*** ATTENTION *** The new website is now at students.voicelessonbootcamp.com: Lily Schaeffer: All state tryout!

Today we worked on Lily's "All State Choir" audition! We went through everything on her criteria sheet and made sure she felt comfortable in every area before moving on to the next, and worked on several different examples of each to make sure Lily felt confident doing it cold (or having never heard or seen the piece in front of her before).

Because one of the requirements that they are going to test Lily on is "melody echoes" - or being able to match pitch and repeat a line of melody back after having heard it once - we not only went through the examples they gave Lily, we took her over to the piano and practiced matching pitch, separating the pitches in her mind so that she could more easily control them, and made sure that she was right in tune every time!

Tip: For this section, Lily needs to think of each pitch separately as if she could talk each of them out - instead of thinking of it all as one line (because it's easier to go sharp or flat when concentrating on what comes next rather than several separate pitches in a line).

We also worked hard on Lily's site reading! We went through the examples that they gave Lily to practice, practiced giving Lily the appropriate amount of time between giving her the first note - and when she is supposed to sing it out loud. Then, I brought out the high school choir audition site reading sheet music for us to practice something Lily had never seen!

Tip: For this section, Lily needs to sing out the scale starting with the starting note they give her. As she sings through the scale (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do), she needs to count the individual lines in the score and see where the rest of the notes fall. As she sings each note on each individual line - she will be able to form the pitch that she is supposed to site read quickly and easily. She then can fill in the rest of the notes in, in the few measures they give her by seeing how many notes (or lines) are between the notes she needs to sing.

The last thing we worked on is making sure that Lily's high notes are free and easy for her. We worked on making sure she keeps her voice forward so that she has as much power as she wants, and so that her pitch and tone are easier to control!

Tip: Vocalize!! I just posted a "Vocalizing" tab on my homepage. Before school (or any time before the audition) -- do the "mm-mah", double scale (on lip buzz, wh-ee, humming, or a combination of the 3), and "nay-yay". Warm up as high as you can with Pinocchio placement - making sure you feel the power and forwardness in your mix voice!