Tip: 6 Ways to Keep Your Cool on the Big Day

  Auditions -whether they are for chair placement, honor bands, orchestra jobs, or anything else you can think of- can seem quite frightening. The thought of going up by yourself and having a panel of judges critique your performance could be enough to give an normal person a nervous breakdown. Now, that being said, an audition doesn't have to be that bad, if you prepare for it the right way.

1. Be prepared as much as possible. By the point you're at the audition, you shouldn't have a doubt in your mind that you'll do well. All the etudes or excerpts should have been practiced properly, to the point where mistakes are beyond the question. Scales should be second nature, as you've practiced them every day for the past years. Is this all ringing a bell with you? You definitely don't want to be the musician there that has to say something like, "I didn't pick up this music until we got here," to try to validate getting second to last chair.
2. Don't worry about everyone else is doing. Just like you have your own warmups and own rituals, don't be concerned about anyone else's. People might have shinier horns than you, or they might be rocking one of the etudes for the sixth time in a row at fortissimo. Don't let this get to you and just play the same way you did in practice the day before. The less that you concentrate on what everyone else is doing, the more brain power you have to calm yourself down and think about what you're doing.
3. Treat your performance like any other day of practice. Don't think just because judges are watching that you have to go and change everything, that's what causes mistakes. Great words from my private teacher are, "Treat every time practicing like a performance and every performance just like practice." Learn to expect nothing but best from yourself while you're practicing, and then relax once you get into the audition and do what you always do.
4. The judges are never against you. Even though it might seem like they're just whispering about how much they want to mess up; imagine if you were a judge. Would you like hearing a bunch of novices and watching kids break down in the middle of an audition all day? No, they love to find great performers and they are actually rooting for you to do a great, it sure makes their job a lot more enjoyable.
5. Accept your results calmly. If you're the person screaming and jumping around when you do well I can bet that you're also the one crying and breaking down when you don't. While you may be excited or sad, depending on the result, focus on channeling this into a productive way that'll only make your next audition go better. 
6. Don't live from one audition to the next. What this means is if you get great results on one audition, that doesn't make you any better than the day before. The same goes if you get poor results, you didn't suddenly take two steps backward. Instead base yourself on how you felt the actually audition went, this is a controllable element. This results that the judges give is beyond your control and has far too many variables to count.

  Now I'm still at a pretty young age, and I still haven't even auditioned for an orchestra or any other job yet. My well of knowledge is still pretty shallow, so I'd love some feedback from all of you about how you approach an audition. Any stories about good, bad, or crazy auditions that you've had would also be great to hear about.