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 if you feel like you aren't improving in music
When we feel like we aren't improving it can be so discouraging. Let's chat about some ways to work through that discouragement.
This episode is available as a blog post. Read it here!
Click here for the episode on working through frustration.
Use code ELEANOR15 for 15% off your Notabl_ practice journal, and level up your focus in your sessions! Click here for your journal *
*I never recommend anything that I don't love. This email contains an affiliate code which means that I receive a commission -- with no extra cost to you! 😊
Put a finger down if you go through phases where you feel like you have not improved at all on your instrument and you feel quite discouraged and you can't see any improvement and you're like have I actually improved at all recently? I feel like we all can relate to this. 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.
Speaker 1:As musicians, we are constantly thinking about have we improved, have we gotten better? And when maybe it's not as obvious, it can be really, really, really discouraging. I recently had an Instagram Q&A where I asked people to ask me anything and I love doing this because I love hearing from you and one person asked for advice. They had been playing oboe for a while and but they haven't. They felt like they hadn't improved much and they were wondering if I had any advice. And when I first saw that that question, I was like, oh my gosh, I need to sit down and record a podcast episode about this because I think it could be so, so good to talk about, and so that's what we're doing here. So welcome, welcome to another episode, to another video. If you're watching this, you can see that I've put some lights up behind me. I don't usually do this, but I'm experimenting with fun visuals. So if you're listening to this, I have purple lights behind me and they are very twinkly, I suppose very like fairy lights purple fairy lights and they're quite good. I hoped to record this earlier in the day, if you're watching this in terms of like the light, but, but that didn't happen, and I my usual recording time is over the weekend, but this weekend I'm going to Edinburgh, so I need to record this now. So we are doing this now, we are getting into this, and I can't wait to dive into this topic with you and talk about ways that we can maybe feel like we've improved a bit, because chances are, if you've been putting in the work every day, you have improved a bit, I'm willing to bet. All right, let's dive into these three things.
Speaker 1:The first thing that has helped me realize that I've improved, or that has helped me figure out what I need to do to improve more, is playing for people. Playing for people can be so, so helpful For me when I feel like I haven't improved much and maybe I feel like I need to find out what I need to do to improve, because I feel like there's two sections to this. There's either I feel like I haven't improved much. I need to do to improve, because I feel like there's two sections to this. There's either I feel like I haven't improved much I need to figure out what I need to do to improve or I feel like I haven't improved much. I need to go back and see that I have. These are two ways to look at this question, and so this is the first way, so finding ways to to improve or to to know what to improve. A good way to do that is playing for people.
Speaker 1:So usually what I do is I play for my teacher, um, I play for my friends and I just play for for anyone. Usually, I mean, I'm on Instagram and you know I'm on the internet. I put my oboe, my oboe stuff on the internet, and so sometimes I get feedback from people. Um, and so that is something that you know, sometimes I take, sometimes I don't, but that's also some way that I play for people. But, for instance, I play. You know, I go to a conservatoire for oboe and we have a class where literally, you get chosen to play in front of your peers and then you get feedback from them and you know you're playing for 20-30 people and you get their feedback because they all play your instrument or an instrument similar to yours, and so that is an amazing way, for me at least, to get feedback.
Speaker 1:Now, if you don't, if you're not in a conservatoire or you're not in a space where you can maybe do something like that, playing for your teacher, playing for your friends, can be so good, and I think a good way to do this is to understand where your friends or your teacher is coming from. So, maybe thinking about what you want to ask them from playing, thinking about what you want to ask them from playing. So, for instance, if you go to your musician friends and you say I'm gonna play this for you. Can I get your thoughts and you play for them? They're gonna give you thoughts. They're gonna give you critical musician thoughts and they're gonna say stuff like your intonation was not very good in this section, or maybe you could work on your articulation here, or your tempo wasn't good or whatever. But maybe if you go to them and you're like, actually I think I just need like someone to say that I sound okay, then I'm sure that they can do that as well.
Speaker 1:Musicians are great for that. They can. They can do both things. They can give positive and negative feedback. And if you I mean I'm guessing you're a musician if you're listening to this being able to give positive and negative feedback, not just like constructive feedback, can be so, so, so helpful as well. Now, if you play for your teacher and you say I just want you to hype me up, maybe that's not the best thing, your teacher is literally there for giving you constructive feedback. So knowing your audience and knowing what you're probably going to get from them can be really helpful when you play for people.
Speaker 1:So think about right now who are you going to play for, who are you going to play for and what outcome do you want to have from playing for them? If you play for, say, your family, you might have a very different outcome than if you play for your teacher versus if you play on the street, like these are very different things. So what do you want to get out of playing for people? And this can really help you with not only feeling like okay, you know, the sound I make out of my instrument is good. People like it it but also it can give you a very good direction as to what you need to work on next. So asking that question before playing for them you know this is what I want from from you is very helpful for that. All right, let's dive into the next thing.
Speaker 1:So the next thing is talking about not necessarily finding things to work on, but realizing that I have been improving, and that is taking a video now and then taking another one in a few months and comparing them. This is something that I kind of have to do, because I post on the internet and I post my playing, and it's very easy for me. I just go on my Instagram account and I scroll down a bit and I get to a video from a few months ago and then I can compare that to a video that I posted yesterday and I can very much easily see what I've improved and maybe what I haven't improved, and maybe that's something that I can work on, but what I've improved and that can really give me a little bit of a confidence boost that the things I've been working on have gotten better. Now, if you are not on Instagram or on the internet and maybe you don't post things like that, or if you don't, you know, take videos of yourself anyway, even if you don't post them. Maybe that's a good idea to start doing that. So, literally, like today, when you get in a practice room, take a video of you working on the thing that you are working on, maybe the thing that's like challenging for you and maybe don't listen back to it now, maybe if you want to listen back to it, that's your decision. But then for a few months, get into the nitty gritty of what you're doing, really practice, really focus, focus, focus, and then in a few months, record again, record that exact same piece or maybe a different piece, and compare them. And chances are, if you have worked through all of the things that you need to work through and you've been practicing all day and you've been putting in the work, you will see at least a little bit of improvement. Tracking your playing, like that, can be so just like a big confidence boost when you feel like you haven't improved. And then you can look at these videos and you're like, oh, actually, maybe I have. So that's another idea for you. If you haven't improved or you feel like you haven't improved and that's something that I do all the time Okay, the last thing, gosh, the last thing I feel like, is just trusting the process. Trusting the process, especially for oboe.
Speaker 1:Oboe is not an easy instrument. Oboe is not an easy instrument and oftentimes I feel, you know, like I haven't improved, but that's because improvement on the oboe is slow. It is slow, it is a difficult instrument, and the oboe is not the only instrument where improvement is slow. Basically, just any instrument Improvement can be quite slow, especially if you are in a more of an intermediate, advanced thing. I feel like if you are a very beginner and you learn one note right and then say you learn another note, you have improved twofold. You know two notes, and then if you know four notes, you have improved two-fold again, because now you know four notes and every single day there is an improvement and it's a big improvement. Then when you keep going and going and going, your improvement, I feel like, kind of maybe gets a little less easier to see because or a little slower, because now you're focusing on things like tone, things like vibrato, things like articulation. You're not now, you're not like oh, I've learned another note today, woohoo, you know. And especially with reed making, oh my gosh, that can take so long to get better.
Speaker 1:So growing your skills honestly takes time and it can be easy to get frustrated with growing your skills. And maybe, if you're struggling with frustration, there's an episode of the podcast that goes into all of that and things you can do to work through your frustration in maybe a specific practice session setting Instead of like an overall frustration. If maybe you're prone to like getting really frustrated and upset in the practice room, I have an episode where there are things that you can do to help calm yourself down. So I will link that in the show notes in the description. If that sounds like you, please do check it out.
Speaker 1:But just understanding that there is a process and it is. We need to trust it and it is normal to feel like this and to feel like I haven't improved. And that is okay, because this takes time. This takes a lot of time and that is okay, all right. I want to encourage you. I want to send you all of the good vibes, all of the good, you know, just the goodness and to tell you that it is going to be okay. And this is difficult. This is difficult for a reason because it is so rewarding as well. That's why we do it.
Speaker 1:You know, now, if you are struggling with feeling like you haven't improved, maybe something that can also help you this is like a bonus thing is tracking your practice and planning your practice, because this is a lot like the videos where you are, you know, listening to yourself. But this in terms of planning your practice and tracking your practice, this can be really helpful by just writing things down and looking at them later. Now, a great way to plan your practice that I have found really, really, really helpful is using a notable practice journal. Now, I have planned my practice before using notable and it. You know, I usually just get a regular notebook and I plan it, and it's fine, but sometimes, you know, I just feel so like I don't want to set up another page in a blank notebook and plan my practice. So I got out of the habit and then my practice just got worse. But recently, in the past more than a couple of months, more than a few months I have gotten back into planning my practice effectively.
Speaker 1:With Notables Practice Journal, you can plan your practice and then you can reflect. And this is the thing with feeling like you haven't improved. Reflection after your practice session can really give you the chance to just pour out your thoughts of the session and all of these things. And then when you, you know, a few weeks or months down the line, when you feel like, okay, what have I been working on, you can go into this and just read, read your reflections, read your practicing, read, read your um, your planning, and that can make all the difference and being like, actually I have improved, because, you know, a few months ago I was working a lot on this thing and now that is more like my warmup routine, you know, and it is just such a lovely feeling to be like I have achieved things.
Speaker 1:As soon as I found out that this was working, I knew that I needed to tell you and I knew that I needed to give you a code. So use code ELEANOR15 for 15% off your journal. That is, e-l-e-a-n-o-r-1-5 for 15% off of your journal and start planning your practice, getting those effective practice sessions and then seeing the progress after, because isn't that what we all need? Check out the link in the description or in the show notes to get your journal. You know me, I don't recommend anything that I don't absolutely love. This code is an affiliate code, which means that I do receive a commission with no extra cost to you.
Speaker 1:All right, let's do a recap. So the first thing is finding out what needs working and then improving through and by doing that, you can play for people, can play for people. So play for anyone, play for your teacher, play for your friends all of the people, just play for them and either ask for feedback or ask for to be hyped up, because those are two different things, depending on what you need. The next thing is taking a video of you now and then waiting a few months, or like working, working, working, and then taking a video of you in the future and comparing those two, because you can see progress through that. And the last thing is just trusting the process, because this is a long, hard process. It is hard, it is a very hard process, but you are doing a really good job. You are doing a really good job. And the last thing, the bonus thing, is tracking your practice, planning your practice and looking back at your practice using a notable practice journal, and you can use the code ELEANOR15 for 15% off your order.
Speaker 1: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 episode, from the blog post that goes with it to the link for your notable practice journal, will be in the description, it will be in the show notes and so you can check that out. All right, if you enjoyed this video or this episode, please do give it all the love through liking, subscribing, commenting, following all the things, and I will see you in the next episode or video. All right, take care. Bye-bye.
