The Confident Musicianing Podcast
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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
2 Years After: Transforming A Disaster Into A Music Conservatory Acceptance
2 years ago, I auditioned for the Peabody Institute of Music. I started that day off confidently, but right before the audition, when I heard the person playing before, I lost all of that confidence. Through two distinct steps, I regained that confidence and played my best. What were those two steps? I'm so happy to share them with you in this episode!
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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. I'm so glad that you are here and that we can have a little chat this week. We're talking about something that happened about two years ago, on the 20th of February, so I think the time that this comes out it's the 18th, maybe somewhere on there, I don't know. Um, and we're talking about my Peabody Institute of Music audition, because that was an audition that I think I'll always remember. It went from good to a disaster to, from good to a disaster to better than ever, in about five minutes. So that is what we're going to be talking about today. I talk about this audition on the second episode of the Confident Musicianing podcast, but I felt like it was in need of a redo because that came out a while ago and I feel like you know now that I have some more hindsight, some more thoughts from reflection and all of these things, I think that I should chat about it again. I think we should talk about it again because it is something that we can all learn from, even me when I did it and even now when thinking about it. So let's talk about this audition.
Speaker 1:The night before I had gotten to the city that I was doing the audition in and I was feeling really good. I remember like having dinner that night and going to bed and waking up and really just feeling very confident, very good about the audition. I really hadn't stressed that night before or the morning of, and I remember getting to my room and getting my oboe out and warming up and just feeling this sense of confidence Like I am going to crush this. I felt so good in in me and I was like this is going to be great. So I got my oboe up out, I warmed up. I think I also like posted on my Instagram stories I was doing an audition because, okay, um, and when it was time time, I remember I stood outside the audition room and that's when everything changed because I heard the girl before me.
Speaker 1:I was stood outside the audition room and I just heard her and she sounded so much better than I was, like her articulation, her intonation, her, her everything, her tone, her just everything. I remember specifically thinking her articulation is so clean. I was like how in the world am I gonna go after that? Like I was so nervous and all of a sudden my confidence left. My confidence left. It left the room, it left the chat. It was like gone. And I remember feeling so empty, like where did all that confidence go? And I started to panic. I started to panic a bit. I started to be like what do I do? Like I need this confidence to do well in this, in this session and in this audition, and I don't know what to do because it's all gone and this girl sounds so much better than I am and like it's just, you know, obviously in the audition she's playing and playing, and playing. So, as I'm panicking, I'm still listening to her play and I remember I could also like hear the judges not very well, but like I could hear that they were very happy with her playing and I was like, oh my gosh, it's gonna be like how am I gonna follow this amazing person in this audition? I was so nervous. I was so nervous and then I decided to do two things that just popped into my mind. They just I don't know where, like what happened, but they just popped into my mind. They just I don't know where, like what happened, but they just popped into my mind and I decided you know what? I'm kind of desperate. I'm going to do these two things, and these two things completely changed this, the trajectory of this audition. So we're going to talk about them.
Speaker 1:The first thing was how I listened to her playing. I had to listen to her playing. My ears work. She was making sound. I couldn't not listen to them or to it, and it was funny because the first thing I tried was to protect, like not listen to her playing, and I like I don't remember what I did, but I think I tried to like busy my mind and like, like block her playing out, and I, like I don't remember what I did, but I think I tried to like busy my mind and like, like block her playing out, but that didn't work physically, scientifically, you know the the science of sound that didn't work. And so I decided to change my perspective of listening to her. I changed it from comparison to inspiration. So I, instead of thinking, you know, listening to her and thinking, oh my gosh, her intonation is like really good, or her articulation so good, I can't even do this I started thinking, oh my gosh, her articulation is so good and her intonation is so good and she's actually really killing it at this audition and she's probably feeling really good about it. And I am currently being um, like I have the honor of listening to this oboist who sounds so good. And I started to really enjoy her music and that helped in so many different ways. I started to feel good again. I started to feel like, oh my gosh, you're playing so good, like in, in, like I'd kind of took myself out of the context. I was like her playing so good. And then when I, when it was my turn to play, I had just finished listening to absolutely amazing playing and I think it actually kind of brought my standard of playing up a bit, because my brain had just heard that. I was like, okay, let's do that and I feel like I played really well in my audition because I listened to her with inspiration.
Speaker 1:Looking back now, after doing that and, you know, reflecting on it for over for about two years I mean it's been about two years I've made it a practice to listen to others with inspiration rather than comparison. So I have done many an audition after this audition. I've auditioned for so many things and I've also, like, done performance classes and you know other things just a bunch of stuff. And every time I listen to someone, it I have decided I want to listen with inspiration, not comparison. Even if we are in an audition and we are technically being compared, that's not my job to compare. So so that's what I, that's what I do now, and it's hard, it's very difficult. A lot of the times I struggle with it and I find myself comparing myself to other people. But it's something that we always want to work on and that's something that I've been working on.
Speaker 1:So, for instance, what does that look like? If you're like Eleanor, what do you mean? What does that look like? It looks like the difference between thinking their tone is so much better than mine. I can never get mine to be that good, oh my gosh, and have all those bad feelings Versus. Their tone is so rich and full. I'm so inspired to practice more on mine because of listening to their tone.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'll ask them for some advice. Ooh, that's an interesting one. Maybe I'll ask them for some advice. Now, obviously the situation is dependent on that. You know, when I was auditioning, maybe it wasn't the best time to ask advice right after her audition and before mine. If you're hearing someone practice and maybe you're comparing yourself, or if you're both warming up for an audition or whatever it is, maybe ask for some advice. You know that really kind of breaks the barrier and takes them off, kind of the pedestal in your brain that you're putting them on and putting yourself under, you know. But that's something that I try and do and I think you know it's very helpful to try and do so. I challenge you to try and see if you can do that. And you know it is difficult, it is hard, we all kind of struggle with it and, yes, we make mistakes with it and that's perfectly fine. But I challenge you to kind of to try to try and see, see if you see if you can grow that skill.
Speaker 1:The next thing that I did was complimented her on her way out. This is something that I kind of just did on a whim. I mean, I did both of these things on a whim, but I just like did it and it was so good, it was so helpful for me, because I thought to myself, you know, when I was, when I was listening to her, with comparison and feeling really bad, I felt jealous. I was jealous, that's it. I was jealous of her playing and her tone and her articulation. I was jealous because I couldn't get mine like that, like I was struggling with that, a lot of the things that she was good at I was struggling with. I felt jealous of the things that she was good at I was struggling with.
Speaker 1:I felt jealous and I realized, you know, jealous what? What do jealous people don't do? What do jealous people not do? There we go. Jealous people don't compliment the person that they're jealous of and mean it genuinely. You know what I mean? Like they don't. People don't tend to do that when they feel jealous towards someone else, and so I thought that is exactly what I'm going to do, because I want to not be jealous of this person. I want to be excited for them genuinely. So that's what I'm going to do and it worked. It worked, it was really interesting.
Speaker 1:I was stood there and at this point I had been listening to her for a while, with with inspiration rather than comparison, so I was already feeling kind of good you know better than I was and I walked up to her on her way out and I said something like that was such a good, like you sound so good, like that was so good. I really enjoyed listening to her. Whatever I don't know what I said, but I said a compliment, um, and it was such an interesting thing. That happened after because she well, I genuinely complimented her and I smiled and she smiled at me because she had just received a compliment and also did a really good audition, and that was such a genuine smile. Then I got more of a genuine smile from seeing her smile and then when I walked in the audition room, I had a genuine smile on my face which gave the judges a genuine smile to me, which really set the tone for the whole audition. So it was just really amazing. It was like a transfer of feeling good to my audition and it really set the tone and was so, so, so helpful for me to have such a good audition.
Speaker 1:So now, whenever I do an audition or performance, I smile. I smile at everyone, I smile when I walk in the audition room and it's a genuine calm, ready to go, smile, even if I don't necessarily feel like that. And that's also a trick If you don't feel like something on the inside, do the stuff that you would feel or do the stuff that you would do if you felt that way on the outside, and then you might start to feel better on the inside. So, yeah, now, whenever I do an audition or performance, I smile and I like to think about it, especially with auditions, the whole thing is performance. As soon as I get there at the door you know, not just the audition room door, but the door of the whole building to, you know, do my audition and that's where my performance starts, and I am excited, ready to go, smiling, you know, confident, all of these things right there at the start. So a great way to kind of get into this is to get into the habit of smiling anytime I walk through a door. This is something that I still struggle with and often I forget, but smiling every time I walk through a door, no matter what door it is, even if it's my bedroom door and there's no one there, or if it is, you know, the lift door, or you know the door to the supermarket, or whatever it is smile and that can help you. So when you smile when you walk through the audition room door, it is a great. You know, you smile as well and that's a great way to do things as well.
Speaker 1:All right, let's do a bit of a recap, okay, um, the first thing I did was listen to her playing with inspiration rather than comparison. This changed the game all of a sudden. I was inspired rather than jealous. The next thing is I complimented her on the way out. My idea of what I was thinking was I want to do the things that someone who is genuinely excited. I want to do those things so I can feel genuinely excited, and those two things really, really helped this audition and I ended up getting in to the Peabody Institute of Music. So those things were so helpful and they really changed the game for my audition.
Speaker 1:Okay, now this story is. There's a lot of like behind the scenes of my audition. I just kind of told you everything that I felt on the inside and was explaining. You know, I was explaining all of those things and now I'm at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and I play oboe there and I study there and I'm a music student there and there's a lot of stuff that I experience and I'm learning and that I just want to share with you behind the scenes of, like, my life as a music student and I was thinking a way to do that. And I was thinking a way to do that and from that we now have the Confident Musicianing Membership Community. This is a community that is like we're just all like-minded musicians who want to encourage each other.
Speaker 1:In the community. You get access to behind the scenes videos, behind the scenes videos of my life as a music student and things that I just genuinely want to share with you from my perspective as a music student studying oboe at conservatoire. There are how-to videos for oboe playing and music making. Practice with me videos so you can practice with me in real time and also see how I practice and prepare for things. There are live streams, q&as, just all sorts of fun, just a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:So if that sounds like something, that sounds like something you'd want to do or want to be a part of or just even check out. Please do check out the link in the show notes, in the description. And, yeah, take a look at the confident musicianing membership community. It is a load of fun. All right, that is about it for this episode. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. As always, all the links to do with this will be in the show notes, in the description, from the blog post that goes with this um to the link for the confident musicianing membership community. All right, I hope you have a lovely rest of your week and I will see you next time. Bye.
