:

I still make assumptions of people's character based on the instrument they play.

"Oh....you're a drummer?"

[keylimepie]

Aaand there's my student pulling up. Maybe she'll be niiice and relaaaxed.

[CheshireGrin]

Mary played my clarinet when she came to visit me. True story.