<p>One of the best things we heard–from Peabody, our first stop last year–was not to be alarmed by the seemingly short length of auditions. The speaker asked the audience to describe walking past a practice room and hearing someone playing their same instrument. He asked the audience then how long it takes them to determine the person inside’s level of play. The answer was “About 30 seconds.” He said that adjudicators do know what they’re looking and listening for, and that a short audition–or a long one–doesn’t necessarily mean anything. That did make us feel better about short audition timeframes, or my son being cut off in the middle of a song.</p>