the 4 considerations that’ll make or break your college decision (and the rest of your life)

the biggest adjustment i encountered going from student to professional.

a strategy to simplify your preparation and get the most out of every (precious!) minute of practicing

the pros and cons of beta blockers. an (epic) interview with dr. wanda filer, president of the american academy of family physicians

a 4-step process to methodically obliterate nerves. ('cause the audition committee deserves to hear the REAL you. not shaky, freaked out, panicky you.)

sight-reading. (otherwise known as the invisible skill that prevents you from screwing up, even when you forget to prepare.)

that moment-to-moment process of recording an audition tape is so freakin' valuable that now i literally pretend EVERYTHING is an audition tape.

the obsessive, OCD, analytical, complete nerd-style method of researching audition excerpts. <pushes up glasses>

there's 3 main parts: the warm-up, the run-through, and the body of work. and it MIRRORS audition day. (which makes that day feel like just another day!)

your daily practice time is a tool... and you can turn the dial up or down to affect your productivity. (spoiler: more doesn't always equal more.)

audition prep is an assembly line: you stick excerpts in one side, and they shoot out the other. so how do you deal with that unorganized mess of tasks in the middle?

the 9-step audition tape guide, whether you're going the DIY route or using a recording engineer.

i don't do planning so that i can be ultra-prepared. i do planning so that i can be LAZY, and just follow my own directions later.

consider this your manual to passing the dreaded resume round of orchestra auditions. it's the what/why/how, plus a 3-step getting started guide.

auditions are basically a huge funnel. a stream of people go in one side and one pops out at the end. here's a 7-step video guide to the whole process.

if i could go back in time and evaporate a massive amount of lifetime stress, i'd teach myself how to win an audition from the start. and this is what i'd say.