The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 258 The Audition You've Been Capable of All Along - The Missing Piece Most Audition Prep Completely Skips

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

You've prepared the excerpts. You've done the mock auditions. You've done everything right — and something still slips when it matters most. In this episode, Dr. Renée-Paule Gauthier gets to the heart of what's actually separating the players who walk off feeling like themselves from the ones who walk off wondering what just happened. The answer isn't what you think — and it's more within your reach than you realize. In this episode: ·         Why the problem is almost never the excerpts ·         The difference between preparing your excerpts and preparing yourself ·         What attentional narrowing does to your musicality under pressure ·         The one question that begins to change everything   Are you ready to take your playing and career to the next level and create a life that feels purposeful and joyful? If you're ready to step on stage with confidence, perform at your best, and finally feel secure in your playing, join the Musician's Edge Challenge.   Join the Musician's Edge Challenge HERE If you're ready to step on stage with confidence, perform at your best, and finally feel secure in your playing, let's talk! Book a free discovery call and let's create a plan to get you there. Are you ready to take your playing and career to the next level and create a life that feels purposeful and joyful? Let's connect and explore how personalized coaching can support your journey. Click here to schedule your free consultation, and let's start turning your goals into reality.   Book your FREE Music Mastery Experience Discovery call with Renée HERE Book your free consultation with Renée HERE Download the transcript from this episode HERE   Mind Over Finger Click www.mindoverfinger.com/coaching to book your free consultation with me. Visit MindOverFinger.com for my online courses as well as free resources on peak performance. Grab my free workshops and PDF downloads by going to www.mindoverfinger.com/resources. Connect: https://www.youtube.com/@MindOverFinger https://www.facebook.com/mindoverfinger/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/mindoverfinger https://www.instagram.com/mindoverfinger/     THANK YOU: Most sincere thank you to composer Jim Stephenson who graciously provided the show's musical theme:  Concerto #1 for Trumpet and Chamber Orchestra – Movement 2: Allegro con Brio, performed by Jeffrey Work, trumpet, and the Lake Forest Symphony, conducted by Jim Stephenson.  

You're listening to the Mind Over Finger podcast. This is episode 258. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger podcast, where we dive into the world of mindful music making, peak performance, and crafting a purpose-driven life and career. I'm your host, violinist, certified performance and life coach for musicians, and your guide to unlocking your full potential, Dr. Ranipo Gautier. Hi everyone. I hope you're doing great. I feel ready for spring. I hear the birds going crazy. The sun is out. The trees are blooming. I'm feeling all of this energy and I hope you are too. And before we dive in, I want to tell you about something that's happening very soon, coming up at the end of April. And it connects directly to what we're talking about

today. It's called The Musician's Edge. It's my free five-day challenge. And here's what I mean by your edge. Your edge is that place where you're operating at your absolute best, where everything you've worked for actually shows up on stage, in the audition room, in your career. And that's where you're not just keeping up, you're moving forward, you're moving ahead. That's your edge. And every musician has one. The problem is that many musicians, most musicians, don't actually know what theirs is. And maybe that's you too. They don't know specifically what puts them in that state, what brings out that version of themselves, and so they can't access it on purpose. They're hoping for it instead of calling it up deliberately. And that's what the challenge

is designed to change. Five days, 10 minutes a day, and by the end, you're going to know exactly what your edge is, what gets in the way of it, and how to start using it on purpose. We're going to close everything out together live, and you're going to walk away with a clear next step. It's completely free. It starts Monday, April 27th. Links are at mindoverfinger.com and in the show notes. And what we're about to discuss today, it's exactly what happens when musicians don't know their edge and keep wondering why their best playing stays just out of reach. So today, I want to talk about auditions and more specifically about what actually separates the players who walk off feeling like they nailed it from the ones who walk off wondering what just

happened. Now, before we go any further, I want to say something that I think is really important. Part of an audition is genuinely out of your hands. The committee is looking for something specific, a sound, an approach, a fit. And the honest truth is that the same player could walk into two different auditions and get two completely different results. Same preparation, same playing, different outcome. That happens. So what I'm talking about today is not about controlling what's on the other side of the screen. It's about what's on your side. It's about walking off that stage feeling like you performed at your best, like they heard you, the real you. that's what a winning audition feels like from the inside and that experience is absolutely

within your reach now I know what you're thinking you're thinking Renee I know what the problem is I need to play the excerpts better I need to clean up my technique I need to manage my nerves I need to prepare more and if I just do all of that if I just get good enough I'm gonna walk off feeling like I did it. I gave everything I had. They heard me. I'm happy. And maybe you've been telling yourself that for a while now, maybe for years. I hear this constantly and I see it in my coaching work inside MME, my group coaching program, and in one-on-one sessions as well. Really talented, really hardworking musicians who are going to audition after audition or performance after performance, if you prefer, if you're not taking auditions, but what I'm talking

about resonates for you in performing life, everything I'm saying in this episode is going to apply to performing because taking audition is performing, right? So I see musicians like you going from performance to performance, preparing the right repertoire, taking lessons, doing mock auditions, doing everything right, and still not getting the results they want. And when I ask what they think the problem is, they always tell me a variation of the same things. I need to be more consistent. My nerves get the better of me. I'm just not ready yet. I need to practice more. And I want to say something that might be a little bit uncomfortable to hear. In most cases, those things are not actually the problem. They're symptoms. And when you keep treating

the symptoms instead of the actual problem, you keep getting the same results. You keep working harder. You keep going to auditions or performances and the outcome does not change. And at some point you start to wonder if you just don't have what it takes. But that's not what's happening. What's problem. Again, I see this in coaching sessions all the time. Musicians come to me having done everything right on paper. And the first thing I ask is, what do you think is getting in your way? And nine times out of 10, they go straight to the notes, the excerpts, the technique. And I have to gently redirect because what I'm seeing from the outside is something else entirely. So let's talk about what you do when auditions aren't going the way you want.

Maybe it looks like this. You practice more, you book more lessons, you do more auditions, you record yourself, you analyze the recordings, you find every flaw and you go back and fix it and you refine and you refine and you refine and you tell yourself, when it's perfect, I'm going to be ready. But here's the thing. And I understand that completely. It makes total sense. If you didn't walk off feeling great, you must not have been good enough. So you go back and get better. Logical. And let me be clear, more practice doesn't hurt. More preparation definitely helps. But it's not the only thing, especially if it's done with an unhelpful mindset. With an unhelpful mindset, you can actually do a lot of

because here's what I want you to really sit with. If you're going to professional auditions, you're probably already good enough, technically. You have the goods, the excerpts are prepared, the technique is there. So why aren't you walking off feeling like yourself? I'm going to tell you what I see. I see players who have spent months, sometimes years, perfecting their excerpts. And then they walk into the audition room and they perform like a completely different person. Not because they weren't prepared, but because preparation and performance readiness are not the same thing. And they've been pouring all of their energy into one and almost none into the other. And here's what's even sneakier. Maybe you're doing mock

auditions. Maybe you're performing for your teacher and for your colleagues. Maybe you're simulating the pressure and you think, I'm doing the work. I'm preparing for a performance. I'm doing the performance readiness that you're talking about. But are you? Or are you just adding more repetitions in a slightly more stressful environment without actually understanding what's happening to you specifically when the stakes go up. Because those are very different things. I had a client recently who'd been doing tons of mock auditions, really doing them, performing for colleagues, recording herself, getting feedback. And she was saying to me, I don't understand why it still falls apart in the real thing. And when we dug into it together,

we realized that she had been rehearsing the notes under pressure, but she hadn't been working on what happens to her specifically, in her body, in her head, in her heart. When the real stakes hit, that's a very different thing and it's the thing most preparation completely miss so what's actually going on the players who walk off feeling like they did it they were able to show who they are they're not always the most technically polished people in the room sometimes they are but not always. What they have consistently is this. They know themselves. They know what brings out their best playing. They know what their edge feels like, and they know how to access it under pressure. They walk into the room and they perform like themselves, their best selves, rather than a

nervous, over-controlled version of themselves trying to desperately not make a mistake. And there's something else that you probably have heard before, but it is important to mention. The players who walk off feeling great don't just let their training show. They also say something with their music. There's a voice there. There's an artistic identity. Something that makes the committee sit up and think, oh, this one is different. Something that makes them put the pencil down and really listen. I hear this from musicians all the time. They're going to say something like, I have a voice. I really want to express something. But I don't know why in the audition room, they can't hear me. They hear this internal fight I'm having with myself.

And that sentence right there, that's the whole problem in a nutshell. Because when you walk into that room, fighting yourself, fighting your nerves, fighting your doubt, fighting the gap between how you want to feel and how you actually feel, that fight takes up so much space that there's no much left for the music. There's no room left for the music. Nothing left for you. the committee doesn't hear your voice they hear the battle and the players who walk off disappointed they're equally talented they're equally prepared as the ones who walk away feeling great but they don't have that self-knowledge they've been preparing their excerpts but they haven't been preparing themselves so what is actually happening in

your brain and body when you walk into that room. If you've listened to episode 257, you already know about the Yerkes-Dodson law and how cortisol affects working memory under pressure. So I'm not going to go back over that, but there is another piece of the science that's directly relevant here and it's something called attentional narrowing. Under high pressure, your attention narrows. You become hyper-focused on threat, usually. What might go wrong, what you might miss, what you might forget, whether you're measuring up. And that narrowing, it crowds out the very things that make you good. The musicality, the phrasing, the ease, the voice, the things that make the committee want to hire you. Think about what that means for you specifically.

You can spend six months preparing the most beautiful musical interpretation and then walk into the audition room and have almost none of it available, available to you. Because your nervous system has shut down access to everything except survival mode. Your training is there. Your musicality is there. But it's not available. You can't reach it. Because your brain has narrowed its focus down to one thing.

Don't mess up. So that's not a preparation problem. That is a self-knowledge problem. Because until you understand specifically what's happening to you under pressure and you've done something about it, you are preparing blind. You're walking into the most high stakes musical situation, maybe of your life, and you're hoping that today is one of the days when it clicks. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't.

And you have very little control over which one it's going to be. That's not strategy. That's luck. So what changes when you have that self-knowledge? Only everything. When you know your edge, when you know specifically what brings out your best playing and what gets in the way, you stop preparing blindly and you start preparing with intention. You stop walking into the audition room hoping for the best and you start walking in knowing who you are as a performer and what you're capable of. And here's what happens then. The internal fight quiets down. Not because you have eliminated the

nerves. Nerves are normal. You've heard me say this time and time again. Nerves are always going to be there and that's okay. But that's because you're no longer surprised by them. you're no longer fighting them and when you stop fighting yourself there's finally space for your music space for your voice for the thing that actually makes the committee want to hire you now can we also win auditions when we're not feeling great or not feeling like it went well Yes, absolutely. Ask me how I know. And I'm actually going to talk about this in next week's episode.

So make sure to join me. But back to today's topic. The players who walk off feeling like they gave everything they had, they're not luckier than you. They're not more talented than you. They know something about themselves that maybe you haven't figured out yet. Or you don't know how to access it when it's game time. and that self-knowledge is what allows them and what would allow you to let the training show

and say something with the music at the same time both in the room under pressure and when it clicks you don't just walk off feeling good once you start doing it consistently and that changes everything here's what I also want you to know you can't get that self-knowledge by practicing more excerpts you have to stop and look and ask different questions questions you maybe didn't think to ask this is exactly the work I do with clients all the time inside MME and one-on-one coaching And what I see almost every time is that the shift happens not when someone plays better, but when they finally understand what's been running the show underneath.

When they stop being surprised by what happens to them under pressure. When they stop fighting it. That's when the music comes through. That's when you walk off the stage thinking, yes, that was me. so here's what I want you to walk away with today the gap between walking off an audition feeling like yourself and walking off feeling like a stranger in your own body it's real and it's not where you are probably looking for it it's not just in the excerpts it's not just in the hours logged in the practice room it's in whether you walk into that room knowing yourself

well enough to get out of your own way. And here's the thing about getting out of your own way. It doesn't mean eliminating nerves. It doesn't mean feeling calm and confident and ready. It means that even when you're nervous, even when your hands are shaking a little, even when it doesn't feel the way you hoped it would feel, there's still space for your music to come through. your voice still comes through because you've done the work of understanding what brings out your best and you've stopped fighting everything else that shift from hoping your best shows up to knowing how to access it that's what changes an audition not just one audition all of them because you stop leaving

it to chance. So before your next practice session or your next mock audition or performance, ask yourself, what version of me shows up when I'm at my best? Not what do I play? Who am I when I play my best? How do I feel like? What does that feel like? what is different about those days when it's clicking what am I thinking in those moments and just sit with that for a moment sit with these questions because your answers those are the beginning of your edge and your edge is what has you winning audition walking away like you've one, regardless of the outcome. And if you want to go deeper, the Musician's Edge Challenge is

exactly where we do this work. Because figuring out your edge is not something that happens by accident. It's a process. So over five days, that's the process we're going to go through together. You're going to understand what's already working in your playing, what's been getting in the way, not in a general way, but in a you way. And that self-knowledge, that's your edge. And your edge is what takes you to the next level in your auditions, in your performances, in your career. Five days, free, 10 minutes a day. We start April 27th, and we're going to come together live on May 2nd to workshop all of this and put it together in the action plan. Link is at mindoverfinger.com or in the show notes here. I really hope to see you

there. All right, this is what I have for you today. If you would like to revisit or reflect on something from this episode, the full transcript and the summary are just a click away in the show notes. Much love going your way and à bientôt. And there you have it. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you'd share with your friends and colleagues. Take a screenshot, post it on social media and tag me. I'm mind overfinger everywhere. I always love hearing your favorite takeaways. And if you're ready to take your playing career to the next level, I'd love to invite you to join the Music Mastery Experience. This is my signature group coaching program where we're going to dive deep into

building your confidence and mastery and set you up for success and fulfillment in your life and career. You can find all the details at mindoverfinger.com. While you're there, check out the free downloads and online courses available to support your journey even further. And don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter so you never miss an update or a tool to help you thrive. Again, thank you for being here. Until next time, much love and à bientôt. Thank you.