Following up on the practicing during the summer thing with several of my students I have found out that many of them have not played a note since their jury last spring !!!! Now, I can understand the inclination to take a little time off but it seems to me that one who really loves music enough to make it a career would want to play more often than never. I understand that for percussionists it is harder because they don't all have a marimba at home to play on, but they do all at least have a practice pad, sticks and snare drum exercises they could work on.

Well, we'll really see who did anything over the summer when ensemble auditions come around this fall. They have a list of orchestral exerpts that have to be prepared for the auditions that decide what ensembles they are placed in. We even do it as a blind audition to try and simulate the audition process for an orchestra as closely as possible. But in the end, when it is all over, we'll know who practiced and who didn't.