Winning a contest – BRING IT to the stage

OK, if you've been following along with this series, you've already developed all the singing skills you'll need.  You have put yourself in the judge's shoes.  You understand the music in terms of its notes and words, story, scene, objective and development.  You have exercised all your creativity and intelligence to make a truly a great plan.  You're already miles ahead of 99% of the groups in terms of your preparation.  Unfortunately, if you fail to execute during that six minutes when you're doing it for real, some would say that all your hard work was for naught.

(I'm not one of those people - I believe the journey is more important than the destination, but I suppose it's easy to say that when you've already got a gold medal!  LOL.)

I believe that if you can come to the stage well prepared, your voice is in peak form, and you're in the right state of mind, you will knock it out of the park.  Let's treat each piece separately.

Come well prepared

Yes you have a fantastic plan.  It's creative, it's insightful, it's engaging.  But making the plan is the beginning of the journey, not the end.  I'm sure you've heard it a thousand times, but amateurs rehearse until they get it right, but professionals rehearse until they can't get it wrong.  Your best insurance policy against something going wrong at exactly the wrong time is to rehearse to a professional level.  And that doesn't mean getting together with your group and banging through the tunes a hundred times - that isn't going to do it.  If someone tells you they have ten years' experience, do you ever wonder whether it was ten different years or the exact same year ten times?  Makes a big difference.

Professional rehearsals follow a pattern.  If you're staging a play, you start by memorizing your lines, understanding your character, your motivations, and objectives in each scene.  Then you read through it with your fellow actors.  Then you run through it many times on the real stage, under the guidance of the director.  Then generally you'll have a "preview" performance of some kind, with a well-chosen audience, usually friendly.  Then and only then is it opening night.

So let's steal what works, shall we?  Learn your stuff, make your plan, and then move through the professional rehearsal pattern.  Start with just the foursome and a video camera.  Then invite a few friends to come watch and give you feedback.  (Keep an open mind.  They are right - you are wrong.)  Then take the contest tunes onto the stage for a real audience, like on a chapter show or some other public performance.  Video tape that, and review the tape together with your trusted advisors.  At each level you will learn a lot - bake those lessons into your performance at the next level.

The key is that you'll be rehearsing what you're actually planning to do, in an environment that is closer and closer to the one that counts.

Get your voice and body in peak condition

All that professional level rehearsing was a lot of work, so let's not blow it in the last four hours before going on stage.

One of the most important things is making sure your voice is 100% when you hit the stage.  Stay healthy, be well rested, stay hydrated, take your allergy pills - whatever it takes to feel right.  You don't need distractions like a tickle in your throat.

Being at the peak of your potential vocally means warming up the right way for your voice.  With all that pro-level rehearsing you might be in what we call "perma-warm" which is an awesome place to be - do enough singing every day and you'll be ready to sing without much work at all, and your stamina will be fantastic too.  If you can arrange it, sing every day for a few weeks before the big day.

Another pitfall many groups fall into is banging the tunes a dozen times in the warm up room.  I think they do this because at some level they know they are underprepared, or they just don't know what else to do when they're together.  Of course you'll be rehearsed to a level where you can't do it wrong, so you have the luxury of not worrying about it on game day.  Hit the intro of each song a few times.  Sing other stuff that isn't strenuous.  Play with your iPhone - whatever.  Metropolis used to play hackey-sack!  Whatever you need to do, to stay relaxed and focused.

Head games on game day

A lot of this is covered nicely in my previous series on stage fright, but that's not the whole picture.  You get to choose what kind of dialog goes on in your head, and in the last two hours before you go on stage it's even more important that the self-talk is heading in the right direction.

Which of the following phrases would you like to have running through your head, as you prepare for the big day?

• Everyone is going to pick us apart out there.
• They are going to love us - they won't know what hit 'em!
• What if I trip as I go on stage?  What if I wet myself?  What if the theater burns down??
• Everything is going to be fine.
• If anything unexpected happens, I can handle it.
• Gosh my butterflies are getting worse!
• I can feel the adrenaline pumping, ready to back me up.
• I know our baritone will be flat on that note, and everyone will notice.
• Little imperfections are glossed over when the story is strong.
• We never duetted the last two phrases!!
• We are the most prepared group they will see today, and our plan is awesome.

Take your pick - what you hear as you go on stage is all up to you!  One tip - if you're one of the people who like to tell yourself negative things in order to motivate yourself, game day is TOO LATE for that marginal strategy to do ANY good.  Ditch it.

It's also important that you stay on the same page with your fellow singers at a time like this.  Try reminding them about the best phrases in the above list if it seems like they need it.  In extreme cases, you can also take them by the shoulders and say, "we're never going to make it.  This is going to suck."  That usually breaks the ice.