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
Listen to this after your audition
Congratulations! You did it. You decided to show up for you and audition. Let me tell you, that alone is amazing.
No matter how you are feeling right now, I invite you to pat yourself on the back. You showed up.
Now that you did it, let's have a quick chat.
This episode is available as a blog post. Click here to read!
Listen to the conversation with Maestro Jacob Joyce here.
Get your Post-Audition Reflection Sheet here!
um, you walked into the audition room and you performed. You did it and I am so proud of you and I hope that you can give yourself that credit of, no matter how it actually turns out, you did it. Hello and welcome to the Confident Musicianing podcast. My name is Eleanor and I am a British-American oboist studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland literally my dream school and it took me a long way to get there. I applied and auditioned for 12 schools in three different countries. It was a lot of hard work but, oh my gosh, so worth it. I want you to have the confidence to work hard in achieving your goals, so come with me as we go on this journey together. So sit down, pull up a chair, take a seat or, if you're on the go, welcome to the Confident Musicianing Podcast. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Confident Musicianing Podcast. Thanks for hanging out with me Today. You are listening to this because you have supposedly done an audition and, before we go into anything, I want to say congratulations, congratulations for doing the audition. Like that's just an amazing thing in itself. I just congratulations. I am here to encourage you and to celebrate you and, yes, congratulations, it's so exciting. So you have just done an audition. This episode is titled listen to this after you do an audition or something like that, and you're hanging out with me because you just did an audition, so congratulations. But let's dive into three things that I just want to tell you right now, while you have just finished that audition. So the first thing is no matter what you did, no matter how you did give yourself credit, you are you like right now. I want you to kind of observe what you're feeling. You might be feeling you might be on a high right now. You might be like I just did it. It's so much fun, that's great. You might be on the other end of the spectrum where you're feeling a bit stressed, low, sad, disappointed. These are all normal feelings. These are all normal feelings. These are all okay feelings to feel after an audition. I've had auditions where I have felt all of these feelings and more. Maybe you are nervous, maybe you're stressed, maybe you don't actually know how you did and you're not really sure what. You know what's going to happen. All of these feelings are valid. All of them are fine. But let's just take a moment to let you give yourself credit for what you just did. You just got there, you played. You didn't let that scare you, you didn't let that scare you away. You walked into the audition room and you performed, you did it room and you performed, you did it and I am so proud of you and I hope that you can give yourself that credit of no matter how it actually turns out, you did it. So, yeah, yeah, and I'm so incredibly proud of you for doing this. This is a really amazing, amazing thing.
Speaker 1:Okay, the next thing let's think objectively. So we kind of we just talked about feelings and you did it and just the amazing like good job situation that's happening right now. But let's think a bit objectively. Right, you might be thinking I wonder how I did, I wonder what they thought. Maybe you got some feedback, maybe you didn't get any feedback.
Speaker 1:But I think it's important to remember something when you think about auditions, and that is no matter how you think you did, your general level will show through. This is something that we talked about when I had Maestro Jacob Joyce, the associate conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony, on the podcast, and Maestro talked about how you know, even if you might have done something here or something there or whatever, your general level will still show through, and so I want to quickly just segment to that conversation. We're going to listen to that conversation for, like, I don't know just a little bit, just that little section of what Meister has to say about that, because if you have just done an audition, I think this is really really, really important for you to hear right now. So let's go to that.
Speaker 2:In the actual audition or performance. You know what we were talking about just a second ago. I think that's the most important thing for me is that and you get better at this with age and with experience performing, but especially early on, it's just so important to not kind of sabotage yourself by feeling like you are having a bad day, like I think that's something that's just so important is, you know, if you start an audition or if you're warming up and you feel like, okay, it's not going well today, that you don't get overly hung up on that Because, like I said, it never, ever comes across to the panel, to the committee, whoever is listening to you, even close to the level that it feels like internally of how good or bad this is going. And you know, I can tell you, I can tell, I tell this to everyone the, the level of someone's performance on a particular day is so infrequently the deciding factor that wins them the audition or loses them the audition that has been taken care of so much before they even get into the, the audition room.
Speaker 2:You know they're playing at a level and I listen, you know I listen to paizo auditions all the time and I know certain kids you can tell they just feel like, oh, that went terribly, oh, this went well, but the reality is that all of it was was done before they even stepped into the room, because they're playing at a certain level, they've practiced at that certain level, and so, given that that's the case, you know, I think it's really important for people to just not to try to not worry so much in the actual audition about how it's going and just play, because it always feels way more dramatic to yourself than it actually is to the people listening.
Speaker 1:So that was just a really really, really, really, really incredible insight from Maestro. And if you want to listen to the entire episode of you know, with the interview, with the conversations that will be linked in the show notes in the description Just go ahead and click that and you can listen to the conversation. It is such an insightful and helpful conversation. I still listen to that episode all the time. Um, but yeah, so, no matter what your, what you did, your level still like showed itself. And and I think that that is that is very helpful I've had not just maestro say this, but also in conversations with other professional musicians I've had them say this, and I think it's really really, really, really, really important that your, your level will still show through. So the things that you thought about that you might be like, oh, I don't know about that, or oh, that was strange, the level still showed through. So the things that you thought about that you might be like, oh, I don't know about that, or oh, that was strange, the level still showed through. Okay, so just trust that that's good. And the last thing is, I invite you to reflect on how you did. Okay, I invite you to reflect on how you did Now. You might be right now on a high or on a low or whatever, but just writing down thoughts that you've had, things that you realized or just how you feel right now can be really, really helpful, especially if you are going to do an audition in the future and you want to learn something from this.
Speaker 1:I remember when I auditioned for 12 schools in three different countries and I was doing audition after audition after audition. I mean I auditioned more than 12 times, because you have the preliminary round and then you have the final round, and I got through to the final round on, I think, on every school. So I did a lot of auditions and something that really helped me was being able to take thoughts that I had from one audition and apply them to the next auditions, because that was so helpful. If I had just gone to every single audition a blank slate, like, you know, square one I wouldn't have done as well on the auditions that I did well on as I could, as as I did, you know, um. So if you have just auditioned, also like, by the way, congratulations. If I haven't said that before, um, if you have just auditioned and you want to like, if you have auditions in the future.
Speaker 1:I invite you to reflect, and you might be saying, eleanor, um, how, how do I reflect? What do you mean? I might be on an audition high or an audition low, or an audition in somewhere in the middle and I might be feeling a bit like, um, I don't know. I don't know how to reflect. Um, don't you worry, because I have a little guide, a pdf of just some questions, some prompt questions, um, for you and you can use them to reflect and you can write them in the PDF. You can write your responses and this can be a really helpful way to move on from this audition. Whether it was good, whether it was bad, whether, I mean, to be honest, you don't actually know if it was good or bad Like it's just your own feelings, you don't know. You don't know it's your general level that went through. We just we talked about that in the second thing, but just generally, I invite you to reflect on how you did so. That PDF will be in the description, in the show notes, so make sure you go take a look at that and download it. It's a little gift from me to you All. Right Now, before we end this episode.
Speaker 1:I have to tell you about something, and this something is all about auditions. It is the Confident Musicians Audition Guide. No matter how you felt or how you did in this audition, I'm sure there's probably something that you wish you had done better. Do you know how? I know this? Because that's my experience and also everyone I've ever talked to about auditions as well. So when I auditioned for 12 schools in three different countries, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about auditioning, about making good impression, about dealing with audition nerves, about, you know, playing with an accompanist, about all of these things and, to be honest, I felt sometimes like I wish someone would tell me these things. I wish someone would tell me these things, and so what I have done since then is create a guide for you, and this guide is called the Confident Musician's Audition Guide, and it is a comprehensive guide of the audition process. It goes through everything from dealing with nerves to finding an accompanist, to planning your practice and creating those efficient practice sessions which is like step one of a good audition all the way to dealing with audition nerves right before you get in the audition, to making a good impression in the audition and also after the audition. So all of these things are in the Confident Musician's Audition Guide. Click the link in the description in the show notes to get your copy of it. I poured my heart and my soul out into this guide. It is literally my baby and I want you to have it for your next audition. So click the link in the show notes, in the description for your copy.
Speaker 1:All right, let's do a bit of a recap. So the first thing is no matter how you think you did, give yourself credit, you showed up for yourself and you did it, and that's amazing. The next thing is thinking objectively, no matter how you did, your general level still went through. You were still able to communicate that general level and you know we listened to the words of Meister Jacob Joyce. So, so, so, so, so helpful, and I hope that you took something away from that as well. And the last thing is, I invite you to reflect on how you did, and you can use the PDF in the show notes, in the description, to reflect.
Speaker 1:And just I want to say in closing congratulations. An audition is an amazing thing to do and you did it. So, however, you celebrate. So however you celebrate, I hope you have, I hope you celebrate. I hope you can sit in the feeling of like I did it, no matter how you actually did, you did it and that's amazing. All right, so I'm going to leave you on that. A few claps for you. I am so, so, so excited for you. I'm proud of you. For you, I am so, so, so excited for you. I'm proud of you and um, yeah, so I that's about it for this episode. Thanks so much for hanging out. It is. It was a little bit of a a shorter, cozy episode, um, and I hope that if you enjoyed it, please do um, like, follow, subscribe, whatever, whatever the thing the things are to do, show some love. I'd be so grateful and I will see you in the next episode. Congratulations, it's an amazing thing to do an audition, all right, all right, take care Bye.
