Audition time!

It is audition time again!
No, not for me.  I haven't auditioned for anything since about 1996.  And thank goodness for that, because it can be a very stressful and existentially disturbing experience.  I really feel for all the sweating and shaking hands and knitted brows that I see.  All the same, I really enjoy hearing auditions for our Jazz Studies program at Capilano University.  This year I am listening to four days worth of guitar and bass hopefuls with my colleague, Ihor Kukurudza.

There are several interesting aspects to this process.  The first is that Ihor used to be my guitar teacher 22 years ago and now we are on the same audition panel.  That lends a certain sense of nostalgia. The circle of six-string life continues! (wiping away little tear...) Connected to that feeling of continuity is the amazing experience of seeing fresh new musicians with a sense of wonder and excitement about their musical futures.   I have no idea what their careers in music might be like.  Everything about being employed as a musician has changed so much since I started and continues to change at an incredible pace.  Thinking about the changes since Ihor's student days really makes it clear that things will be radically different for these students.   That doesn't worry me much.  Humans are creating the change and so these humans will adapt and create new kinds of music and invent new careers of which I cannot conceive.

Something very encouraging to me is that a whole bunch of these new students actually like jazz and have jazz records and want to improvise solos and play in bands.  In some way, they must already recognize the beauty of the art form and perhaps sense the benefits of engaging with such a rich, complex, diverse and subtle musical tradition.  I have heard some who already show a real spark of creativity and originality, even in their green state.  I'm quite confident that by bending their roads through music school for a few years their minds will develop and grow and their musical skills and technical prowess will be honed in ways they can't imagine now.  It is fitting that we do the auditions in the spring when things are budding and sprouting.  I feel really blessed to be present close to the beginning of these beautiful musical lives.