ok. there are only two words that should go through your mind after you get an audition rejection.
“what’s next?”
ok, well, obviously a million other words are gonna fly through your mind first, like “wow, i must suck really bad.” and, “dammit…i would have done better if i hadn’t accidentally started that one excerpt over."
(those are exact transcriptions of thoughts that went through my brain immediately after audition rejections.)
here’s the thing…EVERYBODY has bad auditions and feels terrible about themselves at some point or another. and you have to feel all of that. you can’t skip it. let yourself experience the negativity, because after a few days, it’s going to pass. and then you can get to what’s really important.
the productive way to respond to an audition rejection is to ask, “what’s next?"
asking what’s next is...
...admitting to yourself that you could have done something better.
…identifying your weaknesses and considering how to address those things next time.
…making a plan to improve your audition preparation process so that next time you can have a better outcome.
today’s video explains the 5 steps to prepare for an audition.
after going through audition after audition for 10 years, i incrementally improved my process, one step at a time.
eventually i grew my process to the point where it was a complete, end-to-end assembly line to completely learn and nail excerpts for auditions. it’s exactly the way i practiced for both of my winning auditions for the new world symphony and then the met orchestra.
i also made a PDF about the 5 steps called the audition cheat sheet, which you’ve probably already seen, but if you haven’t, click here to download the audition cheat sheet!
