Thought Of The Week: Orchestra Auditions Part 2, How To Prepare For A Successful Audition.
Preparing for a successful audition is no small task. There is a lot of investment that goes into it! You sacrifice your time, energy and in some cases financially if you need to travel.
All of these things are important to consider when you make the decision to take an audition.
The first step you need to take is to collect all of the information about the audition and find the answer to these 2 questions. Where will it be? And. When will it be?
Once you have that you need to find the most important information. What are your required to prepare.
In many cases there are specific editions of music that you need to get. Make sure that you get them as soon as possible.
Your next step it to collect all of your audition materials and put them into one place. I like to use a binder with dividers. You can use an iPad however in an audition situation that you have potentially spent weeks and months preparing for the last thing you need to worry about is if your iPad is charged.
Next take a look at each of the required materials and create a hierarchy of what needs the most attention. Some things you may have played before and others may be brand new. Make sure to practice the things that are actually difficult for you!
Now, in the weeks leading up to the audition the most powerful tool you can use is playing for people. Nothing is more important that this. You will find that under pressure excerpts that feel 100% suddenly feel very shaky. Performing is a muscle and you have to exercise that muscle or it will never get stronger. My advice is to play for as many people as possible, even people that don’t play your instrument!
Besides playing for people the best tools to use in audition preparation are a recording device and a metronome. Record your practicing! We can tell ourselves that something sounds good but the recording never lies. Record yourself daily and you will be amazed by the results. It is also important to keep in mind not to be a slave to the metronome. Music ebbs and flows just like conversation and musical phrasing can be subjective, however, if you don’t play in rhythm you are for sure to not make the cut. It is the one thing that can make or break an audition.
