The Confident Musicianing Podcast
Want to get better at your music auditions? You CAN transform the way you audition and The Confident Musicianing Podcast guides you through it.
I’m Eleanor, and together we dive into concrete strategies for the before, during, and after of your audition process so that you can be better prepared and crush that performance! If you’re a music student ready to revolutionize your auditioning, let’s jump in. Tune in every Tuesday for another insight-filled episode; see you there!
The Confident Musicianing Podcast
Unlock Your Musical Potential: The Power of Intentional Listening
Listening is so important for us younger musicians. But how do we do it? In this episode, we dive into how a simple exercise helped my listening tremendously, and how you can do it too.
This episode is available as a blog post. Click here to read.
Click here for the episode show notes
Click here for Maestro Joyce's podcast: Attention to Detail: The Classical Listening Guide
Click here to listen to our conversation with Maestro Jacob Joyce.
Confident auditioning is a skill. Start building it now with The Confident Musician's Audition Guide
Imagine this your teacher creates a system and in this system they assign you an album of your instrument to listen to. Different soloists, different professionals. Every week in your lessons, you and your teacher discuss how you liked their tone, their style, etc. In the albums and you start getting really invested into incorporating aspects of their playing into yours. Through this, your tone and phrasing start improving and you can see those results. That was me about two years ago when my teacher started assigning me records to listen to. I started implementing the things that I liked about their sound into mine and started to see some improvements. And you know me, if it worked, we gotta talk about it.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to the Confident Musicianing Podcast. I'm your host, eleanor, and after countless practice sessions, a ton of broken reeds 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 and welcome back.
Speaker 1:Today we are diving into listening and some steps you can take to listen better. The first thing is start listening. Often. Now, this might seem obvious, but it is so, so, so important. When I was doing this exercise with my teacher, I would listen to the album every single day whilst making reads. So for you, find a good fit for you. That could be maybe on your way to somewhere. If you also make reads like I do, then during that time, while you're eating whatever it is find that time specifically for you. So find the time that is right for you and start listening during that time. Now for me, I listened over and over again to the same album. It was a new album each week, but that was like my focus album for that week. It was. I was studying it almost.
Speaker 1:The next thing is reflect on the parts of the playing that you like or you don't like. What do you want to incorporate into your playing? What are the similarities between different players? What about the differences? This was specifically important to me because, if you don't know already, I am moving from the US to the UK to study oboe and that means that I will be transitioning from the US style to the European style of oboe, and before I made that decision to transition, I needed to see if I even liked the European style of oboe. So I did a ton of listening for American players versus European players, trying to figure out what do I like, what do I not like, is this a switch I want to make, etc. So that was really, really, really helpful for me.
Speaker 1:Now, another thing that I found that was very helpful in the reflecting stage is using visuals to help. I remember one record I listened to and I couldn't stop imagining ballerinas when I listened to it. Every single time I just kept thinking of ballerinas. The oboe was so light and airy and delicate, it was just dancing. So when I got into the practice room, I imagined those same ballerinas that I saw and my sound got smoother and lighter. It really, really, really helped me to refine my tone. Whatever those visuals are for you and they might be different, you know they might not be ballerinas For me, that was for light and airiness, but what could those visuals be for you as well?
Speaker 1:Now, before we go any further, let's take a break and talk about a podcast that I love. It is called Attention to Detail the Classical Listening Guide, and it is hosted by the lovely Maestro Jacob Joyce, the Associate Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In this podcast, maestro dives into different ways that we can listen to classical music. So if you want to expand your skills of listening, go check it out. It is in the show notes Now. This podcast is specifically directed for people who might not be used to listening to classical music, but the thing about that is that we can always learn from things, and when I started to just, you know, check this podcast out, it was so interesting how Maestro talked about listening and how you know things that I didn't think about before when listening. So make sure you go check out that podcast Now. We actually recently chatted with Maestro Jacob Joyce on the Confident Musicianing Podcast, where we talked about many things, including studying music as well as something else at university how Maestro networks and how Maestro auditions and what we as younger musicians should be doing. Right now Sounds like a goldmine of amazing things. Heck, yeah, check this episode out. It is in the show notes Now.
Speaker 1:The third thing is to remember what you liked when you get into the practice room. Now, that is trying to incorporate the sound that you liked in your own playing, and it's okay if it doesn't come easy. This is a slow process, but working on it every day is so important. So imagine what you like about them, remember what you liked about this record about the playing and start to incorporate that into your practice. Now remember to use those visuals if you created them, just like me with the ballerinas and also discuss with your teacher what you like and how you can work through it to incorporate those things, because your teacher can be so helpful with this. So make sure that you, you know, keep talking to them about this.
Speaker 1:Let's do a bit of a recap. The first one is start listening. Often, find that time in your day Listen, listen, listen. The second thing is to reflect on the parts of the playing that you like. What do you like, what do you don't like. Talk about this with your teacher as well, because that can be so helpful and beneficial, and remember if you can use those visuals to help. And the third thing is to remember what you liked when you go into the practice room so you can incorporate those things and focus on those things while you are practicing.
Speaker 1:And remember, use those visuals, talk to your teacher. You have got this all right. That is about it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. As always, all of the things to do with this episode will be in the show notes, from the blog post that goes with this episode to the link to attention to detail, the classical listening guide with maestro jacob joyce and our very own conversation with maestro jacob joyce. Um, do yourself a favor and look at these show notes because, let's be honest, there's some good stuff in there, and if you want to show your love and support for the Confident Musicianing Podcast, make sure you give it a follow and I will see you in the next episode. Bye, bye.
