Okay, okay, I’ll enter the contest!

(Good grief – now what do I do?)

 So your friends keep telling you over and over again that you should enter “that karaoke contest.”  Doesn’t matter which one it is – there are plenty around this time of year. You decide to bare it all and put yourself up on the stage and give it your best try. You show up on the night of the contest ready to take it all, or for a preliminary qualifying round just to get a chance to get up there for the final round of competition. But wait…

Long before you reach the stage and your final chance to impress the judges and the audience, there is some serious preparation required. And regardless of the “kind” of show it is, here are a few things that you may want to keep in mind as you go about preparing to take the singing world by storm.

First, read and fully understand the rules for the contest you are entering. Don’t work on a song that is full of cussing or sexual innuendo, have it down perfect, and get to the finals and discover that they will absolutely NOT allow your song. Do not consider whining or nagging at the judges to change the rules for you. Just know the rules and choose your song accordingly.

Don’t have someone “burn” you a copy of your song from their personal disc. Most contests require that if you bring your own CDG that it is an ORIGINAL COPYRIGHTED DISC.  (This is done to protect the rights of the song writer, the artist, the publisher, the disc manufacturing company, and the retailer, all of whom pay their share of the cost of the licensing required to create all your favorite karaoke music.)  Invest in your own personal CDG that you can use for contests – there are sites where you can create your own custom CDG that are legal sites with all the correct licensing required for the disc to be legit. Don’t be disappointed when the host says they can’t play your burned copy of a song.

These are just a couple of the guidelines that you may find in the fine print of the contest you are going to enter. Make sure you understand ALL the rules before you waste your time or anyone else’s time and learn something that is not permitted.

 CHOOSE YOUR SONG  

So probably the most important decision you have to make is the song or songs you will sing. Remember, some contests may require you to have two or even three songs ready to perform; in reality, if you’re entering a fairly large contest where you aren’t familiar with all the singers who are entering and the songs they may be singing, it is wise to have several songs prepared that you feel confident with. The last thing you want to do is go into a contest singing the same song someone else is singing. So, be creative with your song choice.

There are the old standby songs that we hear over and over again at a competition; I don’t know about you, but I truly do NOT want to hear Fancy sung one more time. There are literally THOUSANDS of songs to choose from. The song/songs you choose do NOT have to be everyone’s favorite song, or a song that everyone is very familiar with.

Try and find that sleeper song that YOU do well. The fact is, the more times a song has been done in competition, the better everyone knows it, and the higher the bar.

And remember, if you choose one of those old standbys, you’d better do an absolutely SPECTACULAR job or you may be judged as “forgettable” as Simon was prone to say. Still don’t know what you should sing?  Ask the people where you go and sing what the songs are that they love to hear you sing… not that you have to take their suggestions 100% to heart, but realize that if THEY like it, there is a probability that others will too.

 LEARN YOUR SONG  

Once you have your song(s) chosen learn your song.  Inside out, front to back. Listen to the original over and over and over again. Give yourself at least a week, preferably two, to learn your song, particularly if it is a new one for you.  Remember, nerves do funny things and even though you are pretty sure you have it down, you may find yourself struggling to remember lyrics. You should NOT depend on the monitor screen to remember your words. COMMIT them to memory. If you have a song ready for performing, you should NOT have to look at the words. Karaoke has allowed all of us to lean on a TV monitor; well, if you’re competing for money, you’d better have the lyrics committed to memory. You will be JUDGED, guaranteed, on how well you know your song(s) and no doubt points will be deducted for looking at the monitor for words.

 PRACTICE YOUR SONG

Once you have learned the lyrics to your song, sing it in front of anyone who will listen. Sing it in front of a mirror. Sing it in the car. Sing it to your dog. Just SING it. Over and over again. You will soon figure out if you really know it.

Having trouble with certain parts of a song? Or you just get confused with certain parts of it? Write or type them out.  Highlight the part or parts you’re having trouble with. Then stick that piece of paper anywhere you will see it. On your desk at work, in your bathroom, on your kitchen window. Carry it with you if you have to go to an appointment somewhere and will be sitting quietly waiting. Funny thing is, even if you aren’t consciously reading it, through some great thing our brain does, you will begin to remember those parts better.

 PERFORM YOUR SONG 

Once you have your song chosen and you’ve learned it to your satisfaction, then it’s time to begin performing it. It’s time to start sharing your song with the crowd. For a brief time before you take the stage, take a few minutes to get “centered” or into your song. Think about what you’re singing, the kind of emotion your song will evoke in people, and turn it into a story to a melody. It is NOT just words to music.  Will you hold the microphone or leave it in the stand? Will you begin the song with the mic in the stand and pick it up as the song progresses? Make these kinds of decisions before you step on the stage. Make it part of your choreography.

If you stand on the stage like a cadaver and don’t move, beyond fiddling with the microphone, or your fingers, or your hair, you are NOT inviting the audience to participate in your interpretation of your song. If you watch the amazing performers, they INVITE the audience to listen to them.

They eyeball the crowd; they appear to be singing to everyone individually in the audience. Reality is, you don’t have to sing to every single person in the audience; just choose 5 or 6, spread evenly throughout the audience, and sing to them.

Get nervous looking at people you don’t know? Then ask your friends to position themselves in the audience so you can search them out and sing to them. No matter who it is, you MUST connect to the audience.

Use the stage – depending on the size of the stage, begin by blocking out an area of maybe 6 feet by 6 feet and move about in that area. In the mirror at home, check out the ways you feel comfortable moving and exactly what it will look like to the crowd. You may have to actually “choreograph” if movement doesn’t come naturally to you. Watch performers on television. Steal some of their moves. But whatever you do, don’t glue your feet to the floor. And remember, any movement you make on stage that you feel is HUGE is probably a TINY move to the audience.

Bobbing your head back and forth is not moving, by the way. Only by moving your feet are you actually moving around visibly on the stage. Make the audience move their eyes and their heads and follow you as you move around on the stage. Do not run frantically so you get winded – very few singers can do what Tina Turner does… and can only do it because she gets lots of practice!

 WARDROBE! WARDROBE!

I NEED MY CHANGE!

Have you ever shown up to a party in totally the wrong thing? You didn’t notice it said “black tie optional” or “cocktail” dress and you arrive in jeans and a t-shirt? Did you ever show up to a costume party and you were the only person who didn’t realize it was a costume party?

For most contests, the only thing you need to think about is wearing something that is somehow related to what you’re singing. It should be clean. A cowboy number is obviously well suited to a singer with a western hat and boots, jeans, and a nice shirt with maybe a vest, or maybe just Wranglers, ropers, and a clean printed t-shirt. Ladies you have it a little tougher – skirt/dress, slacks or jeans?  I would just say that make sure your clothing FITS you. If you appear to be pouring out of every seam of your clothing, you are NOT going to look good on stage. If it is a family show, consider that cleavage pouring out over your top is probably slightly inappropriate – more appropriate for the bar setting. Just use common sense. Clean clothing and footwear, whatever you do. (Don’t walk on stage wearing clothing that you appear to have slept in for the last 24 hours.)  

 NERVES GOT YOU?

So you’re satisfied with your song choice, you have it well memorized, and you are happy with the quality of your performance. Then you go to sing it in front of people and your hands get clammy, your voice gets squeaky, and your knees begin to shake almost audibly. Uh oh, not something you prepared yourself for. The fact is, many seasoned performers still get NERVES before they perform. Part of it is adrenaline – you are excited about displaying your amazing singing talent. Part of it is fear – that you may not have done as good a job as you thought you did with actually learning your song.

There are lots of reasons that your nerves may feel jangled – maybe your parents or your sister or your new boyfriend or girlfriend are sitting in the audience and they have never heard you sing before. There is no magic cure for performance nerves. Anything that will calm nerves will also take the edge off your performance. We have all heard someone say, “Oh, I haven’t had enough to drink yet to get up and sing.”  Wrong answer! Maybe for a night out with the guys or girls will have people throwing back shots before they get up and sing… but for the sake of the other performers and the audience, and most importantly the judges, hold your imbibing until after the competition.

If you take the edge off your performance with any sort of mood altering substance, you will not ever really know how well you could have done.

 WHAT? YOU DIDN’T WIN? 

In spite of what all our friends tell us – like how great we are, or how we should be competing on American Idol, there will always be ONE winner of a contest – ONE person will have what it takes during any given contest to take first place. Be a sport. Maybe it will be your lucky time. Maybe you thought you did better than everyone else. Don’t let a bruised ego turn your smile into a frown if you don’t win. The chosen judges decide based on pre-established criteria who they feel is the top performer.

If you have an emotional breakdown every time you don’t come out with the blue ribbon, and you spend the next two weeks telling everyone that you thought it wasn’t a fair contest, maybe you need to step back and evaluate your attitude, see if you are really enjoying what you’re doing, and take a break from the contest circuit for a while.

Singing is a very cathartic activity; it causes a release of that feel-good hormone endorphin into our system and makes us feel good. If you as a singer are feeling good, the audience will feel it. There is nothing like singing a song so well that you begin to see tears welling up in peoples’ eyes. Allow yourself to feel that great feeling while you’re singing instead of coveting that first prize, or even second or third.

You can’t win every contest you enter; in fact, some people NEVER win but they have fun every single time they get up and sing in front of people. Do your preparation, make your performance fun, appreciate that you made the audience feel good, and walk off the stage having done a great job. That just might be enough this time.