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!

Visit http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk for the latest downloads:
the Vocal Process eZINE (free electronic magazine)
86 things you never hear a singer say (free ebook)
Looking at a Voice (endoscopy video download)

Musical Theatre piano parts

It's a joy for me to play some of the great Musical Theatre repertoire that people bring to the Successful Singing Auditions course. I'm very comfortable in this repertoire, having worked in Musical Theatre auditions for years, and nowadays I really don't get enough opportunities to play it in public. For those of you that don't play this genre, some of the Sondheim or Jason Robert Brown piano parts are as hard as any classical accompaniment. And if you haven't got a handle on the style, it really shows!

On this particular course I had everything from classic book musical (Mr Snow from Carousel) to patter songs (Words, Words, Words from The Witches of Eastwick), to story songs (I'm still hurting from The Last Five Years) to brand new musicals (When you ruv someone from Avenue Q), with a little Wonderwall thrown in along the way. The range of repertoire we cover is vast - we often have both pop singers and opera singers on the course. I love being able to move from We Will Rock You to Rossini. After all, a singing audition is a singing audition!

The singing audition is a fact of life for most singers, and will be with them for most of their lives. Of course, as you get older, more experienced and particularly more famous, they stop being auditions and start becoming "We're interested in you for *****, just come over and have a chat with us, nothing too formal... And bring your music".

Visit http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk for the latest downloads:
the Vocal Process eZINE (free electronic magazine)
86 things you never hear a singer say (free ebook)
Looking at a Voice (endoscopy video download)

Successful Singing Auditions 2

Yesterday was the Successful Singing Auditions day. We created this course as an opportunity to help singers with one of the most frightening aspects of the job - the audition!

The course is based on the information Gillyanne (Kayes) and I wrote in the Successful Singing Auditions book. Gillyanne has a wealth of experience teaching both classical and non-classical genres, so she is on hand to deal with the technical challenges that each singer faces. I earned my living for some time as an audition pianist both in the West End and in the opera world, and have been involved in more than 8,500 auditions, so I know the genres and the job backwards.

We began the day by hearing the singers perform two songs (or extracts) that they felt showed what they could do. Of course, singing to a panel is difficult enough, but it's made even worse by having to sing in front of your fellow actors, particularly if you have only just met.

When we asked the participants for their particular list of challenges, it was obvious that there were a number of similarities in everyone's experience: "I'm so nervous", "where do I look", "what do I with my hands", "how do I play the space", "why doesn't my voice come out", "does it matter if I forget the lyrics?". We spent the morning dealing with these issues (and more), and the afternoon coaching each singer to get the best out of their song and their presentation.

We always get great feedback from this course. Funnily enough, we don't run it because of what people tell us. We say this in the book and we mean it - you know when something is good or has gone well, and although it's great that people mention it, that's not essential. You have that feeling of "that went well" or "I couldn't have done that better". As for me, I just love helping people to clarify and improve what they do. Mind you, I have an ulterior motive: if the singer is happy and focussed, as an accompanist I don't have to worry about "supporting" them and I can concentrate on my real job - making the performance work. It's a rare joy when that happens.