Bassoon With a View

Procuring a job through a competitive audition is a long process. Ignore the exceptional  outliers  who win first auditions. What more can I say?  What more needs to be said? Well, quite a bit because we all need a little support and affirmation in this career.  As you can see in the pic above, mostly, we receive a lot of rejection. This is your safe place, my friends.  I don't care how many auditions you have taken and lost.  Let me be the one to say that I am proud of you for going and trying. The skill of auditioning gets easier with each audition.  Invariably, as you improve, so will your audition experience.  Unfortunately, the mental, emotional, financial aspects seem only to get harder.  You start to notice that candidates get younger and younger.  You feel greater and greater risks from those affected by your audition success (or failure) whether it is family or colleagues.  You question yourself more and more.   I think the ones who have the best outc

My Mom always said, "Let's clean up one mess before we start another."  To be clear, this almost always referred to baking projects in the kitchen and my career is not a series of messes. However, I feel like I can apply the same wisdom here: let's finish one season before we start another.  I am still a little in shock that this is my last actual week of work with the Chinook Winds Quintet.  Part of this week I will participate in the audition process to replace both myself and our Principal oboe position. Over the next several weeks my little family will be relocating to Rexburg, Idaho so I can assume duties as full-time, bassoon faculty for the BYU-Idaho music department.   Just to be clear, at BYU-I I won't be referred to as Professor Crawford.  Instead, you can just call me Sister Crawford.  I will also be starting every class I teach with a prayer! But let me back track a bit and share the story of how I won my first, full-time, university posi