April 25, 2004 at 12:15 PM

Ever gotten an A on an exam after christmas-treeing the multiple-choice scantron? That's how I got the contract with the Macon Symphony yesterday.

Yeah. The drive-thru audition. McAudition. Played the Bach that I haven't touched since I recorded it two weeks ago. First and second movement of 'Symphonie Fantastique'. That's all they had time for, for each of us.

Lessons with Valerie Gardner means I don't look at repertoire for the next coupla months, just 2 hours a day of her homespun etudes (my frog bow-change looks like a duckhead now), and orchestra music.

But now I never practice excerpts from beginning to end. Two notes here for a wacky shift. Six notes there for an awkard entrance. Four notes there for a scratchy string-crossing. And yet it worked. I love her etudes.