AUDITION TIPS

Practicing for Auditions

  • Ask your private teacher or school director to help you prepare.

  • Aim to memorize your scales, even if memorization is not required.

  • Select a solo piece that showcases your strengths, including range, technique, expression, dynamics, and style. 

  • Listen to recordings of an orchestra playing the entire piece your excerpt is taken from.

  • Practice sight-reading using a method book exercise you’ve never played before. Learn from your mistakes, and consider recording yourself for additional feedback.

  • Practice frequently with a tuner and metronome to improve pitch and rhythm.

  • Give as much attention to expressive passages as technical ones, and try to convey a mood and feeling.

  • Know your audition material well enough so you can keep going even if something unexpected happens.

  • Record your audition material and listen back to assess your strengths and weaknesses. Lean into your strengths while increasing practice time in the weak areas.

  • Play your audition material for friends and family and ask them to provide comments.

Audition Day

  • We recommend dressing nicely but comfortably.

  • Remember to bring all of your music (hard copies of the excerpts will be available).

  • Please arrive 20-30 minutes before your scheduled audition time so that you can check in and warm up.

  • Expect that your audition will last about 10-15 minutes.

  • Get involved in the music. The audition committee wants to hear the joy and expression of the music as much as they want to hear accuracy.

  • Keep going even if you make mistakes—don’t quit and don’t panic.

  • Know that if the audition committee asks you to play something with a change it doesn’t mean you played it wrong. They may want to see how you take guidance and make a correction.

  • Enjoy yourself!

  • Practice perspective. After an audition, it’s easy to obsess and overanalyze your playing. But keep in mind that no audition/performance is ever perfect—it is a learning experience. Take away from it what worked and what can be improved on for next time.