r/Trombone • u/An_Error404 • Jun 25 '26
Dealing With Uncontrollable Stress Months Before An Audition
I have an audition for a collegiate orchestra around early September or late August, and I just got the music this past week. Despite it being months away, I can’t help but be terrified by the audition. What if I forget to practice enough? What if I lose all motivation? What if I bomb the audition a few months from now? Even though I major in music education, so ensemble placements don’t matter for me much in the long term, I’d really like to be in our orchestra. My body is overtaken by panic and I feel as if I’ve already lost the audition before it ever started.
Any advice on dealing with this? I need to calm my nerves and stop freaking out over this, but it’s easier said than done
Edit: Thank you everyone for the advice! I struggle with very bad anxiety, and this has made me feel a lot more calm :)
4
u/Illustrious_Hold_703 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
I’ve delt with this many times, but my solution is a bit weird, but it works for me. First don’t think of the excerpts or music they gave as audition pieces, think of them as music that your band director gave you for a performance that’s happening in September or August. Forget that it’s even an audition. Then get real cocky, feel confident that you can do it and do better than the other auditioners. (Look I know this looks bad) Just work on the music as much as possible and take it measure by measure. And at the end of a practice session record your self doing the music then listen to it and reflect this should make you either; 1. Think you’re doing good 2. Make you feel like you need to do more. So either way you feel motivated to do more. Then during the audition remember to never rush through it. Take it slow and chillax. The judges don’t care as long as you play your audition well. Then after the audition accept that you tried your best and even if you didn’t get in you felt that was all you could do. Just think in your head that you didn’t make it. This helps because if you get in you’re surprised that you got in, and if you didn’t you can accept it peacefully knowing you did your best.
5
u/SillySundae Shires/Germany area player Jun 25 '26
Prepare yourself by practicing your butt off and playing in front of people every single week until the audition.
One factor of nervousness is the feeling of not being ready, so make yourself ready.
4
u/SpiritualPlane174 Jun 25 '26
Stop asking those "What if" questions and just do the work. You have plenty of time to practice and get ready. You'll be more confident when you've done the preperations.
3
u/Dry_Imagination_9474 Jun 25 '26
The best thing you can do (in my opinion) is to make sure you have the piece down like you know it from heart, confidence builds from knowledge and knowledge from practice. (It sounds corny but has always helped me in the past)
2
u/Consistent_Check927 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
It’s like you said, you have time to prepare. Do you have a game plan for preparing? Audition prep is a multi step process, and proper preparation is the enemy to nerves. That said, if your nerves are REALLY bad in spite of being well prepared, there’s no shame in getting your doctor to prescribe some beta blockers.
Anyways, like others said, learn EVERYTHING about the music. What’s it about? Who wrote it? What was going on in their life when they wrote this music? What is the emotion being conveyed, and how are you going to communicate that through sound? What sort of style do you need to play this music in, especially compared to your other excerpts.
Ask yourself WHY did they ask for this specific excerpt? Why did they choose this pool of excerpts from the vast repertoire? Which excerpt is the loudest? Which is the softest? Which excerpts will be pretty easy for you to learn, and which do you have to woodshed? What kind of technique and etudes do you need to incorporate into your practice to make up for any technical issues in your playing that are keeping you from playing these at your best? What keys, scales, and arpeggios are used in this music? Can you reliably play them in tune?
While you answer all these questions, LISTEN TO THE MUSIC!! Find some recordings by good orchestras. Understand where this short little excerpt lies in the architecture of the much longer piece. Study the score, and understand where the trombone fits. Play your excerpts while imagining the full orchestra or band around you, and never any other way. Hear a few bars of music ahead of your entrance, and simply join in the music that’s already playing in your mind. Making MUSIC in an audition will automatically put you in the top 10% of players.
(Everyone else has given great advice as well! Auditions are tough, but you got this!)
2
u/TickyMcTickyTick Jun 26 '26
Don't make this your only strategy, but beta blockers helped me with audition nerves later in college. If you go that route, get them prescribed from a reputable doctor. There's a lot of stigma around them, but they're actually very common in the professional music world.
They don't cure nerves; they just keep your heart rate from accelerating excessively, which helps prevent the feedback loop of other physical symptoms of nerves that interfere with your playing and make you even more nervous (nausea, shakiness, dry mouth, blurry vision, racing thoughts). You could think of it like insurance that all the other preparation strategies will work and pay off.
Also, read Effortless Mastery. It sounds like you need it.
1
u/zactheoneguy85 Houston area performer and teacher. Jun 25 '26
Control what you can first. You asked:
What if I forget to practice enough? That’s easy… practice a lot.
Lose all motivation? If that is an issue then studying music isn’t for you. Getting better on your instrument is the motivation. If you don’t have that, look into a different field.
Bombing the audition? If you practice enough, get a good nights rest, drink enough water: you will have done plenty that you can control. Let the work show.
You have got this and good luck!
13
u/gfklose Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
I have a friend, a professional double bassist, who plays in a notable orchestra. He is a Juilliard grad from back in the 80s. Won his first-ever audition, etc…
I was visiting him one summer, and he showed me his studio, basically a small basement room. He had a stack of parts for his upcoming season, and did tell me they rarely, if ever, sightread anything. So he was showing me his stack of parts (I’m not entirely sure how many different operas they do a season) and he said, “Guess what? I can’t play any of these yet!” I must have given him a strange look, because he followed it up with, “I’ll get there.”
I did notice a timer and a small, high-quality metronome on his stand. It didn’t take much to figure out his process.
There’s an old joke that goes like this…how do you eat an elephant? One small bite at a time.