Don’t wait until the last minute to figure out an audition song. You want to feel prepared and ready, not underprepared and anxious. Auditions are stressful enough without having to worry about remembering a song you learned the night before. Be prepared.
Work on 2 or 3 songs that you love to start with. Have them ready to go for the next audition. This also means making sure you know the song fully and cut down to 32 bars and 16 bars. Depending on the audition these are the usual options they give you. You never know when an audition will suddenly pop up and you want to have your songs ready to go.
Now, you have to choose which song to sing at the audition. Listen to the music of the show you’re auditioning for and do the one that is most similar to the style of that show. For example, I wouldn’t sing a rock song if I was auditioning for My Fair Lady. Maybe there is a particular role you want and you can choose the song that helps you relate most to that character.
Once you sing your song, a couple of things can happen. They can say thank you, we will let you know. They may ask you to sing more of your song or sing a second piece, which is why we always have our other songs ready to go. You also may get a call back and that is when your listening and becoming familiar with the show will be very helpful. At many callbacks they ask you to sing something from the show and you want to at least have an idea how the songs sound so you can put your best foot forward.
Once you get the hang of it, then you can start working on more and more pieces of different genres and build your songbook. Pretty soon, there won’t be an audition that comes your way that you aren’t ready for.
Break a Leg and Happy Singing!!