Tuesday, November 30, 2010

YTSO Audition - What I learned (Psychological)

I learned quite a few things from doing the Youtube Symphony Orchestra Audition

1. Be Prepared. Underpreparedness is something I'm really fighting ... it's been a constant in my life & one of the things I'm really good at is making things work that I am not prepared for or don't already have skills for. It's a double-edged sword though. Anyway, what I learned is that I need to start preparing earlier & I need to start preparing with a better general awareness of what I'm trying to achieve. Part of the way I will achieve this is by listening to classical music more often.
2. When Auditioning, set an earlier deadline to have the rep. playable by. Then work on having them playable consistently. Too often when I prepare things, they are not thoroughly prepared enough & they are too at the edge of my technique. In order to have a successful audition, the pieces need to be somewhat easy.
3. Do not wait until the deadline day to do the takes and then also try and put together the video the same day ... this results in disasterous, embarassing video ... not to mention leaves you with a narrow selection of takes & possible technical failure
4. Set goals prior to playing - this is super important! It's so easy to just waste time ... yet a minute or two's thought/reflection prior to practice does an amazing amount to focus one's attention. The results are drastically different.

1 comment:

The Sensible Flutist said...

Have you heard of Burton Kaplan's "Practicing for Artistic Success?" He has a great practice guide, and what he calls Success of the First Try. Essentially, you record yourself 5 days before your performance/audition and you score yourself. It's a great process - I used it before an audition, and came into the audition feeling more confident than I ever have. It's definitely a book worth owning.