<p>Just out of curiosity, those of you who (or whose kids have) auditioned this year... when did you decide on your audition pieces & how long had you had them in your repertoire? </p>
<p>A member of a very famous string quartet once said that you don’t practice until you get it right, you practice until you can’t get it wrong.</p>
<p>For voice, my D had 3 songs for 6 months, one 4 months, and added a new one about 2 months before Dec1 prescreens to meet the requirement of one of her schools. Ironically, that school one had her sing the ones she knew for 6 months. The rep needs to " second nature". Her teacher focuses on the notes, then the words then the emotion. It takes time to learn all 3. If you try to learn it all at once, the song suffers. It is the same with an instrument. You can learn to play the right notes, but to play with feeling takes more time. Most of my instrumentalist friends had their rep list at least 6 months. </p>
<p>My daughter picked her pieces (for grad auditions) in November and (for the pieces not in prescreening) December. And they were new to her, as she auditioned on a different instrument than her undergrad degree. But I would not advise this for less advanced player. Part of it is your overall level of playing and how comfortable you are with learning new music. For undergrad she picked her pieces at the beginning of the fall term, but the concerto was an old one that she brought back. </p>
<p>My D for undergrad. I’m assume less time will be required as she progresses and as auditions become more routine. </p>
<p>It is difficult to say how much time is needed because every kid learns at a different pace. As well, the amount of repertoire varies from student to student. Someone required to learn 2 pieces for auditions might not need as much time as someone who has 6 pieces to learn because they can devote more time to those 2 pieces. Some have trouble with memorization and some don’t. For my son, whether or not he is keen on the piece is another factor in how long he takes to learn a piece. As others have noted, the most important thing is that when the time comes for pre-screening videos and auditions, the pieces are second nature. </p>
<p>It depends on the student. The conventional wisdom I have heard is that your audition rep should be at the point where you are comfortable with it the spring before you audition, and then you spend the time cleaning that up. I kind of think by summer before auditions that you have your rep pretty much picked out and have it where you are working on the details, not the basics. One of the reasons for having it done earlier (in theory) is that by the time auditions come, you will have it down cold, including the nuances…and also, because on auditions, due to nerves and such, people tend not to play at their very best, and having it polished before will mean going in and playing at 90% of your best then let’s say 80%…</p>
<p>That said, my S changed his concerto in the fall before auditions, he didn’t feel the other piece he was doing was working out right. The piece he chose he had played a little bit, but had never worked on it…so there is nothing in stone. Still, I would recommend having as much done as early as possible, with all the strain of getting out prescreens, figuring out where to apply, getting audition dates and figuring out how to go there and so forth, you don’t want to have a massive effort to learn something and deal with all that:)</p>
<p>I decided on the exact pieces a couple months after the beginning of the year. Since I already had a number of college-audition-level pieces that I knew to choose from, I just had to decide which ones and practice them more to get them sounding even better. Generally you should play pieces that you are very comfortable with, and not study something new especially for the audition (unless you don’t have anything that meets the requirements). Strongly agree with Compdad ;)</p>
<p>thanks all! This confirms what I thought. I’m quite certain that the fact that my D didn’t decide she was going to be a music major until October (and didn’t have 3 pieces ready to go) made those early prescreens & auditions difficult. Her latest 2 auditions were great; of course, she had another month of working on her pieces and some actual audition experience, and auditioned at less competitive schools. Despite the difficulties it looks like it will all still work out for her. 
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