Bigger, louder, longer - warming up in an audition

There was one thorny point that came up from the Successful Singing Auditions course last week, that seemed to make almost everyone nervous:

listening to everyone else warm up!

Sometimes it can be really intimidating hearing someone do an impressive warmup in the room next door (or even in the same room). You know the sort of thing - lots of high notes, volume, and big scales. You immediately think "I can't do that, (s)he must be much better than me".

Well, (s)he may or may not be more accomplished or more experienced than you, but unless the panel are looking for someone who can sing scales extremely well, it's unlikely to cut the mustard.

Warmups in auditions are about two things - warming up the voice, body and brain, and doing something to get rid of nerves. Remember that it is possible that someone doing a loud and flashy warmup is either more nervous than you are, or playing a game to psych everyone else out. If you don't normally do a big warmup, being in the audition waiting room is NOT the time to start.

We firmly believe that every person has their own skills, and that your version of the song is exactly that - your version. It will be based on your experiences and your beliefs. In fact, most people fall into problems when they try to imitate someone else's performance! I spend a lot of my performance coaching sessions working with singers on how to find their own reading of a song, using their own voice and their own subtext.

Incidentally, Gillyanne and I want to thank Steve, one of our participants on the Successful Singing Auditions course, for an excellent idea - he suggested on hearing one particularly loud and high warmup that we had hired the singer in question specifically to intimidate everyone. Well, it's not the sort of thing we at Vocal Process normally do, but who knows, we might consider it in the future!

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