Abstract
Auditions have become an inescapable reality in all realms of music for students with aspirations of becoming professional performers. Percussionists and timpanists must adapt to instruments unfamiliar to them, owned by the ensemble, during the audition itself. Through interviews of five current professional percussionists and timpanists (Braham Dembar, Stephen Kehner, Erich Rieppel, Matt Strauss, and Greg Zuber), this study began a documentation of approaches to overcoming this challenge. The interviews were summarized into results, and organized by the four instrument groups deemed relevant to the topic: mallet percussion, cymbals, bass drum, and timpani. The results were summarized into one cohesive table, and any contradicting approaches given by the interviewees were discussed. The author hopes this study will provide a basic framework for any student or pedagogue hoping to mitigate issues caused by performance on unfamiliar instruments at auditions.