thomashooten

Hi

Thanks for the great question. This is an area that I felt was very important when preparing for an audition. I wanted to make sure that I had the same composure while auditioning that I have in the practice room. These are not all of my original ideas, but ideas that I picked up from serveral different sources and discovered along the way.

First, let's understand the full potential of what "associate" means. A good example is when you are driving down the street and see flashing lights in your rear view mirror. You associate that with many negative things..ex..loss of money, points on your license, jail, embarrassment....
This same process happens all the time when we perform or even practice.
ex.. one time you really went for a lick and missed it.. how do you feel when it comes around the 2nd time? or You are performing a piece that gives you a lot of trouble in certain areas.. How do you feel when those passages come around? There are many different degrees to this, everyone has their own set of issues, big or small. It is easy to develop negative associations to playing, whether it be range, softs, low, high, or certain solos and excerpts.
I suggest a proactive approach to fixing these potential negative associations.

What we need to do as musicians (trumpet players) is build a positive empowering association to the trumpet. This is a mental thing AND a physical thing. More specifically, everytime you pick up the trumpet you should associate certain positive empowering thoughts.

Here is the process by which I would attain this confidence in performing.

First, stand up with your trumpet by your side. Next, pick an excerpt or asection of music that you are not so consistent on, or have a "hang up" with. Before you put the trumpet to your face, try to remember a time (music related or not) that you felt extremely strong and confident. Now, make it physical. Stand tall, breathe full, and do whatever else you do when remembering that strong moment. The key is to make it REAL. When you feel confident and strong put the trumpet to your face and either start the excerpt or just blow through the trumpet while thinking of that particular excerpt of music. Repeat until desired effect. :) You may have to repeat this 20-30 second process 50-100 times. Of course, this works best when you know the piece well and have done the appropriate preparation.

I would use this for many different aspects of the audition. Mahler 5 opening, walking on stage, alpine symphony, Shumann 2.

This was a brief explanation and I would encourage you to find you own way of feeling confident and strong when performing. There are hundreds of books on this basic topic. Don't ignore the fact that auditions are stressful and distracting. I agree that you will gain a lot of confidence in pure preparation and hard work on the excerpts or solo. However, why not build a little insurance into your prep to ensure that you will be in a state of mind that allows you to play your best.

Thanks
Tom