Juries

As a music major you are required every semester to play for the teachers in your respective area of music (for me it's all the brass teachers, since I play trumpet) and they'll determine whether you pass or fail your lessons. It's a very stressful time of the semester- for a music major, it's worse than any exam. It's a panel of teachers that determine your fate, who tell you if you were awesome or if you were terrible, or whether you've progressed or whether you just look absolutely frightened. (That was my critique last semester- "You need to stand up and put your feet about shoulder-width apart. We won't eat you.")


And as if that wasn't enough torture, they call those performance exams "juries".


Seriously? A jury? "You are on trial to see if you are an acceptable member of the music program. Please, step forward."


Juries is a terrible word. My pianist suggested that they call them "promotionals". Isn't that a nicer way of putting it? If you pass then you're promoted on to the next class, and if you fail then you just didn't get the promotion. If you pass then you leave feeling very proud and excited and you want to call your family and friends and brag about it on facebook. If you don't pass, then you are bummed for a while and you keep trying, but you don't feel like your head is going to get chopped off.


My jury promotional is tomorrow. I've had my music for about a month. I'm pretty sure I'm clear of the guillotine, but I hope they appreciate my performance. I've worked my tush off the last few weeks...