EXCITING NEWS. I actually found this out a couple weeks ago, but I have been keeping it to myself because I wasn’t sure whether to be excited or just whatever about it, or if I was even going to go.
I was invited to the callback auditions for NBC’s The Voice AGAIN (three tips on how to prepare are at the end of the post). A talent producer found me online and asked if I would come in for the callbacks. I will be auditioning in New York on February 27th. So send good vibes my way. I am having a hard time deciding what songs to sing, so if you have any suggestions feel free to leave them in the comments.
The odds of getting through the callbacks are really slim, even if you have an amazing voice there is so much luck involved just based on how many people audition. It is a really competitive and unrealistic career choice, and I realize that. My odds are even lower though if I don’t audition so I decided to give it another shot.
Well as promised here are my tips for those of you who are planning on auditioning. I have done it a few times now and each experience is a little different and you learn something new every time, but these are some basics.
How To Prepare For The Voice Auditions
- Choose your song wisely. The people at The Voice recommend something upbeat and trendy within your genre. My personal recommendation is to choose something popular, but not too popular. So for example choose a song from an album with a hit song, but don’t choose the hit song. My most vital piece of advice when choosing a song is to choose something that is you, something you can honestly express and perform, something you really feel in your soul and something you can sing well. Oh and last but not least, choose something you are comfortable with. If you have a hard time hitting a certain note on a regular day it is going to be WAY harder to hit it when the nerves kick in. The judges would rather hear some perfect mid-range notes, than some screechy high notes or distant low ones.
- PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. My last post like this I recommended practicing 1/2-1hr day and some people thought that was way too much. From my personal experience working with vocal coaches that is actually the normal recommended amount and you would be unlikely to injure your vocal chord singing for that long. Unless of course you were singing wrong. If you are singing in a damaging way it will more likely than not be painful. If that happens, stop singing, give yourself a break and take it up again later after some good vocal warmups.
- Prepare mentally. The moment you are preforming is not a good moment to realize you are nervous and don’t know how to deal with it. I have personally been in that situation more times than I can count. I have learned the very hard way that it is never a good idea to not prepare mentally before hand. Plan out what you will do in the case that you get nervous. Lots of practice can help prevent you from getting nervous and forgetting the words. For me the most effective way to avoid extreme nervousness is to pretend I am singing to someone I am totally comfortable singing to (eg. my mom). My method is to look just above the judges heads at the wall behind (this way it still looks like you are looking at them), then I imagine someone who loves my voice and supports me is standing along that back wall and I sing to them. It sounds silly, but it works.
Those are my top tips – I go into a lot more detail and answer a lot of questions about the logistics of how The Voice auditions work in this video I just posted on YouTube. As always if you have any questions leave them in the comments and I am more than happy to answer them!
xoxox, rachael
