Hopefully now your tone is pretty well developed and consistent, your posture, hand position, and other technical elements are pretty good, you’ve got your scales down, the notes and rhythms of your performance piece have been well-learned, and you’re gaining in comfort with sight reading. Right? If not, please read over entry number one in this series and keep plugging along! Your audition may still be a positive learning experience, and you may surprise yourself and really get a lot done in a short time and still be in the running. If not, then continuing to go through the steps in the first entry will help you achieve your goals in future years. So don’t despair, don’t give up, keep your cool, and keep taking one step at a time toward your goals, devoting as much time and concentration as you can. Bear in mind that there are students in Vermont who practice two to four hours a day. This is not the case across the board –there are probably others who do make the cut-off for the All State Festival who practice more like 30 – 60 minutes a day. This is just something to keep in mind when you consider what it might take to bring you to the higher levels of capability.
If you have done everything discussed in the first entry in this series, then good for you! You’re off to a very strong start! Here’s your next step.
Students always tell me in lessons: “I played it perfectly at home – why can’t I play it correctly here?”
My return question: “Do you play it correctly EVERY time you play it at home?” The answer is predictably “No – but part of the time.”
Here’s the rule of thumb: If you play something correctly at home 9 times out of 10, and 1 time out of 10 you make a mistake, the time you play for someone else will normally be the 1 incorrect one rather than one of the nine correct ones. Yes, it’s extremely annoying, but generally true.
So now rethink the quality of your playing. Go through your piece, as well as every scale, with a microscope. You’ve got six weeks, so if your piece is basically well-learned now, then you’ve got time to do the final polishing that will bring you to the 10 times out of 10, if you follow these steps:
- Circle every spot (or note each scale) that EVER has a mistake (zero right in on the exact place where the mistake happens – perhaps just 2 notes, perhaps a measure, perhaps more – as small a section as possible to be relevant). Perhaps number them, and transfer the number over to a practice sheet or notebook to keep a record of tempos or other progress. Make sure you write down EVERY spot that EVER has a mistake – and keep adding spots every time you notice another.
- Practice each noted spot 20x a day or more, slowly enough to play it perfectly. You may wish to vary the rhythms or articulations – perhaps just to make it more interesting, but this can also help to isolate where the particular problem is coming in – it can be particularly helpful to play a fast passage with dotted rhythms or to vary the groupings – perhaps play it thinking in groups of 2, then 3, 4, 5, etc. (Hoping to get a more detailed entry on this topic – be on the lookout).
- Once you’re confident that you are playing the spot correctly every time, add in a bit from a few beats or measures prior to the spot itself. Sometimes the issue isn’t the spot itself but the muscle patterns and/or mindset that leads you to the spot – sort of like a rut in mud season – the deepest mud is what you want to avoid but you can only avoid it by keeping yourself out of the place where the rut starts to pull you toward the deep spot.
- Confirm that you’ve really got it by playing a substantially larger section leading into the piece. Once you’re confident, you’ll probably want to continue to touch on those spots in your daily practice just to be sure.
- Keep noticing those spots as you go by them when playing the whole piece. Keep clear on your list of practice priorities, probably noting them on paper, or in your music, until you are able to play the whole piece without a mistake.
Now’s the time to work toward knowing with certainty that you’ve got the technical parts of your audition THOROUGHLY learned – not just 9 times out of 10, but 100 times out of 100.
