By Lea Botta, Director of Woodwinds
It’s that time of year again when we have Districts, All-State, and college auditions to prepare for! Undoubtedly, the audition experience can be a stressful endeavor. Students can, however, decrease those normal feelings of anxiety if they follow some of these helpful tips:
1. Be prepared.
Or as I say, be over-prepared. Your music should include the following things every time you practice it – a good tone, phrasing, dynamics, musical inflection, and proficient technical aptitude. I say “over-prepare” because the minute musicians step into that audition room, nerves can get the best of us sometimes. Even if everything sounded great at home or in the practice room, when adding in the adjudicator and the actual audition experience, playing ability may falter and you may find yourself wishing you had prepared more. Hence, why over-preparing and having the music memorized and in your head on what I like to call “autopilot” is so important. “Autopilot” is when musicians play a piece, but it is under our fingers and in our brain, playing on a subconscious level.
One other extremely important thing to remember as you are practicing is always to do maintenance. Playing a piece, study, or scales fast, front to back every time will only lead to inaccuracy in the technique and tone. Slow tempos and changes in articulation and rhythm on technical passages will keep them clean. It will also reinforce the muscle memory from our fingers to our brain and keep the repertoire fresh in our mind.
Another good practice tip is when you do practice a run-through of your audition selections, make sure to always perform it the same way, with all the dynamics, phrasing, and inflection included. Doing this ensures you will have more of a chance to complete these musical concepts in your actual audition. I always do mock auditions with my students and am sometimes surprised at how differently they perform the repertoire in these situations. I ask them why things got so turned around and why would they change the way they play the piece in the actual audition? Hence my mantra to all of my students before an audition is “Stick To The Plan!” Play it the way you rehearsed it.
2. Visualization.
One of the most important steps in reducing anxiety for any audition is visualization. It starts with the most basic of thoughts or emotions you will be feeling the day of and leading up to your audition. You should be setting a calm, relaxed attitude, one of clear thinking with an open mind. One of the factors in every audition is performing when your nerves are shot. Visualizing can really help with this, as well. I start my visualization with the drive to the audition. Then I go through the day in my mind in small increments. What will my warm-up look and feel like? “I will have a smooth tone and control over my breathing”. Then, the next step is to imagine waiting outside the audition room and reassure yourself, “You are well prepared and ready to show the judges your skills.”
Then here we go….the actual audition! See yourself playing your scales correctly with ease. Go through every aspect of the pieces with clean, technical passages and a clear, focused sound. In every audition I have ever done, there is the moment you say to yourself, “I am doing great and I’m not even nervous!” Then you get really nervous. Plan for this to happen and visualize dealing with the nerves head-on. You are going to be nervous. Everyone is. Accept the nerves and use them to your advantage!
3. Sight Reading.
Here are some rules that can help to reduce anxiety at an audition when having to sight read:
- Always look at the key signature, time signature and tempo.
- The most important rule…get a beat in your head!
- Take the time to sing through the piece with that beat in your head.
- Try to add these concepts into sight reading – correct pitches, correct rhythms, correct tempo, dynamics, and musical inflection.
And don’t forget to look for anything that could trip you up, such as a weird rhythm, accidental or marking. You would think that these would be very basic things to do when sight reading, but after being an adjudicator for many years, I have seen many students jump right into the sight reading example and have it go sour. Taking the time to look things over will result in a much better performance!
These tips are simple, sensible, but most of all very effective. Implement them in your next audition and you will see definite improvement. And most of all, remember, being nervous is completely normal; we all feel it, and even those of us that have been playing for decades still have anxiety when it comes to auditions. Going in prepared will help reduce those feelings and ensure a successful audition!