God I Hope I Get It

Take it from a girl who knows.  Auditioning is hard.  Rull hard.  I know you sang a cappella in high school, and had the lead in Cinderella in elementary school, and you went to all those camps for "dance" where you ran in circles and rolled on the floor, and now that you're in college it's the perfect time to re-visit those lost talents.  You were AH-MAZING back then and nothing has changed...right?  Wrong.  So wrong.

I did showchoir in high school and we sang some songs a cappella so I figured I was a shoe-in for Take 5 (because obviously I am full of soul and coming from a suburb in Oregon, have much experience in jazz).  So I signed up for my audition slot at the activities fair and prepared my verse and chorus of a song.  I chose a song from Duffy because she's white and blonde like me, and has a rockin' voice like I pretend to have when I'm driving in my car listening to Beyonce.  I showed up to the audition all smiles and rainbows and sang my song, I know I wasn't the best person they heard but to keep some of my dignity let's pretend I wasn't the worst.

But the real kicker came when they asked me to scat.  I really wanted to be in an a cappella group, so I figured, "How hard can it be?  You just 'scooby dooby' to some notes."  The piano started playing and I channeled my inner Ella Fitzgerald, started swaying to the music, really feeling it and I was ready to let out the most rich, soulful 'ba da doo' you have ever heard in your life, when I actually opened my mouth.  This was my first mistake.  I sounded less Billy Holiday and more like a chipmunk on speed.  My voice went up about seven octaves and as I tried to squeak out sounds, I realized I wasn't even with the music, let alone hitting any notes.  Well if they're going to laugh at you anyway, might as well make them laugh with you.  I began to make up my own scat-song with good old verses like "why is this music still going? A dooby dooby" and "I'm trying really hard but I don't know what I'm doing" but don't forget "I don't have any more words, I hope this stops soon scat a ramma doo"  But the music kept going!  The pianist kept playing along, probably too busy being confused as to how I ended up in his audition room to notice my look of sheer panic.  When he finally did stop, I didn't notice and had to trail off with a "Oh I guess he stopped now doo-waaaaaa"  (with jazz hands).  Needless to say, I did not make it into Take 5.  But my roommate did.