Idol Decompression Session

This is a bit more of an actual "Voicetrax Class Report", something I'd begun posting over on the VTX ning.com page (a feed of which is currently visible on the left top of this page.) But, since they keep threatening to turn that into a Facebook Group, it sounded like it might be time to begin embedding them here (and maybe put a copy on the ning.com page - which looks like it may be a copy/paste task as ning.com doesn't appear to support an RSS feed. Of course, the FB Group pages don't support an inbound RSS feed either... but, I digress...)

Tonight was a low-key pizza & beverage get-together and "I love you guys, but..." beat down for those of us who went through the recent Voicetrax Idol SF competiton - modeled after - yep, you guessed it! - another contest which you may have noticed on television recently. Basically, it was a three round performance competition which ended with the winner getting representation with Stars, The Agency for six months.

The third and final round took place a week ago, and the winners were to be announced live (...after the break).

Before we got to that though, we got to share our experiences, failures and lessons learned with one another. Obviously, there was a "carrot" to chase and everyone wanted to win the prize, but this was above all a class - and as such a grand opportunity to learn how we react under different pressures and audition situations.

I don't have too much to share about the later parts of the competition as I got spat out the back with a dozen others in the first round. This actually led to some good lessons and realizations, but I don't really have the time or energy right now to delve into those. Let's just say that it was a good kick in the pants reminder to focus, execute and trust the teachings which have been shared with us. I took my frustration with not advancing and focused it into the prep for my demo.

It was interesting tonight to hear how many other people encountered a lot of the same difficulties. Nerves seemed to be universally shared thread, for example.

We also got to listen to everyone's Round 1 auditons. As Sam mentioned, no one was stellar and the folks who advanced seemed to be the ones who made the least errors.

She may have termed it a little more directly, now that I think about it.

The listening helped to remind us how easy it is to sound the same - hit the same notes and fall into the same types of traps. We did not listen into the second round auditions, but by then the first round jitters seemed to begin leaving those who had made the cut and Sam said that the quality of work definitely improved. By the last round, the reads from the six finalists created significant discussion among the judges at Stars and they gave strong accolades to all who made it that far.

I guess this would be the "after the break" part I mentioned earlier.

There was a final "Selection" to be made, of course, and none other than Mark Middleton nabbed the first place. I've had a lot of classes with Mark, and it's great to see his talents and energy pay off.
Ralph Boethling took second place. He also received word tonight that he had been signed by Stars for representation. Another frequent classmate who just always "brings it."
Louise Theron took third place. I've only bumped into her rather recently in classes, but she has done very nice work.

Congratulations to everyone!