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Be sure to follow Save My Audition on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram! There are buttons at the top of this page to find those social media accounts.

This week’s Audition Advice post on Instagram and Twitter:

Okay… This is an easy one.

When someone behind the table asks you a question, it’s a legit question.

Let’s say you’ve just finished your audition song and someone says to you…

“Sing something else.”

You are absolutely in the right to ask for some guidance, but if they respond by saying “Whatever you want.” It isn’t a trick response. Don’t try to dig further into their head and figure out what they want. Truth is, they probably don’t know what they want. They may not even be asking you to sing something for the show you are auditioning for but for another show they are working on.

Point is, you just don’t know what they want behind the table, and most of the time neither do they.

So take it as an opportunity to sing something that shows you off really well.

I swear, it’s not a trick question.

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Be sure to follow Save My Audition on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram! There are buttons at the top of this page to find those social media accounts.

This week’s Audition Advice post on Instagram and Twitter:

I’m already falling behind on the Monday blog posts. I’m sorry, I’ll get back to it soon, it’s been super busy the past couple weeks.

But for this week’s Audition Peeves let’s talk about highlighting things in your music.

Let me just say…

STOP!

Just stop. Please for the love of all things highlighter, STOP!

It’s super distracting. We know, generally speaking for decent audition pianists, how to read music. You don’t need to point out the key changes, or the time signature changes, or the tempo changes, or anything else really. Whomever has told you to highlight things to point them out to your audition pianist is doing you a huge disservice. It makes me think that you don’t trust me to do my job.

But… If there is a section of your song that is continually problematic (have a pianist look it over to make sure it isn’t the music’s fault) you can absolutely point it out to us. But you don’t need to highlight it. Trust me, you don’t.

Does this seem to make the music easier to play?

Redacted for Personal Privacy

Hint. It doesn’t.

So…

STOP IT!

Thanks!

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Be sure to follow Save My Audition on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram! There are buttons at the top of this page to find those social media accounts.

This week’s Audition Advice post on Instagram and Twitter:

We’ll continue the regular Blog series this coming Monday. Easter/Taxes ate up my time the past couple weeks. But we’ll be back to talking about Contemporary Music Theatre shortly!

Now, onto the rant…

This is an easy one. 

Don’t make your pianist turn the page backwards. 

If your cut involves a first and second ending (or more) or following the “sign” back to the beginning of a song then jumping to a coda... Make copies of the pages you are repeating and set up your cut so that it can be clearly read from the beginning to the end with no backwards page turns. 

This problem is only exacerbated when after turning backwards you then make the pianist turn more than 1 page to get to the coda. 

Here’s the deal, we are processing A LOT of information behind the piano for each audition. You may point out exactly what your cut does logistically, but once we start playing we forget and then we are frantically turning pages and trying to remember where we are suppose to jump to to keep supporting you. 

Help us support you by supporting us. 

This is why I created this site, if you have cuts that jump around, shoot me a message and we can clean them up. Your audition pianist will love you. Plus, it makes it look like you care.

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Be sure to follow Save My Audition on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram! There are buttons at the top of this page to find those social media accounts.

This week’s Audition Advice post on Instagram and Twitter:

This one is easy and something I guarantee you’ve never thought about.

As you get toward the end of your book it gets harder and harder for the pianist to turn the pages quickly and efficiently. Especially the last page. If you have your music in plastic sheet protectors, they can tend to stick to the binder making it super difficult to turn that last page. Also, as you get toward the end of your book the lip created by the rest of your music gets smaller and smaller.

If you want to sing the last song in your book, just move it forward a little bit, it’s super helpful.

Now if you are asked to sing something else from your book and you pick the last song you have, for whatever reason, you don’t need to take the time to move it, we’ll survive. But don't walk in the room and sing the last song. It’s a little thing but absolutely shows that you care and that you’ve thought about the job we have to do behind the piano!

See you next week!

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Welcome to the new weekly (to the best of my ability) Audition Advice/peeves MiniBlog…

On Mondays I’ll post a bit of Audition Advice or an Audition Peeve on Instagram and Twitter, then on Wednesdays I’ll write a quick blog to further explain what my advice or peeve is about.

Be sure to follow Save My Audition on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram! There are buttons at the top of this page to find those social media accounts.

This week we jump a little into giving the wrong feel for your song. If there’s a better way to SABOTAGE your own audition… I don’t know what it is.

First off, this is what was posted on Instagram and Twitter:

Let me first say that I LOVE when people walk into the room and sing a song that they wrote. Honestly, I love it. It’s not easy to put yourself out there in that way and I have respect for anyone that is willing to do it.

With that being said… Writing songs is hard. Writing good songs is even harder. Writing good songs that make sense and work in an audition room is even harder than that.

I’ve heard countless original songs in the room, including some incredibly creative stuff, but sometimes a song walks in that’s a clunker. I’m not trying to judge the work and time people put into writing a new song. But what I will say is, please, for your sake, when you sing a song that you wrote make sure it’s a song that is appropriate to the audition you are walking in to. It’s hard to hear new songs in the room. We can easily get distracted trying to figure out what the song is about and we stop paying attention to you as a performer. It’s a delicate balance.

Continue to write new songs, continue to perform them, but know that the audition room isn’t always the best place for your songs.

Also, I fixed that horrifying punctuation error from my original Instagram and Twitter posts, though I’m leaving those original posts up. But a special thanks to my mother:

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Welcome to the new weekly (to the best of my ability) Audition Advice/peeves MiniBlog…

On Mondays I’ll post a bit of Audition Advice or an Audition Peeve on Instagram and Twitter, then on Wednesdays I’ll write a quick blog to further explain what my advice or peeve is about.

This week we jump a little into giving the wrong feel for your song. If there’s a better way to SABOTAGE your own audition… I don’t know what it is.

First off, this is what was posted on Instagram and Twitter:

I can’t remember what the song was that was being explained to me, all I can remember is that the person giving me the tempo/feel gave me the completely wrong feel. The song was clearly in 3/4 and whatever was happening next to my ear was definitely in 4/4. A little bewildered, and at the end of a long day, I just let it happen and didn’t ask for clarification. I take full responsibility for not clarifying what the feel should have been. But still, don’t do that!

I do remember one audition I played years ago, shortly after Beautiful opened, I was playing a required ECC and someone walked into the room and wanted to sing NATURAL WOMAN. “Great,” I thought, “I know this song, no sweat.” She then proceeded to count the song in 4, somehow, I can’t even explain how she did it. She didn’t add a beat to each measure, she also didn’t feel the song in 6/8 with only 2 beats a measure, but what she did do was somehow cram the 3/4 feel into a 4/4 feel and it was confusing. But being a song that we all know and I’ve played about a million times I didn’t think twice and just moved on to play. Needless to say I somehow had her feel stuck in my head and for the life of me I couldn’t fix what I was playing. I was playing the song in this weird 4/4 time that was just flat wrong. She had a terrible audition, I looked like a horrible pianist, and the walls came tumbling down.

Moral of the story, know the feel of your song cold.

As part of your coachings, make sure that you know how to communicate the feel, style and tempo of your song to your pianist. You’ll walk into the room more confident and it will show.

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Ten things that annoy the hell out of your audition pianist:

I imagine this is what 7 year-old me looks like when I get annoyed.

This is a rehash BLOG that I wrote for a friend, I’ve kept some of the more annoying things and added some new annoying things, enjoy! The original post can be found here. Also Sara Glancy is great, use her if you are looking for new rep.

The musical theatre audition pianist. That hero among hero’s that sits behind the piano and makes you sound like a dream each and every time. Okay, maybe not each and every time. But that’s what we aim for. But while we are back there trying to make you sound the best we can, there is a lot of stuff you do that just annoys the hell out of us! A LOT OF STUFF.

This blog is a list of things that annoy the hell out of me as an audition pianist. It should be noted that this is just my opinion. I have audition pianist friends that would disagree with some of these and agree with others, as well as have their own list. But these are the things that drive me nuts. They are arranged in alphabetical order by the last letter of each subtitle. So basically… no order:

Not recognizing me:

Not a real conversation. But a fair faxsimile.

The room is weird. It’s a high stress situation. It all happens fast and sometimes you’re already back out the door before you realize you were in the room. That being said, pay attention to who is in the room! I can’t tell you how often friends have come into the room and had no idea that it was me behind the piano. I have a conversation with you when you walk in! How do you not realize who your pianist is!? Take a deep breath, have a moment of recognition and then we’ll go through your song. Having a friendly face in the room is a good thing, become our friend, know who we are, we’re here for you. Don't send me an awkward text 30 minutes later that says...

Sing your song in the right time signature:

This mostly applies to when you are talking your song through for me. The number of people that sing their “tempo” in the wrong time signature would be baffling to most people. That 3/4 time signature should not be song in 4/4. Don’t slip in extra beats or take away a beat. I mostly assume that that is how you actual want the song played. But surprise, you go up there and sing the song correctly and now I look like I’m bad at my job for 3 measures. Thanks.

Over explaining your song:

Yes, I know that you are going to take your sweet ass time when you sing “II won’t care if I…” at the end of ON THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE. Yes, I know that you are going to take your sweet ass time when you sing “I only know when he...” at the end of I COULD’VE DANCED ALL NIGHT. Yes, I know that you are going to take your sweet ass time when you sing… Get the picture? Unless you are doing something different with your song, you don’t need to tell me about it. Most of the things that you feel the need to “explain” to me are things that are already marked in the music.

Broken binder:

I completely understand, you use your audition binder a lot. A real lot. If it is starting to fall apart, go buy a new one. The worst is when the rings don’t connect and properly hold your sheet music inside of the binder. The top one starts going first, you’ll notice your music starting to slip out of the top ring, then the middle one starts to go, all of a sudden your music falls only held on by the bottom ring and it’s now almost upside down and hanging on top of the keys of the piano. Not many people know this, but we use both hands when playing the piano so it’s hard to fix this problem as it is happening. So let’s just nip it in the bud. Go buy a new binder. Also - buy some 3-hole punch reinforcements if you don't use sheet protectors and your pages are starting to rip. There are only so many times you can say "I'm sorry my music is falling out" before I start to think that you just don't care.

Sexts on iPads:

PUT YOUR iPAD ON AIRPLANE MODE IF YOU ARE USING IT FOR YOUR AUDITION.

Let me repeat that for those of you in the cheap seats… 

PUT YOUR iPAD ON AIRPLANE MODE IF YOU ARE USING IT FOR YOUR AUDITION.

I have seen more than one sext come through on an iPad during an audition. And more than one NSFW photo.

I’m not kidding. This isn’t a drill. 

PUT YOUR iPAD ON AIRPLANE MODE IF YOU ARE USING IT FOR YOUR AUDITION.

Transposed chord symbols:

Holy shit, this one drives me absolutely bonkers. If for some reason, any reason, you have written in transposed chords in your music, please erase them if you aren’t doing it in the transposed key.

Side topic: If you are doing your song in a different key, get it transposed properly.

Back to topic: Seeing notated music and chord symbols that don’t match makes my head explode. It’s like my brain is playing tricks on me to see a chord written in that I don’t see in the music. It’s not cool. Don’t do it. Even worse than that… Having more than one transposed set of chord symbols written in. 3 different transposed keys is the most I’ve ever seen, so with the actual printed music that’s 4 different keys my brain is fighting about. STOP IT!

Roadmaps:

Okay, this deserves it’s very own in depth blog post, which I'll do eventually. But as a quick rant: If your cut involves multiple endings and codas and turning pages backwards instead of forwards… Please fix it. I’ve had people walk up to the piano and say “Okay, this is super complicated….” Why would you do that to yourself, much less me!? That’s just opening yourself up to lots of mistakes. 

My rule for audition cuts:

They should start at the beginning and end at the ending. It’s super simple.

Hair in binders:

This one is mostly aimed at you ladies. But gentlemen with long hair, I’m not excluding you. The amount of loose strands of hair that end up in your binder is mind-boggling to me. It’s everywhere.

Everywhere.

I could start a pretty decent wig making business with the hair I’ve pulled out of binders, or blown off a piano after an audition. Just check it out from time to time. This is the stuff you never think of. But we have to deal with it.

A lot.

Two page cuts:

If your cut is only 2 pages long, why are you making me turn a page? Why? Honest question… Why? That’s just mean. It’s only 2 pages, put it in your audition book so that they lay open. Seriously. It’s just rude. People doing this ghastly mistake is why I started my new audition services website. www.SaveMyAudition.com

But seriously, 2 pages… Don’t make me turn a page. It’s simple. And if your cut is printed 2-sided. Go make a copy of one of the pages so you can lay them flat in your book. Audition pianists the world over will thank you for it. I promise.

Let’s bring this to an end:

This list could go on for quite some time, and if you were counting, that was nine things, not ten. So I either over-advertised, or if you read the first round of this, we are now even, even though I repeated some of the more annoying ones. The lesson in all of this is to be as clear as you can be with your music, be a real human being with compassion and feelings, and breath. You get to control everything that happens in the room from the time you walk into the door until you stand in the center of the room and begin your audition. After that point things start to slowly get out of your grip.

Best of luck auditioning. Remember I’m on your side, even though this blog post makes it seem like I hate everybody. I don’t.

Every Audition Counts!

Audition book blog posts will continue on January 8th. There may be some more fun rant-like posts before then. But I'll get back on my schedule come January 8th.

Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a great New Year! Be safe! I'll see you in 2018 here on the Blog and in class if you sign up for some of the amazing classes being offered!

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“I’ve discreetly written a sharp in front of that D in I Chose Right countless times.

You’re welcome actors of NYC.”

— Aaron Jodoin, Facebook post, May 3, 2017, 5:17PM

This is a favorite one of mine. There are certain songs that make their way through the audition circuit that have errors in the published sheet music. I'm going to highlight 4 of them. But they are by no means a complete list. There are LOTS of errors in lots of published sheet music.

The best way to avoid such errors is by taking your music to a pianist and asking them to play through it EXACTLY as it appears on the page. Now, most audition pianists do what I refer to as "audition magic" to your sheet music and play more than is printed on the page. We also get rid of that melody line that's in the right hand for most Pop/Rock tunes. We ignore the incorrect chord symbols. There is a lot we do behind the piano that you have NO clue about. Here are 4 quick examples.

I CHOSE RIGHT from BABY:

In measure 50 of I CHOSE RIGHT from the musical BABY there is a D natural. In fact there are 3 Ds that should be D#s. Though thankfully in measure 51 they've given us a courtesy accidental to cancel out what should have been the D#. Whenever anyone sings this in an audition room I take out my trusty pencil and correct the wrong notes. I'm not blaming anyone for this error, it's a mistake on the copyists part. But you should have taken your music to a pianist and had them play through it and then you can easily fix it with a pencil. Lesson of the story, guys and gals, if this song is in your book, turn to it right now and fix measure 50. If you've had me play an audition for you, it's probably already been fixed. You're welcome.

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NOTICE ME HORTON from SEUSSICAL:

This one is amazing. Like Mayzie. In the 3rd and 5th measure above there is a rogue Dnatural. It should be a Db. Now the fact that it happens twice is the best part of this. COME ON! This is from the MusicNotes/SheetMusicDirect version of NOTICE ME HORTON. If you've purchased this copy of the song, write to whomever you purchased it from and ask for a refund. If you got your copy of the song from the Piano/Vocal score you are fine. I've also turned those 2 natural signs into flat signs quite a bit. Though it adds a nice little jazz element to play a Dnatural. That's a lie. It sounds terrible and Stephen Flaherty would not be amused.

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MISTER SNOW from CAROUSEL:

This is just a random forward repeat sign that shouldn't exist. The thing about this repeat sign that makes me happy is that it's been around FOREVER! There's really not much of a rant here. Just a phantom repeat sign. If you look through the rest of the song there is no backward repeat sign to bring you back here. So it's literally just a waste of ink. Seeing as VE Day was on May 8, 1945 and Carousel opened on April 19, 1945 this ink could have been used toward the war effort. Though the type set version of this score probably happened later on, so now I'm just ranting for no good reason.

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HOLDING TO THE GROUND from FALSETTOS/FALSETTOLAND:

This missing measure is a crapshoot in the audition room. Some people do it as written in the songbook version of this song, some people do it like the original cast recording. There was a time I would ask which version you were doing, but that question baffled most people. So now I just play the song on a wing and a prayer and you can usually tell which version is going to be sung. But there is a missing measure! Although, in the 2016 revival this measure isn't missing from the cast recording, so perhaps this one will fade into the distance. But it's annoying to not really know what people are going to be singing. Again, just have a pianist play through your stuff! It's so easy to be prepared.

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Others:

There are a million more examples of this. I won't get into what's currently being written for music theater. A majority of the new musical theater writers apparently have no idea what a properly notated piece of sheet music should look like. It's embarrassing. If you purchase a piece of sheet music from a new composer, make sure it is notated correctly, especially on NewMusicalTheatre.com. There are a lot of new composers that clearly care about the notation of their music, but there are also a lot of new composers that couldn't care less, but if you are paying $8-10 for a piece of sheet music (too much money), then you damn well better be getting an edited and correct version. If it isn't notated correctly, or you aren't sure if it is notated correctly, pay a pianist to look through it. Or email it to SaveMyAudition, I'll gladly look over it and let you know if you should be getting your money back.

And that is that. It's time for Thanksgiving. Everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I'll post a new blog on Monday!

Until then, every audition counts!

Also here's a treat, not a music theater song, but just a great song. Loudon Wainwright III is a hell of a writer.

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Alright - I'm going to start a mini-blog series that explains some of my audition rant Facebook posts. I know that these posts have given you all some laughs and some anxiety. So let's start with one that is just a basic "how-to":

“Ya’ll:

When you’re giving me the tempo of your audition cut... The space between the phrases, when you aren’t singing lyrics, is actually more important to me then what comes before or after. Don’t just ease through the silence in a phrase, it’s part of the song.

A beat of silence = a beat of sound.”

— Aaron Jodoin, Facebook post, June 5, 2017, 5:28PM

This one is pretty straight forward. A lot of you that walk into the audition room are very good and efficient at explaining your audition to me. This mostly stems from your music being set up properly, with proper markings. But there are some of you, and I won't mention names, who SUCK at this portion of your audition. If you want to make sure your music has all the information needed please visit the Audition Prep portion of this website.

There aren't many things in the casting process that you can have complete control over. But one of them is your interaction with the person behind the piano. Namely, for this circumstance and blog post convenience, me.

"How fast are you going?"

While this is a favorite question of mine to ask is really an imprecise question, the real question should be:

"How should I, musically, feel this song while playing it for you, what is the groove, how do I support you best musically?"

That is a more precise question, but for expediency I ask the former. That being said, when giving me the tempo in which you want to sing the song, don't sing me the portion of the song where you do the most back-phrasing (also known as - not singing in time). Sing me the hook of the song, sing me the part of the song that locks into a solid groove and you can show me with your body. If the song has several different tempos (this will be covered at a later date) then be precise in showing me the feel for each of these sections.

To circle this back to the Facebook rant, when singing me that portion of the song, or any portion of the song... DO NOT SKIP OVER THE RESTS. These, for me, are the most important part of me knowing that I've locked in with your tempo. This is how my head works when you are establishing your tempo...

• Oh God I love/hate this song
• Let's hear some of this great/awful song
• The phrase is ending, here come some rests in the music, sweet
• Counting silently "1-2-3...."
• Great they started singing again right when I was done with the rest, this is perfect/What the hell! Why did they start singing 3 beats before I was done counting the rests?! This is going to be a shit-show, oh well, be better at giving me your tempo.
• Here we go.

If you skip over that silence in your music because you are rushed and think you're taking up too much time, I don't get the information I need and it'll take me a good phrase to really lock in with you.

As a wise man once told me:

“A beat of silence is equal to a beat of sound.”

— Dr. Thomas Albert, Shenandoah University, sometime in the early aughts