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Hi Augustas,
It takes quite a bit of energy to be able to really bring performance-like focus and attention to your playing, so if you’ve been practicing a lot, it could very well be that you don’t quite have the resources to focus 100% in your run-throughs/mocks. Are you getting enough sleep every night? Like, 8, 9, or even 10+ hours?
Generally, athletes (and increasingly, musicians) will tend to do some “tapering” in the weeks leading up to a big competition, where the volume of training decreases, but the intensity increases. Which would mean doing less drilling and repetition and woodshedding, and doing more run-through-type playing and more mental rehearsal so you don’t wear yourself out physically. I had a student for instance, who did 3 run-throughs 3 days out from the audition, 2 run-throughs 2 days out, and 1 runthrough the day before, and that was it. I know some folks who won’t play at all in the 24 hours before the audition as well. There are a number of individual differences so I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all equation for how to handle the week before an audition, but you just want to make sure you’re protecting your energy and not overplaying, where the playing that you do do is more along the lines of the kind of playing that you’ll be doing on stage, i.e. more retrieval practice.
Hope this gives you some ideas!
Noa
