Yes and yes to your two questions. But the stress is caused by many other complicating factors that you should seek out and study first before seeking out a forum answer. There have been many formal and informal publications about auditions, audition stress, and handling them, and you should consult them before asking the questions here. Otherwise, you may run off to your first audition eating bananas strung out on inderal and your mind processing a laundry list of audition tips and self-inflicted mind games and in the hole for all the "relaxation" mediation" and audition classes you took.
I could have consulted a book or a publication written by some esteemed member of the bass community I will never know nor meet. I won't ever get to ask him or her how these auditions go, and how stressful they really are, I'll only read: "We all know auditions are stressful."
I don't.
Which is why I asked you. And you gave me a good answer, one that speaks for itself about the situation of auditions in this period of time. Personally, my teacher always tells me not to worry about auditions. To just play, and if you've got the right stuff, you'll know it. And the audition panel will know it, too. By the time you're up for the audition, there's nothing else you can do besides be yourself, don't worry and play.
Venom, eh? In the posts of the posters I was responding to, did you not taste their smug sense of self-validation when they interjected their non-orchestral-bass career "choice" into an audition thread by stating that they were glad they "chose" not to go down the orchestral profession path and end up like the hapless auditionees (great players) for the Cleveland Orchestra and in doing so marginalizing the career choices of those that were good enough and did go down the orchestral profession path (those that really had the option of being a professional bassist and in a heartbeat could walk away and really "choose" to do something else besides what they are doing as orchestral bassists vs. someone that sits on the outside looking in saying they could have been an orchestral bassist but they "chose" not to do so)
Some people don't want to handle the stress, don't want to handle the anticipation and don't want to get their hopes up. Some people aren't confident, some people just don't have the money. Others don't love the music enough to travel for these auditions, and I'm sure many prefer to just play, not compete for orchestral positions. There's a myriad of reasons why somebody wouldn't want to get involved with the orchestral bass circuit and I think it's worth looking and examining at these things, rather than responding with hostility towards them. I've discovered in life that some people are cut out for some things and some people aren't. Some people have the drive, the determination and the love to compensate for their own shortcomings or the situational long-shots they're forced to take, and some people aren't. Sometimes it comes down to fortune and probability of the circumstances, and unfortunately, some draw the short straws. But some people just don't want to be involved in the entire scheme of orchestral music and there's no reason to attack them for that.
It's all personal choice. I intend to be involved with orchestral music as I grow older, and I've come to realize that I really do love the music. I love Dittersdorf and Vanhal, Bottesini and Koussevitsky, and that's a good thing, I think, for a soloist. But I love Mahler and Shostakovich, Bach and Vivaldi just as much, and I can't see myself not playing them as I get older. The music means too much to me, the bass means to much to me and the orchestra means too much to me for me to give up for any reason. I know I'm young and I don't have much experience in this, but I've already faced a lot of challenges as a bassist and as a person and I've never let anything come between me and the music, regardless of money, stress or any other excuse for not applying myself wholly to the bass.
