Will be Toasted on the Morrow

Maybe roasted is a more suitable verb. On a figurative oxyacetylene torch open fire.

Approximately one hour ago, the orchestra director sent all percussion auditioners the test pieces. My audition's tomorrow evening. 15 minutes to practice on the actual instrument. Yay.

The only thing you have to know about me as a percussionist is that I am not a real percussionist. Just someone who happened to pick up a few of the skills in high school. For example, I play bass drum by esentially damping one side with a hand, possibly the other side with a knee, and whack it with a big, fluffy stick. Snare drum rolls are nonexistent in my musical vocabulary, and ruffs are more or less hit-and-miss. Very sophisticated.

Two positive sides:
1. Only one instrument will be tested tomorrow - timpani. No snare drum, no mallets*. Yet.
2. Contrary to popular belief, I can count. Eventually. This doesn't mean I can translate what I count into actual playing.

So here I am looking at the timpani audition piece, requiring the player to distinguish between repeated 32nd notes and a roll at a reasonable clip; it also has notational ambiguities. *Nervous laughter* Eep. (A roll, at my level, is more often than not "hit the drum as fast as one can go", which supposedly is 64th notes or faster. At this point the sound is more-or-less continuous. Repeated 32nd notes should be heard as distinct sounds rather than one blur. My 32nd notes, however, are already all blurry.)

Eh, we'll see what happens tomorrow. *Hopes that someone remembered to unlock the percussion cabinets - the administrators have the keys*

*The mallet piece looks pretty fun, actually. Trivial on piano, definitely not on mallets. There's no double-sticking** required, however, for which I am very grateful.
**That is, two sticks per hand.