Poor Vanessa Wolfe!–NERVES on American Idol Hollywood week.

Poor thing, Vanessa Wolfe, the country girl with such an incredible opportunity.

If you are watching American Idol, you know that last night was the first episode of Hollywood Week.

I’m not going to be doing summaries or recaps of the shows, but I am going to be commentating on things that inspire me by each show this season as a voice teacher and singer myself.

I was most affected last night by Vanessa Wolfe.  She is that blond girl from the country who had never been on a plane, was really green to everything as well.  But yet, she did have something special and unique about her persona that made you want her to break out and be awesome- the American dream- “Girl from nothing with a talent shoots to the top”.-     (and the makeover would have been fabulous to see)

Unfortunately, she did really poorly at her Hollywood audition, because she was sooooooooo nervous.  Her tone, pitch, personality, everything was off.  Her voice was not grounded and she looked really frighted- no confidence or star quality.  I am sure the judges were bummed to have had to cut her because her story alone would have been good for ratings.

I have blogged about nerves a few times now because they are such a deal breaker when it comes to a good performance or audition.  They are something that you can not practice standing at home at your piano, or in front of the mirror with your guitar.  A bad case of uncontrolled nerves can make you sound like a bad singer even if you are amazing.  Some people handle them better then others, others learn to conquer them.

Take action, you as a singer need to know yourself as an auditioner.

I hope that Vanessa Wolfe takes this opportunity and turns it into gold by prepping herself all year to come back next year.  What can she do to improve?

PRACTICE AUDITIONING!!!!- We can all learn from this.

You can’t practice every aspect of singing and then show up to an audition without having practiced the auditioning process.  It is a really scarey thing and you never know how you are going to handle it until you are in the midst of it.

Auditioning is a wild card between you and that next gig.  To combat it you have to face it and practice doing it.  Go to other auditions even if you do not care about them, just to go through the motions of having people hear you.

Set performance opportunites up for yourself no matter how insignificant to practice singing in front of people and being watched.

And for God’s sake- be confident!  No one wants to looks at a singer who looks uncomfortable.  I don’t care if you are screaming insecurity inside, on the outside we need to see confidence.  Fake confidence is a great start, I’ll take that.  The more you practice fake confidence, the more authentic confidence you will achieve. It is the confident singers that get the parts and the jobs.

I have all ready done an extensive blog on nerves as well as auditioning, so please read the following:

http://voicelessonstogo.com/blog/conquering-your-nerves-while-singing

http://voicelessonstogo.com/blog/preparing-for-your-american-idol-audition

Sing well!

written by Ariella Vaccarino- creator of Voice Lessons To Go (singing lessons on CD) and author of “Vocalize!“.

Do you need a professional ear to hear you sing before your next audition or performance?  Sign up for my Vocal Assessment.  Then send me a link to your voice or mp3 with your questions and I will get back to you right away with your feedback.

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