3 More Exam Prep Strategies That Aren't Just Practicing | Practice Breaks, Lesson Notes, Personalising your Performance

Here are 3 more things that are a must in my exam prep so that I can play my best. Listen to this for strategies on practice breaks, lesson notes, and personalising your performance.

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

Transcript

Welcome And Big Goals

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Confident Musicianing 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 some things that I am doing that are so crucial to my preparations, so then I know that I will be ready when the time comes to take the exam. And I'm not the kind of girl that gatekeeps, so I don't really like that. I want to share with you all of my strategies that I use in my day-to-day life as a musician on my journey. And so that's what this episode is about. This is part two of a two-part series, I suppose, where I am sharing with you six things that I am doing in preparation for my midterm technical exam. And this is the second part. So if you want to listen to the first part, please do go check that out. I will link it below. Um, but this is the second part, so let's dive right in. Firstly, can we just take a second? This is crazy. Um, it was like I live in Glasgow in Scotland, and it was so dark just like five seconds ago, and it's rainy and it's like really kind of rainy and windy outside, and dark and gloomy and mucky, and the sun's just come out, and now it's really just light again. And I I do not understand this weather. I do not understand this weather. Um, it's really funny, but like I'm trying to record videos, and lighting is super duper important, and I had all the lights on, and I have a ring light and everything, and now the sun has also decided to collaborate, which is great. Um, but I just find the weather really amusing. But anyway, I am off topic, so let's go back on to topic and talk about three more things that I am doing to prepare for my midterm exams. This is really interesting because last year I was preparing for my midterm exams and it did not go well because I was not doing these six things. I was not doing these things. I was basically just shutting myself up in a practice room and just kind of focusing on things and getting just continuing with things and not actually taking care of myself, taking care of my mental health, taking care of like the mental aspects of preparing. I was just basically just playing things over and over and over in the practice room, and I burnt myself out. And by the time I actually got to the exam, I had nothing to give because I was just so burnt out, and also I had some like hard things happening personally, and like it was just a mess. And I I didn't prepare correctly, and I I got there and I just just everything fell apart. And so from that failure, that exam failure to the exam retake, there were about half a year. There was about half a year between that, and I really, really learned a lot. I learned how to better prepare for exams, I learned how to better practice, I learned how to better do all of the other things outside of the practice room that I needed to do to prep for my exam. And by the time I retook that exam, not only did I pass, but I passed with so much excitement and so much understanding that I had passed. You know, I got out of that practice or that exam room and I was like, I know that I've passed because I've done the best I can do, and I know this was enough. And for me, that that is so extremely, extremely important. And so I want to share with you those things that I did to make that difference because I am preparing for my second year midterm exam and I'm doing these things for sure. So let's dive right in. The first thing is kind of I suppose counterintuitive, I guess, but it's so important. Taking breaks. Taking breaks. This is really important. Your brain needs breaks. I think I did not understand this. This, you know, the me last year when I was preparing for my first midterm exam that I didn't prepare correctly for. I think one thing, if I would have gone back and like told that, talk to that Eleanor, I'm like, take breaks, get out of the practice room. Yes, practice a bit, practice enough, but do not overpractice, take some breaks. The second time I took that exam, the retake, the week leading up to it, I took so many breaks. Yes, I I was in the practice room, yes, I was doing things that I needed to do, but I took the breaks that I needed to take. For me, that was everything. I I mean I live in Glasgow. This city is amazing. I don't know if you've ever been to Glasgow, I highly recommend it. It's so cool. People here are so nice, and like the city is so walkable, and everything's just it's such a perfect size city. It was amazing. So I like I walked everywhere. I went to the museum, I went to the river, the river Clyde. It's a great river. Um, smaller than the ones in Pittsburgh, but it's great. Um, and I I just I really just allowed myself the time to take breaks. I hung out with friends, I did all these things, and yes, I was practicing and preparing, but my brain needed breaks, and so I allowed it breaks. Okay, that is really, really important. That's kind of what created the difference or part of it. It kind of breathed more life back into me. Do you know what I mean? I feel like sometimes when we come out of the practice room, especially when we've overpracticed and we're trying to deal with the fear of the exam with practicing. If you ever are afraid of something and your excuse or your solution of being scared is just locking yourself up in the practice room, that is not going to help. Fear-based practice is not good practice. Oh, that's a really good quote. I should use that more often. Fear-based practice is not good practice. You need to be practicing from a place of excitement, from a place of curiosity, from a place of enjoyment. And you can get that excitement, curiosity, enjoyment from doing things that give your brain a break. So from going for walks, from visiting things, from just like taking breaks. Whether that's going outside or maybe doing a hobby inside, taking breaks is really, really important. Speaking of hobbies, I have a recent podcast episode and YouTube video about having hobbies as a musician and why having hobbies can actually help your playing. If you want to listen to that, because I it was such a fun episode to make and it has some really, really valuable information in it that kind of corresponds to the idea of taking breaks. Please do check it out. I will link it below. It is a really, really, really um just effective episode, and I think everybody should listen to it. So please do check that out if you are interested in getting better at taking breaks as a musician. Okay. Also, by the way, breaks allow you to show yourself that you deserve that break time. Like you are a human, not just a musician, you are a human and you deserve time for yourself. You deserve that time, and only you are gonna give you that time. You know what I mean? Like, no one else is gonna allow you time for yourself. You are gonna allow yourself time for yourself, and that shows yourself. You are is it's it's an act of self-love. You are showing yourself that you deserve time to just be rather than be productive. I suppose, yeah, like be like always uh achieving and focusing and and etc. etc. You can just be, and that's okay too. So taking breaks is really important. Okay, the next thing is taking lesson notes. Ooh, this is a really interesting thing that I do, and I have been doing for a long time, and I have multiple episodes about taking um lesson notes. But taking notes is so extremely important, and in my exam prep, taking notes has been really helpful not only from the like the from the lessons about my exam prep, because after every lesson I take the notes, I like take notes from my exam or I take notes from my lesson and then I use those notes in my practice to make sure that my practice is as effective as possible. But I have also been using notes from years ago in my exam prep. So in my exam, I have to prep two different etudes, something fast, something slow. And the fast etude is a new etude that I'm doing, and I am focusing on it with my teacher at my conservatoire. I am taking notes from those lessons, but the slow etude is actually one that I have been that I did years ago. And I actually kind of focused most of my time on the fast etude because it was more difficult for me, and I did less time on the slow attude because I knew I was going to be able to do it easier. And when I actually finally picked up the slow etude, I went through my many notebooks of lesson notes, and I found um some lessons from years ago of me doing this, and the kind of basic principles were still the same, and I was able to take that advice from then and use it on this, and that fast-tracked my preparation of this etude so that I could get it up to where everything else was in a faster way. So basically, me from years ago did me now a favor in my exam prep. Taking lesson notes is really, really, really important, and it's also literally like you write the rules for taking lesson notes. You can do whatever you want with lesson notes. If you want to write every single thing down, write every single thing down. If you want to write some things down, write some things down. You make the rules when it comes to lesson notes. For me, I write down everything that I can remember. Um, I write down things that will help me remember things, even if it doesn't make sense to other people. Taking lesson notes is probably one of the most um like effective things that I do in my my lessons. So it's really, really helpful. And for me, I take lesson notes after my lessons. But I dive more into that in um episodes about taking lesson notes. So if you want to do or if you want to go into more depth about that, I will link those episodes in the description as well. Okay, so now that we are taking breaks and that we are taking lesson notes, so we have time to kind of feed ourselves, I suppose, like um our our give ourselves energy um through breaks and through just time to be rather than to just practice, also time to explore the like our cities around us and just kind of be um restful. And now that we've also have more effective practice sessions because we've been taking lesson notes, let's talk about the last thing. I really like this thing. It is creating a personal purpose or goal, creating a personal purpose or goal. So I do this all the time, I do this all the time with like everything I do. If I have an exam, an audition, a performance, I create my own goal around it. This goal, this is very important, it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual point of the thing I'm doing. So if I have an audition for um for a youth orchestra, obviously the goal is to get into the youth youth orchestra, but I create my own personal goal that has nothing to do with that, that really helps me kind of take away the stress of the actual stakes of the thing. Okay. So let me give you an example. If I have a youth orchestra audition, um and it is about um like getting into the youth youth orchestra, my personal goal might be showing the people that are going to watch the audition the things that I've learned recently. So, like maybe I've really been focusing on my vibrato, and the um repertoire in the audition really showcases that that is gonna be my personal goal. I don't need to tell anyone my personal goal, it's my personal goal. So I, in my head, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna share this vibrato. I'm so excited to share it, and I do, and I focus on how good the vibrato is and it's amazing, then that can help take my mind off of the actual fact of like, oh, this audition will allow me into the youth orchestra or not. You know what I mean? Like that's that's that's an important thing, but I don't want to worry myself about that, so I'm gonna create my own personal goal. So for this exam, I have a personal goal of showing the people in the exam room just how hard I have been working at all the things I've been working on. I have recently changed um read scrapes like oboe styles. I've changed oboe playing styles from the long scrape American style to the short scrape European style. And for me, it's a huge switch. It really is a huge switch, and I have done it, and now I can play it on a European read, I can play in the European style. It's so exciting, and so I'm like, okay, this is a showcase, this is a celebration for me. This is the like, oh my gosh, look what I can do. I'm not worrying about am I gonna pass or fail? I'm worrying about let me show you what I've been working on, let me show you what I can do because I'm really proud of myself and I'm really excited to share it with you. So, what is your goal gonna be for your next exam, your next audition, your next performance? Have a we think about that because it does really change the game, okay? All right. I hope that you take away at least one thing from these three things to do in your next um preparation for an exam, an audition, or a performance. And please, please, please do let me know what you think of it. You can contact me via email with um the email address Eleanor at confidentmusitioning.com or you can DM me on Instagram at Eleanor.ovo. Please do let me know if you try one or three of these things, and please let me know what you think of them because I love, I love to hear from you guys. All right. Before I let you go, I do need to tell you something about a tool that I have been using in my exam prep that has been really helpful, and so I'm like, why don't I include it in this episode? And that is a notable practice journal. This journal has been so helpful for me for my um preparation for my exams because not only can I plan my practice, which honestly just makes my sessions more effective, but I can also reflect on my sessions and I can write down what went well and what didn't go well so that the next session I have that kind of insight from the last session so that I can make the next session even better. Honestly, this is a game changer. This has been really helpful for me in my exam prep. Because then also I can look through it and be like, oh my gosh, look how much I've done, look how far I've come. That's also helpful, especially when you feel like you're like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? Have I practiced enough? You can look at this and say, yes, I have practiced enough because I have actual concrete evidence that I've practiced enough, which as musicians that can be really, really helpful. As soon as I realized that this was helpful, I knew that I needed to tell you about it, and I knew that I needed to give you a code. So use code Eleanor15 for 15% off your journal so you can plan your practice sessions for efficiency. You know I only recommend things that I absolutely love. This journal or this code is an affiliate code, which means that I receive a commission with no extra cost to you, all right? The code will be in um the show notes in the description, and so will the link for your journal, all right? So use code Eleanor15 for 15% off your journal. Okay, I hope you enjoyed this um episode. I hope that this was helpful for you. If it was, please do like, subscribe, comment, share, follow, share with all of your friends, all of your musician friends, especially the ones who have exams, auditions, or performances coming up. And I will see you in the next episode. All right. Take care. Bye bye.