I'm Only the Trombone Player

Eeeekkkk! A Review !?!?!?!?!?

We All Get Them!

They Show Up In Our Mail Box.

What does it say? Should I open it? Should I run AWAY … Screaming? Is this going to wreck my Morning?

Yeah, I admit, sometimes Pessimistic Richard sees the Review of__________ (XXXXXXX) message just that way. Sometimes the wastepaper baskets gains wings, sails off the tip of my toe and flies across the room.

Face it. Most of us have gotten or will get a BAD review, it may not be on WdC, it might come from somewhere external. It has to happen. Is it disappointing? Yes!! Is it Frustrating? Yes! Is it helpful? Probably!

You got it now what do you do with it?

First, clean up the mess you made kicking the wastepaper basket across the room, the activity will help you calm down. Now, calmly reread the Review, look at it not with Authors eyes, but try to see what your reviewer saw. Reread you work, do the reviewers points make sense? Are there tweaks to be made? Don't make them yet, take a day to think about them. SAVE a copy of your original story, without the tweaks, BEFORE you do anything else. Make the tweaks and changes that YOU AGREE WITH. Reread both versions. Which is stronger writing?

A bad Review is a valuable tool, a starting point for learning and a way to make your work stronger. Don’t be discouraged, use the tool. Use what you agree with, disregard what makes no sense to you. And, realize not all reviews WILL be helpful, but most are.

A quick anecdote;

A very young trombone player, we’ll call him Mike, just starting out in his career, had two college auditions for placement on the same day at two different colleges near his home.

There was of course a complication; Mike's High School Marching Band had just returned a few days earlier from a competition. Marching Band is very hard on Brass Players, it messes up our “chops”, ruins our tone, makes it hard for us to play in tune and just generally does really bad stuff. So basically, Mike’s playing was a bit rough, to say the least.

Mike went to his first audition and played a technically perfect solo; one of three he had prepared. Bad Tone, Iffy Intonation were unavoidable, and without a weeks’ worth of practice time uncorrectable.

The single Adjudicator in the room wore a sour face throughout Mike’s playing, when Mike finished, in a less then charitable tone said, “That has to have been the worst thing I have heard all day,” he continued, “I suggest you go out to the highway and throw your instrument under the first passing bus.”

Mike’s accompanist, bless her, calmed him down and convinced him to go forward to the second audition.

Great! This time there were three Adjudicators, three people to tell Mike he sucked.

Still, stung by the first auditor’s comments, Mike’s playing was good, if possible, better than the first time. Bad tone, bad intonation and rough edges still shared the stage.

The only spoken word … Wow! And then, “did you prepare a second solo?

Mike played the second solo … and then the third solo he had prepared, wondering why these people were torturing him.

It all got really good when the guy sitting in the center of the room, (he looked a lot like a reject from Scooby-Doo) asked, “Are you in a competition marching band?” I found a home, with critics who understood.