Welcome to Winning the Audition – a special series from Contrabass Conversations featuring advice from leaders in the field about preparing and executing auditions successfully.  This series is drawn from interviews conducted with dozens of bassists from orchestras like the Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, and Houston Symphony, plus some of the most influential pedagogues in the field.

This episode is sponsored by Discover Double Bass, and they have a course on bowing technique with Lauren Pierce that I highly recommend checking out. This course is divided into 37 HD lessons, and Lauren gives a short video overview of the three categories that these videos cover: the basics, bow control, and real world techniques. There’s also a free preview lesson on phrasing with the bow. Check out over 70 free lessons and much more at discoverdoublebass.com!

About Winning the Audition

This series provides actionable advice that you can use to take your auditioning to the next level, and while we’re speaking with bassists for these episodes, the advice can certainly be applied to other instruments and disciplines as well.

This series is divided into four episodes: Preparing for Audition Success, Practicing Techniques for Peak Auditions, Preparation Routines That Work, and Sealing the Deal.  Special thanks goes to John Grillo, who was my co-host for many of these interviews.

Today’s episode includes advice from dozens of major figures in the bass world, including Lawrence Hurst, Michael Hovnanian, Ranaan Meyer, Ian Hallas, Brandon Mclean, Robin Kesselman, Ira Gold, Max Dimoff, Jack Budrow, Andrew Anderson, Rob Kassinger, Peter Tambroni, Greg Sarchet, Andrew Raciti, Marc Ramírez, Gaelen McCormick, Joseph Conyers, Colin Corner, Ju-Fang Liu, Jeffrey Turner, Owen Lee, Brad Opland, Alex Hanna, and Ed Barker.