I have several students preparing for music school auditions. You probably do, too.
The next two weeks of school vacation are crucial in their final preparation. In my experience, students overwhelmingly squander them.
Here’s what I want to say to them:
You are letting fear win. You are choosing the quality of your audition.
I believe that many aspiring music majors subconsciously choose to under-prepare so if they do not get in, they can blame it on their preparation, rather than their skill.
If you prepare hard and don’t succeed, you walk away saying, “I’m not good enough.” If you fake it and don’t succeed, you walk away saying, “I could have worked harder.”
BUT.
Your work will determine your success rate far more than your “talent” (whatever that word means).
Say your audition is at the end of January. You have roughly five weeks from today to prepare. 35 days.
Every day you don’t spend real time working on that audition, your likelihood of success goes down a certain amount. Maybe 1%. So if your likelihood today is 75% among the audition pool, but you don’t work until the week of your audition, you might only have a 50% chance of succeeding at your audition.
You never have 100% chance of success. Why do you want to lower your chances further by ignoring your practice?
Take ownership of your audition success by properly preparing. Every day from now until audition day is another day to increase your potential.