Top 10 Tuesdays – Your Songbook

I’m bringing back the Top 10 Tuesdays, people!  Partially because it is kind of cool, but also because, coincidentally, our Day #2 Task to the “31-Days to a Better Blog was to create a list post.  How convenient for me!

Top 10 tips when creating your audition songbook.  I got a lot of these great ideas through either courses that I took or personal trial and error.  Please feel free to comment and share some of your best ideas!

1.  Cut and Paste vs. Markups.  Unless it’s a really short cut, I tend to pull out the scissors and cut and paste parts of songs together when creating the 32-bar and 16-bar cuts.  My goal is to make it easy on the pianist. 

2.  Include all cuts from smallest to largest.  When creating my songbook, I included each cut as a stand-alone piece of the same song.  The 16-bar and the 32-bar versions are included.  As you know, audition notices can come up so quickly, leaving you little time to prepare the cuts you need.  It’s great to be able to pull out what you need.

3.  After the cut versions – include the song in its entirety.  Have you gone in to an audition yet and have been asked to, “what the hell – why don’t we hear the whole song instead of the cut since we have some time.” ? – If it hasn’t happened yet – don’t worry – it will.  Be prepared for anything to happen.  They might want to hear the whole song, so have it on hand – just in case.

4.  Create a Table of Contents with corresponding tabs.  You are nervous in an audition.  The last thing you want is your nervous and shaky fingers flipping, flipping, flipping through your song book to try and find the song.  In my songbook, I have a TOC in the very front with numbers (for each cut version and full songs) and tabs within the book so I can flip right to what I want.

5.  Another note on tabs.  Be sure that the tabs (after music is inserted into the slip sheets (See #6) can be seen when you close the book.  If you can’t see them sticking out - they are of no use to you.  I discovered this HALF way through my book and I almost cried.  I ended up having to change all of the tabs to the top of each song instead of to the side.  From the top, I could easily see the tabs.

6.  Music slip sheets.  I use no-glare slipsheets to keep the music from getting scuffed, to make it easier for the pianist to navigate (i.e. flip) and to see with the no glare factor.  Your Pianist is your friend.

7.  Duplex vs. One side – the jury is still out on this one for me.  For instance, if your song is only 2 pages long – do you just duplex it in one sheet (the pianist will have to flip it) – or do 2 facing pages so the pianist doesn’t have to flip.  I guess the objective is that you want the pianist’s fingers on the keys as much as possible.  What are your thoughts on this one?

8.  This is corny, but I don’t care.  I put a smiley face and a “Thank You” at the end of every piece.  A lot of times, the person playing the piano for you is the music director.  Kindess goes a long way.

9.  Group songs together – I group songs from the same production together.  This is probably a no-brainer for most people, but at first, I wasn’t doing this.  This, of course, works wonders when you are going in for a role and you have them all together and can act like a waiter, “well, we have the “If I Were a Bell, or the “I’ll Know” or cuts from “Marry the Man Today”, which looks good today…

10.  Put contact information inside if the songbook.  Do most people do this and I was just late to the party?  I was leaving a Bucks County Playhouse Audition and drove a few hundred feet before I realized my songbook was on the top of my car.  I had only brought enough resumes and headshots for this audition and had nothing inside that would have clued anyone in as to who I was.

Friday Fermata

One day a week, I like to take a pause and think about what I did that week to further my career or better myself as a singer.  It could be something as small as making sure I worked out every day to stay healthy or something bigger like preparing for an upcoming audition.  For me, I finally got the CD’s for the Musical Theatre Anthologies and am continuing the process of building the Song Book!  The iPOD, in case you don’t have one, is a great tool for singers!  I’ll be able to download all of the tracks on the iPOD and play them during my commutes.  Be sure to do something every day, or at least every week to make yourself better.