Why Can’t I Perform Like I Practice?
- Gökçe Kutsal
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
You already know what it feels like when you're playing well...
Not occasionally, or on a good day. I mean as a baseline.
You can access your sound, your breath works the way you expect it to, and your attention goes where you need it to go without too much effort. You're not thinking about whether you're good enough. You're adjusting, listening, and just… playing.
That version of you is familiar.
It's also the version people are usually thinking of when they ask: Why can't I perform like I practice?
Why You Can Play Well in Practice but Not in Performance
I worked with a trumpet player recently who described this very precisely. He’s been a professional for fifteen years. In rehearsals, concerts, lessons, even when he's teaching, he doesn't have to fight for anything. He's not monitoring himself. He's not trying to prove anything. He just plays, and everything works.
And then there is auditions. Where he would feel like a totally different person… one with about 10 years less experience.
This is why he came to me asking: Why do I play worse in auditions?
Interestingly, he didn't describe feeling especially nervous beforehand. He slept fine. Drove to the hall the same way he would for a rehearsal. Felt prepared. Nothing unusual.
But he could feel the shift the moment he stepped out to play.
He could feel his core tightening. His breath didn't move in the same way. The kind of full, easy breath he relies on to make his sound wasn't there in the same way.
He described it to me as: My body is telling me it doesn't want to do this.
But, being determined to get the role, he played anyway.
And what came out was… fine. A few small errors that wouldn't normally be there. Not a full on collapse, but not totally him either.
This is usually the point where people say "it's just nerves”…
But that's not quite how it feels from the inside.
It Doesn’t Really Feel Like Nerves
When I asked him what was happening mentally, he didn't say "I'm scared" or "I'm anxious”. He talked about how he felt in the room.
Behind the screen, he felt like candidate number 55. Like the panel had already decided something about him before he'd played a note. Each note felt like it had to justify his presence there.
So his attention wasn't on the music in the same way anymore.
It was on proving he deserved to be listened to.
That's a very different position to play from... and it shows up quickly.
Because once that shift happens, other things follow. Your attention moves inward. You start checking things you wouldn't normally check. Your body tightens in ways that interfere with what you're trying to do.
This is also where musicians start trying to control smaller things — what they eat, what they drink, whether coffee before an audition is making it worse...
None of this is random, it's actually a very consistent pattern. I've seen it across different instruments, different levels, different countries.
What Happens When Some of the Pressure Lifts
The interesting part is what happens when the weight of the situation lifts.
He told me about an unscreened audition where he walked in, recognized people on the panel, and didn't particularly care about the outcome. He hadn't prepared intensely.
There was nothing to prove.
He played extremely well. They offered him the position on the spot. He turned it down.
(I know, I know... don't come at me.)
He then mentioned another audition where he assumed it was a long shot and hadn't prepared much at all. Same thing. He sounded like himself again.
So clearly we're not looking at a technical issue here.
We're looking at how the situation is experienced.
The Practice Room Isn't Just a Quieter Audition Room
In rehearsals and concerts, you're already in the room as someone. You have a role. You're contributing. You're not trying to earn the right to be there in real time.
In auditions, especially behind a screen, that context disappears. The situation starts to feel like something you have to get through correctly in order to be accepted.
That changes how your system responds.
I'm not interested in trying to remove that response completely. It's there to serve a purpose, even if it's not helpful in that moment.
What matters more is recognising that the version of you in the practice room isn't just the result of good preparation. It's also the result of a particular state.
And that state doesn't automatically come with you into an audition.
So when musicians say I can play this perfectly in the practice room, why can't I perform like I practice, they're usually assuming those two environments are interchangeable.
They're not.
You're not just repeating the same task in a different room. You're doing it under different conditions, with a different meaning attached to it, and your system responds accordingly.
That's why practising more, in the same way, often doesn't change anything.
You're not practising the moment where things shift.
And until you understand that moment properly, it keeps feeling unpredictable. Like something you should be able to control, but can't quite get hold of.
So, Why Do I Play Worse in Auditions Than in Practice?
Because the conditions aren't the same, even if the piece is. The meaning of the situation changes, and your attention and body respond to that. It's a shift in how that ability is accessed — which is a different problem, and a more workable one.
This is the work I do with musicians in coaching. Looking closely at what actually shifts under pressure, and building something that holds when it matters.
About
I'm Gökçe Kutsal, a performance coach for professional orchestra musicians and opera singers, with an MA in Voice Pedagogy and over 2,100 hours of coaching and teaching experience. I work with principals, titled positions, and audition candidates across Europe, the UK, North America, and Australia — and I write about performance anxiety, audition preparation, and the craft of practice for musicians who already have the technique and are trying to work out why it doesn't always hold up under pressure.
