Where it all started

You know what is a total bummer?  When you dedicate years of your life preparing for something and when you get there it is not only completely different than you were expecting, but strangely unsatisfying.  

This happened to me a few years ago when I took my first orchestral audition.  I showed up in Princeton, NJ to take the audition for the 2nd Horn position and I really thought I was going to really blow the walls down. For months I had been plowing through the excerpts and playing the Mozart concerto a bar at a time with a metronome.  This was all fine and dandy, but there was some very frustrating about the process that I couldn't seem to shake for months following the audition.  My audition was at the end of my junior year of college, and this feeling stuck with me all the way through the day I graduated from school. 

So, now what?

Well, I must say I have been fortunate to be exposed to the world of freelancing, private teaching, auditions, and all that other stuff from a pretty young age.  This experience, I think was the most valuable thing that I took away from my years as a student.  It prompted me to take a major step back and really examine the direction I had been going in for the last few years.  I won't claim that it was an epiphany that instantly changed my life (wouldn't that be nifty though?)  but it has led to some serious thoughts about what I truly wanted to do.  The most important thing I took away from the experience was that even though it didn't show me what I wanted for myself, it did show me what I didn't want to do.  

As I begin to make my way in the world, I will be posting here about my experiences and lessons I learn along the way.  Please feel free to join in the conversation at any point!

-Seth