day 3: how to plan your audition preparation

it's day 3 of the 12 days of auditions! it's the video series where each day i cover a different topic on how to take auditions. yesterday was day 2: how to make a sleek and impressive resume. make sure to join the auditionhacker facebook group to see the rest of them. 

ok, so.

let's talk about planning for a second. 

i made this video as the first practice video in the series of the 12 days of auditions. at the time, i thought i would have a full blog about how to plan your audition preparation. (that's why you came here, probably.)

however, i do not.

good planning, right?

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all i have for you is the video transcription, which is below. you can also enroll in how to advance at an orchestra audition 101, but you probably already knew that. here ya go:

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video transcription:

orchestra auditions start basically the same way for everyone - you get the list, and then you have no idea what to do between now and the audition day. well it’s important to plan out your audition preparation for a couple reasons. 

the first is to have confidence that you know that everything’s going to get done between now and then. the second is to feel a sense of urgency that whatever you scheduled for today, yo have to do today because tomorrow is for something else.

this video’s part of the 12 days of auditions, which is all about teaching you how to take and win orchestra auditions.

step one: identify your availability

step one to planning out your audition is to go to your calendar and identify your availability. go to each day and figure out what the biggest chunk of time is for that day. that’s your practice session. write it down in the list so that you can look over your list and see all the practice sessions you have for your whole audition term. 

step two: estimate your work

step two is to go to your list and estimate the amount of time each excerpt is going to take to become performance-ready. so for me, i would go to an excerpt, say mozart’s abduction to the seraglio, i would take my notecard which to me represents the excerpt, i would write down the name of the excerpt, and then i would write down what i estimate it’s going to take. so for me it’s going to take around 3 hours to learn the notes, and 2 hours to self-record. and then i’m going to have to do mock auditions later.

step 3: sort your work into days

once i have all that information for my excerpts, then go back to your calendar for step 3, and start sorting your work into days. start from the beginning of your audition prep and for each excerpt, sort all the work you have to do so that, from beginning to end of your audition term, you know that everything’s going to get done. that way, you can wake up every morning and instead of figuring out what to do, you can just follow your own instructions and do what you already scheduled.

to learn more about how to plan your orchestra auditions, follow the link. while you’re there, you can enroll in my free online course called, “how to advance at orchestra auditions 101.” tomorrow we’re talking about how to make audition tapes. see you then.

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