seating in string sections

i was originally going to post this on my normal blog but then realized that it is far too boring and possibly technical for my friends to read without being completely deterred from ever reading my blog again. so this will now go on the blog which everyone who reads should know that by doing so they are getting into some serious and potentially technical discussions of music!

i have come to the realization that at the youth orchestra nobody even thinks about half of the things that i used to worry about and would still find at or near the top of my priority list were i actually in any sort of position of authority. i guess this is a reflection of my inexperience, because these are generally the same things that i found influenced my view of the orchestra as an organization when i myself was in it. the real world is far less organized in the ways that we're made to believe when we're young. of course one would expect some degree of this, but it seems to me that sometimes it is actually just ass-backwards, not just done for mere simplification's sake. i guess this is pretty patently obvious, but sometimes it's surprising the places one comes to this realization.

what forces me to realize this over and over is everything having to do with governing a string section, which is of course something i was worried about way back when as well. but now that i have been through this on so many angles (student, student leader, administrator, judge, conductor) i'm pretty sure that i have a degree of authority on the issue.

i have such a problem with verbosity, it's really starting to actually hinder my e-mail communication because i think people get intimidated by the amount of text i set down. so in a nutshell:

1. seating in bare order of how well the kids do on one audition is dumb. this teaches them and their parents all sorts of wrongheaded things about "chairs" and "levels" and "scores" that never apply in an actual orchestra rehearsal or concert, get people all riled up over nothing, and pigeonhole all the players who can't play anything together in the back of the section where it's hardest to play.

2. on the other hand, there is merit to the idea of seating auditions, since they are premised upon the time-proven generalization that kids generally don't practice unless they are held accountable in some way, and an audition is definitely the easiest way of doing this - and there's no way to make them responsive to the results of an audition unless it is patently clear that their seat is related to how well they do on the audition. one can come up with a sort of seating chart whereby every chair in the orchestra is tied to the numeral "score" the student receives on their audition and the quality is distributed throughout the section in a way which still makes clear who did the best and worst. but this seems quite overprescriptive and micro-manage-y to me.

3. two alternatives:
   a. a slightly scaled back version of this extreme dictation would be to simply publish the scores/evaluations - and then to seat them however one wishes in order to achieve an integrated section anyway. essentially the same thing without the headache of having to come up with a seating chart of score numbers.
   b. to seat everyone in order of their scores anyway, and during the course of the rehearsal season, mix up the section on a rehearsal basis. less controversial. perhaps more confusing for divisi and such, but i would call this a minor concern.

4. as for seating auditions themselves, and concertmaster auditions for the violins, it makes absolutely no sense to publish the excerpts they will be asked to be play at the audition, in advance of the auditions themselves. i'm not sure who came up with this idea but it is the one currently in practice at this orchestra and it completely defeats the purpose of making the kids practice the music, by ensuring that they pretty much limit their practice to the two or three lines which are asked for. at most, certain pages or movements can be specified in advance, one easily understands why having to practice an entire program to perfection can both dilute the quality of practice and overwhelm a student.

5. concertmaster auditions might have a blind component, but it makes no sense for them to be visible and for seating auditions to be blind. they should include a committee of people (flexible). they should include a solo component. and the excerpts asked for should certainly not be forecast.

6. parents should suck it up and learn that seats - except the first two - don't matter at all.

so much for not being verbose