The Audition

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had an audition last week but wasn’t ready to talk about it until I knew either way if I was getting the gig. I found out last evening I did not get it.

Frankly, I’m not surprised. I’m a little disappointed, but not surprised. I kind of knew what they’d say when I saw it was them calling.

I know, you guys still have no idea what I’m talking about. My friend Marie from The Snake Charmers told me about this job a couple of weeks ago. The International House of Blues Foundation (IHOBF) has a program called the Blues SchoolHouse Program. It is a musical presentation/educational program for 5th-12th grade students and teachers. Programs generally take place on select weekday mornings during the school year at the House of Blues-Houston venue.

The International House of Blues Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization dedicated to bringing the arts to schools and communities through programs that promote cultural understanding and encourage creative expression. The IHOBF is supported by the House of Blues, House of Blues Foundation Room members, Live Nation, and other public and private donors.

Blues SchoolHouse: The IHOBF Blues SchoolHouse Program explores aspects of American history and culture through blues music, blues-inspired music and traditions of related folk art. Utilizing the House of Blues venue as a multimedia classroom, the program engages students and teachers (grades 5 -12) with interactive, arts-related learning experiences. Through the Blues SchoolHouse, participants gain a greater understanding of how the arts can reflect life experiences and social conditions. The program fosters appreciation for diverse contributions to American culture and highlights the role that the arts can play in social transformation.

The Blues SchoolHouse includes a live musical presentation tracing the history of blues music from its roots in African musical traditions through its emergence and evolution as a unique American musical form. The presentation also explores the influence of the blues on other forms of popular contemporary music including jazz, R&B, rock and roll, soul, funk, and rap. The performance demonstrates how the blues musical form was influenced by and reflects important events in American history including the Atlantic Slave Trade, the institution of slavery, emancipation, Jim Crow laws, the Great Migration and the Civil Rights Movement.

In other words, it has an association with the House of Blues, but it is not the House of Blues and is a separate organization from it.

I was auditioning to be the keyboard player in the Blues SchoolHouse Band. If you go to the IHOBF web site, there is a video about the whole organization. For a more specific example of the Blues SchoolHouse Program, here is a video of the Dallas group on WFAA performing a song with an introduction of what the song is about and where it came from. This is only part of the presentation that they normally do.

The woman who was talking with the anchor, Nazanin, is the Program Manager for Dallas and will also be running the Houston program. She was my contact through the whole process.

I saw this as an exciting opportunity. As a full time musician, the days are looking to be occupied. I love working for myself, but playing out at nights can be a mixed bag. This would give me the opportunity to play the blues and other styles of music I like, share it with kids, and do it during the day. Also, doing about twenty performances during the school year would be a nice bit of income.

I was pretty wound up about the audition leading up to it. I had to present three songs, St Louis Blues (Bessie Smith), Respect (Aretha Franklin), and one of my own choosing to demonstrate my abilities. I was told I would be accompanying a vocalist for the first two pieces. I worked on all three for the week, finding interesting parts and licks to play because I did not want to simply comp behind the vocalist, but wanted to show what I could contribute to the song. Of course, I wasn’t going to play over the vocalist either. You don’t get the gig if you don’t pay attention and don’t work with the other performers.

On the Monday before the audition, I thought it might be a good sign that they called me and asked if I was willing to back two different singer’s auditions. Of course I said yes. This showed my flexibility, and would also give me a chance to play everything twice in case I screwed up the first time! Unfortunately the day before the audition they called again and the first singer had backed out, so I was back to playing once.

After the singer arrived at the audition, she told me she needed to do Respect in another key. Even though it’s basically only three chords, I wasn’t prepared to transpose the licks I had gotten down into the other key. There’s a lesson to be learned there, to always be ready to transpose when it comes to playing with a new singer. There’s a corollary, and that’s to know how to use the transpose feature on any keyboard you might play. I’m not really an advocate of doing that, but if I knew how to do that on the keyboard they provided, things would have gone that much easier.

At the end of the audition, I didn’t have any clear thoughts about it either way until the very end and I got that “thanks for coming” vibe, you know when you go out on a first or blind date with someone and it ends with them saying, “it was nice to meet you”? It felt like that. I don’t mean to say they were blowing me off, just that final, “nice to meet you, thanks for coming” and the vibe that comes with it. But, even though they’ve turned me down, that may not have been the case at all. They may have simply needed to move on to the next audition.

After they told me last night that they passed on me, I sent an email that asked, “could you let me know why I wasn’t chosen for the position? Your honest, objective feedback would help me with future auditions and I would greatly appreciate it.” They replied, “We simply had A LOT of very qualified applicants and it was a tough choice. It wasn’t something that you didn’t do.” In that respect, that is good. It means it was simply a matter of picking one person and I wasn’t it. Sometimes picking one person for a job is a tough choice.

There’s probably more, but that covers it for now. Like my last post discussed, I have some other balls in the air, so we shall see how each goes. Hopefully some will come through and I will enjoy all that do. Tonight I am meeting the blues band.

Posted 2009 10 01 at 8:46 AM

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