This performance was essentially the last and only rehearsal I’d get before the final show that night. Overall despite this being my first and final rehearsal run through of the songs, I think I was really able to adapt quickly to the new songs and environments, and get back into the stage setting. Everything went relatively smoothly, and I was able pick up when I was meant to enter and leave the stage, and Everyone got to feel what it was like to have a real audience to perform too.
For me personally, it was a lot more harder to perform to this audience than the one filled with adults. With the audience that we had during this performance, it seemed like the audience was dead, or just not responding to any of the songs. The only people that did actually seem alive was my college friends who were also performing. This made me feel even more anxiety when I went on the stage, because I feel like the entire audience just didn’t want to be there. There was a massive contrast with the two performances we had to preform too, and in both videos it really shows.
The songs themselves felt a lot more easier to sing, despite only learning them over the weekend, most of my struggles came from the piano, because my tutor had trouble keeping the rhythm and I felt like he would try to fill in the gaps that he didn’t know with something else, and it would throw me off of my singing, luckily, I have trained myself to keep preforming. I felt like he relied a lot on my voice and let that guide him throughout the performance, which is good, but I should’ve given him more time to learn the material and I feel like it could’ve not only improved this performance, but also the other performance as well.
I felt like changing the songs were in the end the right decision, I felt more comfortable with these songs, and because of that, I was able to preform better, the songs I originally picked required a lot of effort and it put a lot strain on my vocals, and with the environment I was in I hadn’t considered how different it actually is compared to being at home with a microphone, being away from the stage really does make you forget what it feels like to be there, and what are the best songs for me to pick for that setting.
My confidence progressed rapidly the more I was in front of the microphone and on that stage. Speaking to the audience did make me nervous, but I had planned what I roughly wanted to say in my head and tried not to overthink it, and I found that not having it scripted allow me to be more authentic with my audience.
I felt like I overall sounded very good in this performance, and I fought against my anxiety, and I was able to power through all of my songs, and even when I messed up, or switched lyrics around by accident, I was able to carry on, and the audience didn’t even notice, and it’s evidence that I’ve gotten a lot more confident when it comes to performing in front of an audience.