I can’t speak too extensively on the military music gig, since I just went through boot camp last summer, but I can tell you about my experience with my fleet band (as opposed to one of the premier bands–in Washington, D.C. or at the Naval Academy) audition.
In the Navy (same with the Marine Corps and Army), non-premier band auditions aren’t held for an opening in a specific location. Instead, you go to your nearest Navy band (or sometimes they’ll go to you, if the band is on the road nearby) and play for that band’s designated audition supervisor. They then send your score in to the main audition supervisor for the entire Navy music program, and, depending on how you did and the need for your instrument in the fleet, they will make a decision. It’s an unusual audition process, but it’s nice that it eliminates that “this is the big audition, I better not bomb it” feeling that every orchestral player knows–it’s more a matter of showing them that you are qualified, not that you’re more qualified than all the other qualified musicians waiting in the other room. The Air Force holds its field band auditions in the more traditional manner, generally resulting in more competitive applicants and higher quality bands.
My audition experience was pretty smooth and relaxed. It occurred about a month earlier than I was aiming to schedule my audition, because one of the bands happened to be traveling slightly closer to where I was living at the time. So, since this only gave me a couple weeks to prepare, instead of working up what I had planned to do, I pulled up the first page of a classical solo that I had already spent some time on to show my fundamentals, and polished up a jazz transcription that I had be working on to show my versatility. They liked those, so I think that helped the rest of the audition go smoothly. Next were scales and arpeggios (they choose the keys, one of each: major, natural, harmonic, and melodic minor), which they just wanted at a relaxed tempo and a comfortable range, and you’re allowed to make a dumb mistake and retry once without it affecting your score, so that was no problem. The sightreading they gave me was well below the level that I had prepared for, and VERY far below the sightreading that I would see later on my auditions at the Navy School of Music after boot camp.
After the audition, since I was playing for the music program’s main audition supervisor and the head of the Navy music program, they were able to tell me immediately that I had been accepted. Honestly, I think the scales and sightreading went smoothly because they had probably already made a decision during the beginning, in large part because the trombone was undermanned in the fleet at the time so the bar was not extremely high for acceptance.
I have a buddy that auditioned this January, and, since trombone is now about just about 100% manning, I don’t think he really had much of a chance–he said the stuff they put in front of him was the toughest sightreading he’d ever seen. When manning levels are high, you have to really blow them away. You can’t just get by like some people do when the music program is desperate for people. That’s one disadvantage with the audition system–the standards end up being pretty inconsistent and your results are based a lot on luck and timing.
I hope that all made sense. There’s more I could go on about, but how don’t know how much of that would be of interest and also my word putting together getting not so good no more. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Oh, there’s some more official-like info here.