Entering the Audition Room Part 2: What's in Your Control?

What's in your control as you enter the audition room? 

More than you think.

Perhaps the more important question is,  what have you done that's in your control BEFORE you enter the audition room?

Are you studying your craft?  Do you have a team around you that is honest, knowledgeable & creates an environment safe enough to explore?  This includes a teacher who understands technical behavior,  physical function, stylistic technique & more,  and can create an ongoing course of study for YOUR voice.  This includes coaches for musicality, style, dramatic intention, choosing repertoire that fits you well and reveals you authentically.  

"Study" doesn't happen once in a while.  Study is an ongoing process of development.  It doesn't necessarily mean every week,  but it has to have a consistency in order for your development to grow and be realized. 

Are you aware of what your voice is doing?  Or isn't doing?  Are you in tune?  Is there balance of resonance?  Do you know how to balance the core of the voice effectively, no matter the repertoire,  no matter the room you are singing in?   Vocal technique is never "perfect",  but it does need to find behavior that is embodied and realized consistently.  

Do you know the difference between technical behavior in function, and stylistic technique and can you access what is required in the repertoire you are choosing?

Do you know how you come across in an audition setting?  Have you practiced that?  

What are you wearing?  Why?  Does it enhance or deter?

What are you singing?  Why?  Have you developed repertoire/cuts that truly reveal what you CAN do,  not what you wish you could do?  

All of these things are in your control.  That control and take charge happens BEFORE you even walk into the audition room.  If you know your voice,  where it inhabits currently,  what allows you to reveal it fully then you will be authentically present in your process.  Don't assume.  Never assume.  Technical behavior and craft is never about "I got this" and never again look at that aspect.  Technique is not linear.  It is constant awareness,  re-discovery,  balance,  adjustment, and more. 

You can't give yourself the job.  That is out of your control.  But, you can control the room and what you DO in that room more creatively than you realize.  Everything from your technique,  to your choice of repertoire,  to what shoes you wear,  to how you address the table and the pianist,  to where you stand,  to what you choose to reveal in that room:  ALL OF THAT IS IN YOUR CONTROL.

Embrace that today.  Claim what you thought you knew and take another look at it,  and see what else is there!