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Hi Liesbeth,
Ack, yeah, results like this can be frustrating and discouraging. Athletes often deal with this sort of thing too, for what it’s worth. Even in sports where the criteria are clear, it’s often the case that a team can play pretty great and still lose (also possible to play less than one’s best and still win too, of course), which can be pretty demoralizing.
One of the things that can help – though it’s much easier said than done – is to focus relentlessly on growth and the things you control, because we can drive ourselves pretty crazy thinking about things we really don’t control (whether the committee as a whole likes our sound, or agrees with how we played it, or whether they’re even listening or paying attention when we’re playing, or if they already have someone in mind, or if they had an argument with a colleague before and are being obtuse, etc., etc.). There’s a video on this that I like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIbL3N8OU-E
The other thing I’m wondering is, do you record your auditions? I know it’s frowned upon if not explicitly forbidden, but there’s a reason for recording regardless, related to the above. We can chat about it more if you’re not already recording.
The other thing I’m wondering is how you decide how to play each excerpt – like, how do you decide on an interpretation? Is there listening involved? And if so, how or how much? This could be another thing to tweak in your preparation as well, which we can talk about more here.
One last thing that I think might help is a perspective from the actor Bryan Cranston. I think these videos on auditioning in the acting world are as relevant in the music world, and hope you find them helpful with mindset in the next week:
Have a good week!
Noa
