Having gone back and forth on this for some time, I have now decided that auditions are a very crucial part of the band recruiting process. I (and others) have often written it off as being an awkward process that doesn’t really gain anything. However, without an audition to clearly identify someones strengths and weaknesses on their instrument of choice, it is far too easy for those weaknesses to sneak under the radar for a long time and then pop up when you least expect them. It then becomes 100 times more awkward to address the issue when commitments have been made and time has been invested then if you had just gone through the audition in the first place.

Now, this has had nothing to say what that audition should look like, or how it should be structured. Whether it is a formal audition tape or tryout, or whether it is more subtly woven in to a jam time or into a practice depends greatly on the context of the type of band, the people in the band, and the people wanting to join. The important thing is that it needs to be done, and it’s much easier done at the beginning than later on.