Hey guys! As I mentioned in my past post, one of the
reasons I neglected this blog in the past month was because I was preparing for
my audition for The Voice. I went to the Saturday audition on July 19th. I bet you’re
all wondering how I did and what my results were. Well, obviously I’m not going
to tell you that now because then you won’t read the rest of this post!
Before I get into anything, let’s get a few things out of the way:
1. I’m a singer. I’ve taken voice lessons on and off for the past
eleven or so years. I graduated from a performing arts high school where I majored
in musical theater. I may be an amateur singer in the professional sense, but
not exactly in the technical sense.
2. Both amateurs and non-amateurs are allowed to audition. In fact,
third season winner Cassadee Pope was the lead singer of pop-punk
band, Hey Monday before participating in The Voice.
3. This is the second time I’ve auditioned for The Voice. The first was back in 2012.
4. This audition was open call. Anyone with internet access and a free day to kill could audition. Speaking of free, it was also free
to audition (as all auditions should be; if auditions require fees they are most
likely SCAMS).
5. The open call auditions are not the same as the blind auditions you see on television. These auditions aren’t televised (unless it’s b-roll of the thousands
of people waiting in line). You most likely will not meet any of the coaches (Sorry, Adam Levine fans).
6. If you are asked for a callback and they want you on the show for
the blind auditions, you must wait within the next six months until you get a
call to fly on over to Los Angeles for filming. Travel and lodging is not sponsored by the show. You must pay
for those yourself.
7. No one was allowed to take pictures or videos as soon as we got into
the building, so I apologize in advance for this post mostly being a wall of
text.
8. I am not affiliated with The
Voice. No one is paying me to write this (I wish!). This is not an exposé.
I am just a normal person who went to an open call audition nearby and am
merely chronicling my experiences.
Let’s get started now, shall we?
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| photo cred.: gemini-dragon-gifs |
Since I auditioned for The Voice
in the past, I’m automatically subscribed to an email list that lets me know
when and where auditions will be held. These auditions aren’t heavily
advertised, so the only people who really know about them are the ones who
watch, or are at least familiar with, the show. I received an email about the
New Jersey audition about two weeks in advance of the actual audition. I
decided to audition again on a whim since I was free during both audition dates
(Saturday and Sunday—but just remember that you can only audition once per season) and hey, it couldn’t hurt.
Plus it would give me something to write about on my blog.
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| Wishful thinking. photo cred.: Craft Taste |
Once I registered for my audition, a prompt on my homepage informed
that I should prepare two songs for my audition. I thought this was strange
because for my first audition, I was told to only prepare one. I knew that we’d
probably only have time to sing one song, but I prepared two just in case. The
hardest part of this whole audition process was deciding which two songs to
prepare. I didn’t know what these talent scouts and television producers were
looking for and besides, everyone has different tastes.
I often second-guessed my choices after watching The Voice videos on YouTube. A majority of the contestants that
advanced to the next round chose songs that showed off their belting skills, but some chose easygoing songs that didn’t require much belting. I
decided to go with my gut feeling and just choose two songs that I can
comfortably sing and prepare in just a few weeks. The two songs were Birdy’s arrangement of Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” and Rihanna’s “Stay”. I felt that these two
choices were my best bet since “Skinny Love” shows great range not only in
vocals, but also emotion. The advantage of “Stay” is that I’ve already performed
it in front of an audience.
Here’s one of my few complaints about the pre-audition process. The
email I received when I registered said that my “artist pass” (the thing you
have to print out and present at the audition) would be available to print one week in advance of the audition. It
actually wasn’t available until three
days before the audition. There were a lot of people who traveled from afar
to come to this audition. What would happen if they didn’t have access to a
printer while they were in transit or at their hotel? This is just a small
hiccup, but they should’ve been clearer about this whole “artist pass”
business.
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| photo cred.: dementagirl |
I noticed something strange when I printed out my artist pass: it said
my audition call time was at 10am. Seems pretty late for an audition like this,
doesn’t it? You’d usually expect people to come as early as possible, even
camping outside overnight, to be the first in line. This was different from the
7am call time that the email stated upon registration. Should I arrive a few
hours before 7 or a few hours before 10? I wanted to get a good night’s rest
beforehand, so I decided that I should arrive there at 7. Again, this was another small hiccup that they should’ve
clarified better.
I sure was glad I decided to arrive at 7 instead of right before 10.
When I arrived at the line, I was expecting massive amounts of people as
compared to my first audition. I was also expecting to wait until late
afternoon to finally audition because my first audition was “first come, first
serve”. That’s why I let my parents drop me off at the venue with my boyfriend because
I thought we’d be waiting outside under the hot sun for the whole day like last
time. I didn’t want to put them through that again. But surprisingly, that was
not the case. My boyfriend and I were one of the first few people in line, and
factoring in other family members and friends who were there for support, I was
one of the first few contestants in line.
You should’ve seen us. We came prepared to wait outside for the entire
day. We brought folding chairs, snacks, books, and multiple bottled waters in a
rolling cooler because we thought we would wait the whole day until I finally
got to audition. In reality, I only waited about three hours total until my
audition! They really kept to that 10am call time and were much more organized
and efficient than my last audition.
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| Literally what we looked like while waiting on that line. photo cred.: More Time Rentals |
What I enjoyed the most from this audition was waiting in line with the
other contestants and getting to know them. The lady behind us came all the way
from New Hampshire and stayed at a hotel just to come to this audition (If you’re
reading this, hi Jess!). She, along with all the other contestants I spoke to,
was really nice. I detected none of the cattiness or competitiveness you’d
expect from going to these kinds of auditions. Everyone was so supportive and genuinely
interested in each other’s singing careers.
The staff members were also helpful and polite, and trust me, those are
definite plusses. I’ve heard stories from other contestants about auditioning
for other shows such as American Idol and America’s Got Talent where staff members were either rude or standoffish. From what I’ve
heard and experienced, The Voice
offers overall the most professional audition experience compared to other
reality television singing competitions.
A staff member told us that people who were not contestants had to leave the line. They didn’t have to leave
the audition venue, per se, but they had to wait outside of the barriers.
Guardians of minors who signed the release form were allowed to stay with
contestants even in the actual audition rooms.
When the line finally started moving, we were separated into five lines
(it’s like waiting for a ride at Disney World! Except more anxiety-ridden).
If you’re thinking of auditioning, make sure you have a photo ID (e.g. driver’s
license, passport, birth certificate, etc.) handy because it will be checked at
least twice. I don’t think anything like a student ID would be accepted, so if
you don’t have any of the aforementioned forms of identification, try getting a
photo ID from your local DMV (this is especially handy if you’re
a minor who can’t drive yet).
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| "Waiting for my audition for The Voice was shorter than this!" photo cred.: NY Times |
Once we got through the second line, we had our IDs checked again and
were separated into groups of ten to be led through the building to get to the
holding room for all of the contestants. If we wanted to use the bathrooms,
this was the only time we were allowed to and we had to be quick.
We then had to count off into groups of ten again. These were the
audition groups. If you’ve auditioned for anything else before (e.g. theater,
television shows, films, etc.), this audition experience would be slightly
different from that. You might be used to taking turns going one-by-one into
the audition room with just you auditioning in front of the talent scout(s),
but this won’t be like that. For The Voice
and other shows like it, you audition in front of both the talent scout and a group of other contestants. So
even if you’re one of the first few people to sing, you must wait for all of
the other contestants to finish singing and you find out the results (i.e. if
you get a callback or not) in front of everyone in the group, as
well.
This is where I (finally!!) tell you how my audition went. The talent
scout made it very clear that we did not
have to sing loud and that being able to belt did not necessarily mean being guaranteed a callback.
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| Needless to say, we all ended up belting anyway. photo cred.: Rebloggy |
After giving his spiel, the talent scout told us that we’d each be
allowed to sing only a verse and chorus from our prepared song. This kind of
threw me off because I prepared the whole song like the prompt on the homepage said—yet
another (not so) small hiccup that The
Voice didn’t really clarify well. My performing arts school-ingrained
intuition should’ve warned me of this because we usually had to prepare cut
versions of songs for audition workshops. However, I sincerely thought the
talent scouts would let us sing a whole song like the website stated. Also, the
talent scout at my first audition didn’t give us a specified length of our
songs. So as the girl before me was singing, I was scrambling to figure out
which part of “Skinny Love” would effectively show off my voice. But before I
knew it, it was already my turn.
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| photo cred.: Imgur |
I only sang the chorus and the last two lines of my song before the
talent scout cut me off and said “thank you”. At that moment I pretty much knew
I wasn’t going to be given a callback because usually, if talent scouts like
what they’re hearing, they’ll let you continue even if you went over time. After
we all sang, the talent scout informed us that none of us would be offered a
callback in the most polite way possible.
I didn’t take this personally because that’s just the nature of the
entertainment industry. You have to keep in mind that it’s not always about
having a great voice (despite the premise of the show), it’s mostly about
having the potential for making great stories on television (i.e. having a
tragic backstory, looking “interesting”, etc.). And though talent scouts have
quotas for calling back great singers, there definitely must be a quota for
calling back not-so-great singers in order to make for good television.
Would I recommend auditioning for The
Voice? Again, if you have internet access and, in this case, a morning to
kill, I’d say “yes”. Though you won’t be guaranteed a callback, it’s good
audition experience and you get the chance to meet some awesome people. I’m
probably going to audition for The Voice
every time they roll by my town. However, I definitely would not recommend auditioning if you have
extremely high expectations.
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| Not everyone is going to want you and you're just going to have to accept that. photo cred.: Parade |
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