In 2018, my piano teacher decided to sign me up for my first ever piano competition.

The location for the audition was two hours away by car, a few miles into New Jersey. We had to hitch a ride with another student of my teacher, also competing in the same competition (just a level above because she was, and is, more advanced than me).

It was particularly enlightening, because it was genuinely quite overwhelming. The building was ten stories, with multiple audition rooms on each floor, featuring people of all ages and talents. Some had violins, some stood wringing their hands in the corner of noisy hallways, some took advantage of the free snacks provided in the lobby.

For me, I just quietly followed my mother around, hand clutched in hers, navigating to our assigned audition room.

The audition room was small, but considerably packed. Again, I was supposed to go last, because of my conveniently terrible last name. Even still, I was attentive the whole time. This is my competition, I kept repeating. This is my competition, these are the people I must overcome.

I was full of nerves. I kept fidgeting, playing with the folder containing the sheet music, overall not really in a calm state of mind.

When it was finally my turn, the room was mostly empty. People that went earlier on left after they were finished, not wanting to hear the others play. My hands were trembling, my hair slightly messy from how much I had combed my fingers through it out of nerves, and when I sat to play scales for a brief warmup I stumbled through them like a newborn horse.

When I played my piece, the pedal was too loud- I flunked a section, and another section, mistakes piling on top of each other like an anvil on my shoulders. I wanted to cry. I wanted to stop playing, and rest my head on the keys, and just melt away from the audition room.

I didn’t expect to win anything with my performance, much less win third- which was the eventual outcome of the competition. But even though I struggled, and suffered, I don’t regret applying or embarrassing myself in front of half-empty audience. As a matter of fact, I find that I prefer that I had that experience; it allowed me a taste of how much effort and expertise had to be put into competitions, and it allowed me room to make mistakes and to grow from those mistakes.

The next year, in 2019, I applied to two competitions. One was the Crescendo International Competition, which I spoke about earlier, and the other was yet again the NEMTA competition.

This time, I went in donning a simple dress with polkadots and my hair tied up, a bracelet neatly strapped under my cuffed wrists, and a clear head. I had practiced, and I would do alright. I would be alright. I would be alright.

Turns out my reassurance did help me a lot. It allowed me flexible fingers during my performance, and a relaxed mindset that allowed me to focus on the musicality of what I played.

And so, in 2019, I won first in my audition room for the NEMTA competitions in NYC.

In 2020, I won third overall in Open Junior. This was a result that my teacher and I both expected: the typical format of an NEMTA competition was to give first, second, and third in small audition rooms of fifty people, but because of COVID-19, 2020’s competition was formatted for many categories featuring hundreds of applicants and distributing first, second, third, and an honorable mention in each category.

Overall, NEMTA is a competition program that I fully intend on competing more in. I’ve gained a lot of experience from the auditions I’ve attended, with struggles and accomplishments alike.