When You Know The Notes to Sing...

Today, I booked myself in for an audition.

It's for the job I'm stuck in the middle of applying for- and when they first advertised it, they required applicants to possess a 'comfortable singing voice'.

I said I did.

I lied.

Thus, I am quite in a predicament.

Singing the shower? Fine. Singing in choirs? Great. Singing by myself? Teaching others how to sing? Not so crash hot. And by 'not so crash hot' I mean disastrous.

Of course, there are still tons of things I'm crap at in my current job. Resistors, trimpots and capacitors are my downfall. But this audition...it requires me to learn Solfege. Y'know, that 'Do, Re, Mi' stuff Maria does with the children in The Sound of Music?

Easy, right?

Hell no.

I'm used to the SAME syllable being applied to my notes. Like "LA". Or "DOOOO". And I tried the other day, and I kept going, "Re....no...MI...no...LA? TI? AAAAAAARGGGGGGHHHHHH."

Plus, the Von Trapp children all appeared to have perfect pitch and a perfect ear for aural work, not to mention the ability to break into spontaneous harmony. Brats.

For the audition, I need to:

- perform two contrasting piano pieces at an 8th Grade AMEB Level
- accompany myself and sing along to a piece they've given me
- accompany myself and sing along in Solfege to three different melodies they've given me
- tranpose 'Waltzing Matilda' into any key up to 2 flats and 2 sharps, whichever one they choose
- sightread a piece of music in any key/tempo
- improvise a harmony
- make a chordal arrangment for a given melody
- sight-sing in Solfege

SO AS YOU CAN SEE, I AM SCREWED.

On the other hand, my utter humiliation should only be confined to a small room of a couple of interviewers.