From: Lance McMullin <lancemcmullin@rcsnm.org>
Date: Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 10:17 AM
Subject: Lance McMullin
To: Seth Weidenaar <sweidenaar@rcsnm.org>
After a brutal early-morning drive to Albuquerque, I arrived at Popejoy Hall at UNM where the All-Sate choir tryouts are held. All-State tryouts are always nerve racking to some extent, but this year I was ready. Hours upon hours of practicing the tryout piece and my solo, coupled with mastering the most difficult vocal sight reading lines, made me more confident than ever before. I knew it all by heart. Every dynamic change, accented syllable, vowel shape and rest had been permanently etched into my mind. All I had to do now was wait until they called my name to take me to the waiting area, where I would wait to meet with a judge. I never liked the small, cramped rooms where we had to audition. Other people talked about how uncomfortable it was to be in such tight quarters with only the judge. I never minded singing in front of a judge, though. Singing in front of them was far easier than having to sing in front of my peers. I sat by the other guys auditioning for a tenor part, and waited patiently for my name to be called. The chairs we were seated in were plush and seemed to suck us right in to their soft grasp. The constant chit-chat I first heard upon joining the tenors had now died down to almost a whisper.
Sooner than expected, my name was called. I made my way to the door everyone else had gone through, where a brunette woman guided me down the hall where the tenor judges' rooms were located. To my horror, all of the tenor rooms were occupied. Typically I would wait until one of the boys was done auditioning and follow in after him, but the woman insisted that I needed to be taken care of immediately. Apparently the judges had fallen far behind schedule, and still needed to see over 100 tenors before the day was through. I followed the brunette through another set of doors and directed me to an entrance she said would be another tryout room. When I went in i found myself on a stage in front of all the other auditionees seated in the same plush seats I had previously enjoyed. My judge sat in front of a piano and CD player on the far right of the stage, and, without taking any notice whether or not I was ready to begin, pressed start to commence the tryout piece in the CD player.
The music that echoed through the performing hall was nothing I was familiar with. All my hours of practice seemed to slip away with the push of a button. Nerves racked my body and I started shaking anxiously. When I felt that I should come in, the lyrics that I sang were utter nonsense. Snickers from the observing crowd rang in my ears, and I nervously asked if I could move on to my solo. Like with the audition piece, no words came to my mind when attempting to sing it. Afterwards followed the sight reading portion of the audition. However, it was made impossible by the fact that the notes on the paper were ones I had never seen before. I felt the weight of all the eyes pressing down on me in judgement.
My tryout was a disaster, and I just wanted it to be over already. But, before I could finish my sight reading, I shot up out of the same plush red chair I first sat in, and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. There were still six or seven guys ahead of me in line to audition, but having another dream like that one was not something I wanted, so I kept myself awake until it was time for my real audition.
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