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Is anyone here doing them?

My teacher sends students, and I've signed up. I've been taking piano lessons for 5 months, so this is my first time thru the cycle.

I'm a regular judge for the organization (spent about 20 days on the road last year alone). Let me know if you have any questions that your teacher can't answer, and have a good time with it. I judged for a few of the Maryland centers several years ago, and met some very nice teachers and students.

How am I going to do?

I tried looking this up on line before asking, but had a hard time figuring out what it is. Does the audition give you "grade" or the likes or some sort of recognition? What's in it for the teacher that they send you?

The Guild audition allows the students to present repertoire, basic technical requirements for the pieces played, and also the option of “musicianship phases”, such as improvisation, ear training, sight reading, arpeggios, etc. The difficulty of these requirements vary by the level in which the teachers enter their students. There’s even categories for duets and people who do not wish to play from memory, though these entries make up less than 10% of what I typically hear.

The audition is intended to be non-competitive, happens near the end of the academic year, and serves as a third party assessment of the pianist. It generates a report card, with an extensive checklist of specific categories (roughly 40) for which a piece can be noted as “commendable” or “needing attention”, as well as a small area on the card to write additional comments. Each judge is different, but I also make time to interact with students verbally during auditions.

I tend to find the experience more rigorous than the National Federation of Music Clubs auditions (many private piano teachers do that also), but slightly less rigorous than the state-level MTNA auditions, which tend to have “district” followed by “state” level entries (you do well enough in one to qualify for the other) and a required theory test, and less rigorous than the highly regimented UK and Canadian based systems which are making inroads in major metropolitan areas in the US.

Jim, you’re going to score a 23... I put in a call to headquarters!

I have taken that before up until Intermediate D and then switched to ABRSM exam. I used to get 25. I am not even sure if that counts as good grade or not. I see other students get medals after they their audition with their score, but I don’t have it. Later my teacher told me that since I am adult student, I can only register for hobby level and cannot take high school diploma for this. Then I decided to switch to ABRSM. Compared to ABRSM this is much easier. The only thing is you need to memorize the pieces while in ABRSM I don’t have to memorize. In ABRSM，I only need to play three pieces. But in guild auditions, you can choose to play four pieces for district level, seven pieces for state level and ten pieces for national level and I believe fifteen pieces for international level.

terminaldegree, thanks so much for the description. It sounds interesting!

THANKS!

Wait. Is that a good score, or bad?

My audition is THIS afternoon, toward the end of the work day.

I am quietly freaking out.

Don’t freak! Best wishes for success this afternoon