My daughter auditioned for Syracuse yesterday at Unifieds. Dance call went well, but the accompanist to her singing audition played her music double time, completely throwing her off, even though her sheet music is clearly marked and he asked for the tempo ahead of time
I don’t understand why my posted gets messed up here all the time
The rest of the story is that she didn’t speak up or ask for a redo with the correct temp. I wish she would have.
Instead she left in tears.
What should she do is if something like this ever happens again?
Heartbrokenmomofkidwhodidnotapplytoenoghschools
Happened to my D at her first Fall audition. She was flustered and did not ask for a “redo” either. It was her second song - her first went well. She said (without prodding from me 
) if it happens again, she would stop and politely ask for a redo - she could say she must have explained the tempo incorrectly. She also realized after her first audition that her cut was difficult to play. She made some changes in her material after that. The long ride home after the audition was unpleasant to say the least.
I don’t have advice, but just wanted to say I feel for you and your D. Really hard to watch our kids go through this process when so many factors are out of our control.
Thank you @artskids. It’s nice to know were not alone
Is there any way to delete this thread?
I feel for your D, @MTMOM17! I want to give her a hug! It’s so hard when an audition doesn’t go well, especially when it’s something that’s totally NOT her fault! I agree with @artskids - politely ask to start again and explain about the tempo (I love artskids suggestion to say she “must have explained it incorrectly”, so she’s not casting blame). The auditors WANT the kids to do well, so it’s totally fine to stop and ask to start again and explain.
Btw, it happens at professional auditions too! There’s a forum called Audition Update, which is for New York actors, and they’re CONSTANTLY saying that an accompanist at an EPA played the wrong tempo and it screwed them up and what should they do in that situation. So it’s more common that you’d think!
Ps Im so sorry it happened to your daughter as well!
Thank you @naevia and @actorparent1
@MTMOM17 - this does not change what was, (hugs!) but a great piece of advice I got in 2014 (from my D’s voice teacher, who had helped chose her songs) was, if possible, have other accompanists play them through, just to check that cuts etc are clear. D had 3 people try - her music teacher at HS (who is NOT a hugely skilled pianist), a good family friend (who was a piano major in college, so IS quite skilled) and a student (who was going to end up majoring in piano) and got feedback from all three on how easy/difficult they were to follow. We ended up dropping one song that she SANG very well, b/c 2 out of 3 struggled with it
Good advice, thank you @toowonderful!
Sadly, my D had a similar situation today. She handled it the best she could. Flustered…yes. Asked to re-explain tempo and a re-do…no. She feels she did the best she could under the circumstances…it was the first song and is worried that it affected the rest of the audition. Had a brief cry but, alas, moving on…
Happened to my D again this weekend. She did get the chance to explain and re-start. This with a new cut of the same song. The song is officially out of her book. She said it wasn’t so bad this time but she does not want to risk it at Unifieds.
For what it’s worth, at the CMU info session before the Unified auditions, they made a point of saying if something like that happens, it’s totally fine to ask to start over, and they want everyone to be comfortable in their audition and not feel intimidated. So CMU is cool with it, at least!
I think most schools would be ok with it! I think our kids are just nervous. In this last round, the accompanist knew the show and the song. My D had never heard it before working her tempo is not the typical song tempo! Ah well.