This past weekend was the cattle call auditions for NBC’s The Voice… Season 4. Now technically I did this back in Season 2 as a favor for a friend that wanted to go for her own personal reasons and at that time I didn’t really prepare anything worth while. This time around I did, kind of… well not really considering I didn’t really decide to go until the Friday before the weekend.

So why do I do it? For the experience primarily, because even though I audition for community theatre productions the one arena that has always tripped me up was singing, I get so nervous that I don’t sing anywhere near my best. So I end up screwing myself over.

What I find with cattle call auditions is that they give me the chance to work through my nerves on a grander scale and really just bring me back down to reality. This is in the sense that an audition is just that “an audition” and it is not the end of the world if you don’t move forward.

Yeah yeah yeah… I know easier said than done, and I would agree with you there. However, considering I have been through three cattle call auditions – with no real intention of pursuing anymore – I find that they give me the chance to share the experience to those of you that may actually be wanting to go through such an audition yourself.

The experience itself (in my opinion) is worth it, as long as you go in with the mentality to not expect anything and to simply take each moment as they come. You have at best a one in ten chance to make it past the cattle call auditions… anymore than that you can consider yourself lucky.

Going into the first audition session bodes well for your chances because everyone is theoretically so fresh and new. Go in later and your chances become more and more mute. Also keep in mind that with singing auditions, there are multiple auditions going at once with different producers, so just because you didn’t make it in one room doesn’t mean you can’t make with another one in another try… so audition often.

When I auditioned for So You Think You Can Dance Season 3… I did it knowing full well that I didn’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell to making it pass the cattle call auditions let alone heading into Vegas. And considering my age and that I was setting my life up to pursue my day job, I considered auditioning SYTYCD as my kind of swan song as it were… or rather my last hurrah before I permanently put up my dancing shoes.

So imagine my surprise when I did make it past the cattle calls and onto the televised auditions. I wrote about my experiences over at My Ox Is Broken.

The same mentality was brought over to The Voice audition but to less successful results, and I am ok with that. Again my personal experience could be found on Pure TV Network.

One show I will not audition for would be America’s Got Talent, mainly because having seen the “city auditions” as an audience member is more than enough for me.

An obviously a shot on Dancing with the Stars would require me to be a “star” to participate… so I will content myself with being an audience member one day.

Do I regret taking my chances? Not really… I just happened to have had time to spare and decided what better way than to go through auditions. I actually spent all the free time waiting looking over lines for the next show I will be in, so not all was lost. 🙂

All in all… it was fun and an experience that I would always look back to fondly.