It may be trivial, but perhaps it is never an exaggeration to repeat that the only truly fundamental thing before attending an audition or a competition is to study and, consequently, to feel prepared. Having said this banality, there are many other small tricks that I learned to follow by taking the first steps in the world of auditions. So, I want to share some with you.
In preparation
Divide all the pieces you need to preparare in the time that you have: in other words, make a good planning
Conceive the audition not as an attempt at luck or just a way to "get your chops", but as a real goal
Recording yourself is a good training to simulate the tension of being listened to, even if from a phone, because in our hearts we know that then we will listen again and we would certainly like to hear a good performance
Learn to know yourself
Be aware of your frailties and your strengths to learn to work on yourself sectorally
We are human beings and our fears make us unique and special. You have to learn to live with them, making a journey with your own fears, without trying to drive them away, but learning to love them for their peculiarity. So, during the study, it is important not to fight against your anxieties, but to simulate the tension to be able to face them day after day. In this way, the burden of anxieties and fears will not fall on us at the time of the audition, because we will have known them before. Indeed, it will be that force that will make our performance truly unique.
The day of the audition
What is done, is done. It helps me to repeat it as a mantra on the day of the audition. It is useless to think that miracles can be done within the hours of the audition.
Warming up before your turn often comes down to a miserable attempt to play in a crowd of musicians in one large room. How to do? What do you have to rehearse? Surely it is essential to know how to isolate yourself maybe against a wall, and then abandon any hope of being able to concentrate on the projection of the sound or on the quality of the phrasing. That moment is helpful only to warm up your fingers and your muscles and to make long and precise notes.
Small trick only for cellists: if you press your left ear on the peg of your instrument you can listen to the sound as if you were inside the sounding board. It is an ingenios trick to isolate us in this chaotic moments like this!
to will be inevitable to listen to the other musicians. And here you may ask yourself several questions: "He brings Dvořák! Why did I choose Schumann?", "What a beautiful fingering, I could have thought about it too", "Was that orchestra excerpt slower?". No! Mistaken! Look, listen to the others, but only to realize that the level is high and also to be aware that the world is full of excelent musicians from whom we can learn, in an healthy way and without an aggressive competitiveness. The latter will only lead you to more insecurity and a waste of energy.
Ritual
I believe it's important to have a small ritual to bring all the fears and anxieties back to a single moment that may be familiar to us. It can be the entrustment to a prayer, the superstition linked to a particular amulet dear to you, the energy given by a particular physical exercise done before an audition or other. Doing it always will make that moment among many other competitors your imaginary refuge.
Bea
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