007 - how i recorded the delécluse album

the auditionhacker podcast

how would you actually prepare yourself to record an entire classical music album in one session?

it’s been 10 years, but i still have the detailed, day-by-day practice schedule i used to prepare for the recording of my debut album, delécluse: douze études for snare drum.

it was a funny time. it had been two years since winning my met opera audition, and i was kinda bored. i just got tenure in the orchestra and felt like i needed an audition-level project to sink my teeth into.

(i missed auditioning. can you imagine?!)

so i decided to prepare the entire book of 12 études like i was preparing for an audition.

they were my best friend and my nemesis, all at once. they had been the cause of so many audition rejections. they are still the crazy-hardest snare drum pieces that have ever been written, and they’re on every percussion audition.

but since i figured out how to play them, they became my strength in auditions. so i spent half a year practicing them. i showed up at the recording session, which lasted for 2 days, and i recorded the hell out of them.

and after releasing them, i suddenly went from no-name section percussionist to a major international percussionist, known all over the world for conquering these études.

i prepared in the exact same way i did for prescreening audition tape recording sessions. i used my successful audition preparation process to make sure they were as super-polished as humanly possible.

and yes, you can absolutely steal this process and use it to record amazing, high-level prescreening audition tapes.

so in today’s episode i want to walk you through the exact steps i used to prepare for this recording. i’ll go over:

• how i spent 6 months perfecting the 12 delécluse études,
• the special strategy i used in preparation, called “the magical shrinking self-recording workflow”,
• how preparation needs to be structured for a recording vs. a live audition, and
• my best tips and strategies to make a recording session go smoothly.

to learn the 5-step audition preparation process i used to win my met opera audition, download the audition cheat sheet at robknopper.com/auditioncheatsheet

listen to the album, delécluse: douze études for snare drum at robknopper.com/delecluse

learn more about:

how to learn notes using the ROAM method https://youtu.be/EcNZsN0MRtE

how to self-record for auditions https://youtu.be/TU_GkUBzdJk

Editing by Delia Black

Theme Music: Log Cabin Blues by George Hamilton Green, performed by Rob Knopper (xylophone) and Howard Watkins (piano). Editing and mixing by Brandon Johnson.