3 Exam Prep Strategies That Aren't Just Practicing | Mock Exams, Visualisation, Training the Nerves

Here are 3 things that are a must in my exam prep so that I can play my best. Listen to this for strategies on mock exams, visualisation, and training your nerves.

Use code ELEANOR15 for 15% off your Notabl_ practice journal, and level up your focus in your sessions! Click here for your journal. 

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Click here for more on mock exams/auditions.

Let me know what you thought of this episode by emailing me at eleanor@confidentmusicianing.com or DMing me @eleanor.oboe

Transcript

Welcome And Why Confidence Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Confident Musitioning Podcast. My name is Eleanor and I am a British American oboist studying at the Royal Conservatory 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 Musitioning Podcast. I am prepping for my midterm technical exam at my conservatoire, and there are six things that I absolutely need to do. It is crucial that I do these things in my preparation so that I know that I can do my best performance in the actual exam. And I'm not the type of girl to gatekeep. I do not like doing that, and I want to provide you with all of the strategies that I use in my day-to-day journey as a musician. So we're gonna get right into these six strategies. The first three are gonna be in this episode, um, and then the next three are gonna be in a further episode, there's gonna be like two parts. So it's gonna be the three, the next three are gonna be in the second part, and there are three in this part. Because let's be honest, if I did all six in one episode, that episode would last a really, really long time, and so I want to break it out into two parts. So if you want to make sure that you do not miss the next three, make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow the podcast wherever you listen to it. So let's dive right in. I think that this is an interesting thing because there's a very stark difference between my preparation now and my preparation last year. Um, last year I prepared for my midterm technical exam. It was my first year, and I did not prepare very well. I'm gonna be honest, I just kind of practiced. I practiced and practiced and practiced and just kept just practicing and kind of burnt myself out. I'm not gonna lie, I burnt myself out, and so by the time I actually got to the practice or to the exam, I had done no mental prep and I had just been practicing that it actually just fell to pieces and I failed the exam. And the next few months afterwards, between my um initial exam failure and the one that I retook and I passed, I learned a s like just so many things. I learned so many things on how to um perform in an exam, how to prepare not only with practice, but also mentally. And I think that those things are so important, and definitely the mental things are not talked about enough. We as musicians, like we practice, we always know how to practice and we always practice, but do we really know how to do all the mental things required to actually do a mock or to do an exam? Um, maybe not. So that's exactly what this is about. The second time around when I did my exam last year, it was so different. I did these things, it was so different. It like I passed the exam and I passed it so confidently, like I walked out of that exam knowing that I had passed, knowing that I did my vehicle best. And so I want to share these things with you because it's so important to me that um I can provide you with all of the things that I do, all of the strategies that I do in my day-to-day life as a musician. So let's dive right into it. The first thing that I'm doing is a mock exam. This is really, really, really important. A mock exam, honestly, it just tells you things that maybe regular practice doesn't tell you. So I've done a mock exam, and my mock exam really showed me that I needed or I need to play the pieces more thoroughly in terms of just doing run throughs. I have been practicing a lot of the pieces just like in little bits and little chunks, and then when it was time to actually in the mock exam do an entire run through, I was like, oh, I need to focus on this. And if I hadn't done that mock exam, I wouldn't have known. And I would have realized that in the actual exam. A mock exam is basically just like a place where you can make mistakes in the exam setting without it actually counting, which is really helpful, especially when you don't know what's gonna come up in the mock exam. I've had mock exams where things have happened that I had no idea would happen, and I was like, I am so grateful that I have done this mock exam because otherwise I would have ended up just making all these mistakes in the actual exam or the actual audition or the actual performance or etc. etc. You know what I mean? So to basically do the mock exam, let's talk about how how I do the mock exam so that you can try it yourself. So a mock exam is you want to mirror the actual exam as much as possible. Now, obviously, you're not gonna mirror it completely exactly, and that's perfectly fine, but as much as you possibly can. For instance, for this mock exam, I was able to actually book the room that I'm going to have the exam in. Like I booked it for about half an hour, and so I was in that environment, and to me that was really important because then I was able to show my brain, like, oh yeah, this is the environment we're gonna be in, and it's safe. It's okay, it's not a freak, like we we don't have to freak out about it, it's just perfectly fine. And I was able to perform my pieces in that exam room. So if you are able to book the actual room, that's amazing. If you can't, that's fine. Mock exams do not have to be in the actual room if you are unable to do that. And when I mean mock exams, you can also use this for mock auditions, um, anything you want, really. So try to book the room if you can. If you can't, that is okay, but play the pieces all the way through the way you would do it. If in the exam they're going to ask you little sections and you do not know which sections they're gonna ask you, then bring a friend along and say, hey, can you choose a section and ask me to play it? And you do not know what your friend is going to say. That's really helpful because then you're practicing being asked something that you don't actually know what you're gonna be asked. That's really helpful. Or you, if you know that you're gonna play it all the way through, then just go and play it all the way through and see what comes up. If there are questions in the exam, if they're gonna ask you questions, or if it's an audition, then they're gonna ask you questions about yourself and your journey. Have someone ask you questions and see what see what happens, see what comes up. I remember I did a mock audition once and um I got asked a question that I completely answered really wrongly to. I think it was like, what is your favorite oboe solo? And obviously I have favorite oboe solos, but my mind just went completely blank and I could not think of a single oboe solo. And I said a Coron Glau solo or something. Like I said it and it was so obviously not an oboe solo, and afterwards I was like, oh no, like that very much is not something that I want to do in the actual exam and or the actual audition, and so I was able to kind of prep a little better for the questions, and then in the actual editions, I was able to answer the questions better. So you never know what's gonna come up in an exam or in a in a mock exam or a mock audition. So please do one. It is so eye-opening and so helpful, and then that means that when you're actually in the exam, you are so much more prepared than if you hadn't done the the mock exam. So that's a mock exam. The next thing is visualization. This is very similar to a mock exam in some ways, but also in other ways, it's quite different. So, guess what? Your brain doesn't actually know the difference between what you imagine it's doing and what it's doing. So if you imagine, this is so weird, I know, right? Um, but if you imagine like um, I don't know, walking through a forest and seeing a rabbit and whatever, whatever, your brain subconsciously honestly believes that you have walked through a forest and seen a rabbit, even if you literally just sat in a room and imagined it. So this is a really funny thing that our brains do, but it's an amazing tool for when it comes to exams and auditions and performances because we can use this to our advantage. So we can literally visualize the exam space if we know what it is. Um, we can visualize us warming up for the exam space, and we can decide how we want to feel in that visualization. So for me, I often, especially like the week leading up, during the week leading up, I will sit down and I will visualize these things. And I will visualize myself feeling calm, just calm. And I think for me that's great because it's extremely neutral, it's just calm. And so then in the actual exam, if I'm feeling excited, I can feel excited, but I have that base of calm because my brain has already seen the visualization I've done of being calm around this and has thought, oh yeah, we're gonna be calm because we have been. This is fine, this is nothing. We've done this before because I've visualized it, and I really visualize, I get into the like the nitty-gritty of things. I'm like, okay, how will the exam room smell? And it doesn't have to be the same smell as what I'm visualizing. I could be like, what if it smells a little musty? And I think about that, and I think about being calm. What if it smells a little bit like paint? And I think about that, and I'm feeling you know, whatever, whatever. You can visualize anything you want. If you don't want to go that in depth, that's perfectly fine too. I've done other other times where I've literally just visualized the actual exam itself, and I've been like, okay, um, I'm just gonna visualize playing this piece that I'm a little nervous about, and I'm gonna feel really calm about it. And then next time I play the piece, I feel calmer. It's so crazy, but it's really, really helpful. I have um a podcast episode on visualization. So if you want to go more deep like into doing it, if it's something that's intriguing you and you want to be like, oh yeah, I know I want to do that, then please do click um down below um in the description in the show notes, there are uh links to to episodes about visualization. So make sure you go do that because honestly, it's so cool, and that's what I'm doing for this mock exam, or for this exam, and that's what I'm doing for this exam. I have literally just been visualizing, visualizing this going well, this going well over and over and over again. And in the mock exam, that really helped me as well. I visualized for the mock exam, and then the mock exam went went better in that way than it could have been. So visualization is really helpful. The third thing, I really like this one. This one's really funny to me because it is an excuse to dance in the practice room, and that is practicing out of breath. So, when we are out of breath, our breath tends to go right in our chest, and we kind of tend to pant like like that, like a little higher. Um, and also our heart, our heart rate goes up, and so we have a really fast heart, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, and our breath is really shallow, and that's kind of how we might feel when we're nervous. It really simulates feeling nerves, and it's really interesting, it simulates it quite well, and that's perfect because we can use that to our advantage. Because basically, what you can do is you can just get your heart rate up, you can get yourself a little bit out of breath, and then you just play through your repertoire, and then that is your new standard. Whatever it sounded like when you were out of breath and you had a quick heart rate, that is your new standard because chances are you're gonna be a little more out of breath than normal, and your heart rate's gonna go a little faster than normal in the actual exam. So, why not practice it like that so that our bodies are more comfortable with um the sensations of a fast heartbeat and kind of feeling quite nervous? It's great, it's really great, and then we can also kind of know how we might sound in that situation. So, next time, well, basically just like the week before the exam, go in the practice room, put on your favorite song, and just dance it out. Do jumping jacks, jump up and down, run around in circles, like just whatever it is to get your heart rate up, and then play through the pieces, and then you will know what bits fall through, what bits are strong, and focus on those bits that need more help. You might be surprised. Like, I've been surprised before with this. I'm like, oh my gosh, I had no idea that this would happen, or like that this section would be not as good, or this section would be fine, and then now you know what to practice. It is so, so, so helpful. And do this a few times because then if you are nervous in the actual exam and your heart rate is fast and maybe your breathing is a little shallow, you will not only kind of feel comfortable, more comfortable in that feeling, but you also will probably have a better understanding of how to calm yourself down because you've practiced it. Okay, so do that. All right, those are the three things for now that I am doing to prep for my midterm exam, my conservator midterm exam. I hope that they were helpful for you. Um, please do try like at least one of them and let me know what you think, how you find them. You can send me an email at Eleanor at confidentmusician.com, or you can DM me on Instagram at Eleanor.obo. Please do let me know. Honestly, I'd love to know what you think of it and if it's helpful. Before you go, there is a tool that I really want to share with you because I have been using it so much in my prep for my exam, so I feel like I can't not share it with you. And that is a notable practice journal. Planning my practice has been such a helpful step in my musical journey towards all my goals, not just this exam that I'm going to do, but just everything. But especially in the exam, it has or in the exam prep, it has been really helpful. The fact that I can not only plan my practice with this journal, but also reflect on my practice so that I can make improvements for next time, it has been so helpful. And I knew that I had to share it with you. As soon as I knew that it was working, I was like, I need to share this with you and I need to give you a code. So use code Eleanor15 for 15% off your journal so that you can start planning your practice to get more effective sessions and also so that you can see your progress. That is so important for us as musicians. Like we we practice like every single day, and sometimes it's hard to see the progress, but if we write things down, we plan our practice, we can see progress, and that is so so helpful and like eye-opening. So use code Eleanor15 for 15% off your journal and start effectively planning your practice. You know that I only recommend things that I absolutely love. This code is an affiliate code, which means I do receive a commission with no extra cost to you. And the link for the um practice journals and the code will be in the show notes in the description below. All right. All right, that is about it for this episode for the three things that I am doing for my conservatoire midterm exam preparation. Make sure that you subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow the podcast so that you can be sure to get the part two episode so you can hear the next three. And um, yeah, I will see you then. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed it, and I will see you soon. Alright, take care. Bye bye.