Dressed for his performance, freshman trombone player Seowoong Chang gets ready to perform in the TMEA Region 32 concert. “I’m really proud of [my progress],” Chang said. “I see a big difference in my playing from my [eighth-grade] year to my freshman year. Next year, I’m going to try to organize more of my practice sessions to know what I’m going to do and try to put more time into my practice.” Photo courtesy of Seowoong Chang

Long after the school day has ended, the sound of metronomes and instruments rings through practice rooms across the state. Each rep brings students closer to earning a spot in the prestigious All-State Band.

Every year, the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) holds auditions to determine members of that year’s all-state Band. Audition materials are released at the beginning of August with the first round of auditions starting in December. Through the audition process the best of the auditioning musicians are selected to perform in the all-state Band at the TMEA convention in February.

“The high school region process compares drastically to the middle school process because there’s a lot more people,” freshman trombone player Seowoong Chang said. “The biggest factor is the range and the length of the music, especially the cuts they give you.”

According to Chang, making the region band at the middle school level helped him make the region band in high school. The early audition experience helped guide him through the all-state process.

“As my first year, I put a lot more effort into it because in middle school, I didn’t practice that much because there’s only two grades competing,” Chang said. “[Being one of the younger students] helped me work a lot harder than I did the previous years because I knew the competition was gonna be a lot more tough.”

For Chang, one thing that helped him succeed was managing his time between marching band rehearsals, studying and practicing the audition materials.

“I’m really proud of [my progress],” Chang said. “I see a big difference in my playing from my [eighth-grade] year to my freshman year. Next year, I’m going to try to organize more of my practice sessions to know what I’m going to do and try to put more time into my practice.”

For senior tenor saxophone player Finn Koch, years of audition experience have shifted his approach from focusing on the number of hours practiced to pacing himself through the process as he heads towards advancing from area to state.

“Last year, I dug in really hard at the start and then I just couldn’t [motivate myself] by the time we got to December after I made region and advanced to area,” Koch said. ”This year, I waited until relatively late in the year, and I dug in pretty close to the actual audition and got them really solid by the time I needed them to be rather than having to pull them along after they were already really good a while ago.”

Reflecting on the past, Koch said that one big difference between his freshman and senior year auditions is how much he trusted in his teacher’s advice.

“My freshman year was the first time I ever did region, and I didn’t really listen to my teachers,” Koch said. “Trusting the people that want you to do well is very important to the process, and I was very arrogant to that in the past.”

Going into the next round of auditions, Koch said that no matter what he hopes to know that he has been consistent.

“It will suck if I don’t [make state band], but knowing that I’ve been able to do this the last three years and consistently go and get first or second in an audition that is super challenging proves to myself that I can do hard things consistently,” Koch said. “There’s nothing stopping you but yourself.”