Essential warm-up before performance

Those crucial minutes in the warm-up room may spell the difference between poise and fluster inside the exam room. It is essential to build confidence with a steady, accurate and clear warm-up before facing the examiner. If we rip through the most daunting, tricky passage at break-neck speed, it may do more damage than good. We risk falling into pot-holes of mistakes, the same ones over and over. Oops, keep going, splat, zoom, kerplunk, fizzle out. To walk into the exam room knowing that we have just turned the etude into tangled spaghetti is hardly confidence-building.
Play that difficult passage if you will, but at half-speed. Better still, warm up with slow scales, long notes (especially for singers, strings, wind and brass players) and calming slow, deep breaths. Stretching exercises and deep yawns help to release tension.