Want to thrive in your auditions? You have to know how. And to do that, you need experience.
Yes, I am talking about mock auditions. They might seem irrelevant, but let me tell you, as someone who has been grateful for opportunities to learn how to audition well, mock auditions can make or break your real audition.
So dive in with me as we as the why and how of mock auditions.
Want to thrive in your auditions? You have to know how. And to do that, you need experience.
Yes, I am talking about mock auditions. They might seem irrelevant, but let me tell you, as someone who has been grateful for opportunities to learn how to audition well, mock auditions can make or break your real audition.
So dive in with me as we as the why and how of mock auditions.
Do you have auditions coming up? Me too, and something that I do before auditions is mock auditions. And do you know why? Because when I was auditioning for music schools, my first mock audition that I did was the worst audition that I had ever done for music schools or even just in general, and I know that I'm not alone. Hello and welcome to the Confident Musicianing podcast. I'm your host, eleanor, and, after countless practice sessions, a ton of broken reads and seven different music school acceptances in three different countries, I have learned a thing or two about savoring your practicing, becoming your best practice companion and actively working towards your musical goals, and I want to share this with you Because I want you to become your best musical self. Are you with me on this? Let's get started. Hey there, I am so glad that you decided to take the time and hang out with me today.
Speaker 1:
Today, we are answering the questions why are mock auditions necessary, what do I get out of them and how do I go about doing them? So let's dive in. Why are mock auditions necessary? Because auditioning is a skill. Think about this. Let's say you are baking a cake and you put in every single measurement of flour, of water, of sugar all in the mixing bowl. Everything is perfect. And then, instead of carefully putting the cake mix in the oven at the right temperature, you just throw your cake mix out of fire and hope it becomes a cake. Do you think that's gonna work? No, of course not. And so we can't do the same thing with auditioning? Now, in my analogy, the fire versus the oven is the audition room. We all need to know how to audition in order to audition well, and we need to get used to auditioning in order to audition well. So that's what we're gonna get into.
Speaker 1:
So I remember the first mock audition I did. I was super duper nervous and I was so glad that I did it because it was one of the worst auditions that I have ever done. I learned a lot. I played really poorly. I struggled with the interview questions, like seriously, in that audition there was an interview question and the question was what is your favorite Oboe solo in the Oboe repertoire? And of course I have them. But in the spot, like I completely forgot absolutely everything and I even had. The worst part about it is that I even had Oboe solos as part of my audition. I literally could have just turned to the stand and been like this one if I, you know, completely forgot everything and everything. But I didn't do that. In fact, I accidentally named an English horn solo instead of an Oboe solo. And I am so glad that that was a mock audition because I had no idea that my brain would just completely stop working if I was asked questions that I wasn't. You know, I didn't think that I would have gotten asked. So, yeah, I'm really grateful for that Because let's think about it for a second If I had just started doing auditions without that mock audition, then that audition the really bad one would have been for a school that I really wanted and it would have counted and that would have just not been good. So I'm really glad that I did that mock audition and I completely recommend doing mock auditions. So now that we've talked about the why of mock auditions, let's have a bit of a chat about the how.
Speaker 1:
Here are a few top points to remember when doing mock auditions that really just came out to me when I was doing my mock auditions. Number one doing as many as you possibly can, seriously like as many as you can, doing it in front of your teacher, doing it in front of some friends to judge, just getting comfortable with playing your instrument playing, you know, in front of people Absolutely any possibility. You can just taking it and playing, treating mock auditions like real auditions, researching everything about your audition so that you can mirror it as closely as possible. For instance, are they going to choose excerpts randomly? If so, have someone choose excerpts randomly. If you're going to play straight through everything, then do that in the mock audition. Are there going to be questions? Will you know what the questions are? Have try and mirror that as possibly you know, as close to that as you possibly can. So have maybe some friends or maybe your teacher make up questions that you don't know and maybe you're not necessarily prepared for, and that might really help. I mean, it helps me with that one question that I completely answered incorrectly.
Speaker 1:
Another thing that's really important to note is coming up with questions yourself. In auditions the panel will always say do you have any questions? And if you're like no, I got a dash, that's not going to look very good. So if you come up with even two or three questions for the panel and you write them down and you're like you know so when they say what are your questions, do you have any questions? You can say, yes, here are two questions, and just making them really meaningful and really good. So I was auditioning for music school, I printed out a sheet of paper, like I wrote questions on a Google Doc, and I printed it out and I gave the panel those questions. When they asked, I was like, yes, I do, and I have, you know, I have paper for you that has the questions on them, and that made me look really really prepared and like responsible, which and it also just really helped my stress because I didn't have to worry about remembering questions. I already had them written down and I had given them to the panel and that's just like really, really helpful.
Speaker 1:
Number three. Number three doing mock auditions in different mental and physical states. For instance, do jumping jacks and then do your mock auditions, because your heart rate will be faster when you're doing an audition because you'll be nervous and your heart rate will also be faster when you're doing jumping jacks. So it's a good mirroring situation Taking a nap and then, right as you wake up, doing your audition or playing through your pieces, doing it when you're tired, doing it when you're bored, when you're happy, when you're sad, when you're hungry, just like trying to do it in many different states as you possibly can. It's really beneficial. Now, remember, try not to stress about those states. Don't be like what if I'm, like you know, a little nervous, a little stressed, with a side of hunger at the audition, I have to mirror that like it'll be okay. But getting as much experience as you can with just playing your pieces, no matter how you feel or you know if you're tired or you're sad or you're hungry or you're tired out or whatever, is really really beneficial.
Speaker 1:
And lastly, just perform for people. Before my uni auditions, I took every opportunity I could. I was in recitals, I made my own recitals and I just performed for people. I even I remember I phoned up friends and was like, hey, can we FaceTime and I just play my pieces for you, just absolutely anything. Get creative, like it's fun. So performing for friends, for family, for your teacher, even like busking on the street. I never did that, but I mean, if you can, it sounds fun, even going live on Instagram, if you can just play for anyone and everyone, just to get comfortable, right? Remember, we all need to learn how to audition before we audition. It is a skill just like anything else, and practicing auditioning is super beneficial.
Speaker 1:
So if you have an audition coming up, I wish you the best. It is, I mean, auditions can be super fun, so I encourage you, I invite you, to find the fun in it. Okay, if you have an audition coming up and you haven't listened to episode eight of the podcast, it is called Sweaty Palms Three Things to Tell Yourself right before that audition, it is super, super helpful. In there I dive into, I mean, three things that I tell myself before that audition. That really helped me get confident, get calm, get focused and really, you know, be ready for that audition. So if you're interested in that, if you have an audition coming up, I highly recommend listening to that. It is. I will link it in the show notes in the description.
Speaker 1:
But if you have an audition coming up, I hope that it goes well. I wish you the best and yeah, so that is it for this episode. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. That is so lovely of you. I hope to see you in the next episode, but in the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful day and happy practicing. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, Bye.
