Preparing for Auditions/Performance

[jgallag]

Okay, Christmas is over, and I have auditions for grad schools in a month. My teacher and I have turned over my repertoire quite thoroughly, I know it quite well, and I just want to keep everything in top shape, or even push it beyond so that I'm prepared as I can be for the upcoming audition season. Can you all share your techniques for keeping pieces solid and secure while maintaining a fresh attitude?

[michaeljames]

This is a great question.

I always start my practice/playing sessions with a piece from my repertoire that I have known forever and can play rusty/cold.  Then I work on the pieces I am currently learning.  When I need a break, I pull another piece from my repertoire and play it.  Sometimes, I only want to play things for fun, so I will pull out the misc. books and read through several fun but unstudied works, and throw a piece from my repertoire in every third or fourth piece.

I try to play through all of the things in my repertoire at least 2-3 times per week to keep them in good form.  That way, too, if I stumble, I can catch it and check it before it becomes a bigger problem.

Something else I've started doing:  There are pieces I've playing for years by memory.  I now will get out the music/scores read as I play.  I have found that, over time, I've started playing different notes here and there and also I've discovered things I'd never caught while learning the pieces originally.  Great fun.

I've been a serious student for 35 years, so my repertoire is quite extensive. I have chosen a couple of handfuls of my favorite pieces and keep those in performance ready condition.  The rest are only a week or two away from bringing back to performance ready condition.  (Hopefully...some take longer...and if I never connected with something in the first place, I can completely forget nearly everything about it).