The Voice- Part 1

So Olivia decided to audition for The Voice-kids (season 1) here in Australia. It's a TV show where celebrities listen to kids sing (with their backs facing the singer, and if the celebrity likes the voice they hear, then they push their buzzer and their chairs spin). If more than one judge pushes the buzzer, the kid gets to pick who's team they want. Once each celebrity gets a full team, then they do sing-offs until the final round where the public gets to pick who they want to win via voting.

Anyway, season 1 of The Voice-kids is coming to Australia, so they asked kids from the whole country to show up and audition. We had heard about it and were not sure about signing our 10 year old up for reality TV (if you know what I mean), but Olivia was keen so we let her.

We quickly found out, to audition you needed to fill out a form online and submit a YouTube clip of your kid singing. We had been pretty firm with Olivia about creating a YouTube account (it follows you for life so why would you want one?) but seeing that this was the only way to audition, we figured we would upload a clip and delete it after we found out if she was invited to come to an audition or not. Here was her clip!

You can actually see her pajamas under her dress- it is 11:00 pm and we need this song uploaded in an hour to meet the cut off.

Long story short, we heard back a few weeks later from The Voice, Olivia had been invited to come to the Melbourne auditions!  We were thrilled. We needed to learn one song (I still call Australia home) and then prepare 3 songs in case she continued onto further rounds. Her time slot was 8:00 am...and that was the day after day-light savings time (spring forward). She needed to get there early and if she was late she wouldn't get to audition.

The two weeks before her audition were school holidays (usually kids just sleep in and play). Olivia started training herself to get up an hour earlier during this time. She would wake up at 6:00 am and then wake me or Stan up so she could go run for 30 minutes. She was so dedicated. Then sing in the shower for 20 minutes and then get ready. She cut out dairy for those two weeks and started practicing like crazy!

We had recently started singing with a new voice teacher. She is so far away (1 hour drive each way) and expensive, but so very very good. To give you an idea, when we sing with her we show up with the song learned. She breaks down breathing, pronunciation, louds and softs, and almost always changes the key. While Olivia sings, the teacher gets on her piano and records a backtracking, then sends the piano music to her computer where she transposes it to Olivia's key, and then records it on her computer and emails me the new backtracking before our lesson is done so Olivia can practice. She is from New Zealand (Kiwi) and can sing like a very powerful islander. She was on Broadway with the Lion King and also teaches acting and dancing classes while running her own agency. She is not our agent, but because she knows all the briefs that come out and she knows everyone in the industry, she is able to get Olivia further than her previous voice teacher who would just practice songs with her. Her name is Cherine Peck- google her, she is amazing!

Anyway, Olivia had only been with Cherine for a couple weeks when we learned of this audition. We needed three songs and we only had 1 that was ready. One of the songs had to be in the last 5 years and age appropriate...we looked hard and there is not a lot of age appropriate chart busters around for a 10 year old girl to sing.  We ended up picking (1) somewhere over the rainbow (by Eva Cassidy) (2) Angels brought me here (by Guy Sebastian) and (3) Roar (by Katy Perry- that was our modern one).

On the morning of the audition, Olivia was ready to go. There were thousands of kids lined up waiting in lines and once you got inside there were TV screens everywhere with episodes of The Voice-Kids playing. Since The Voice kids has never been done in an English speaking country they had episodes form Germany and the Netherlands playing. It was really distracting and nerve-wreaking.

To top it off they announced that they were tired of hearing the song 'Roar' by Katy Perry and to have something else prepared. We didn't have any other songs and we were devastated. It was true though, every single 8-12 year old girl was wearing cat ears and we could tell they had prepared that song as well.

For the first round they would pull in a group of 20 kids and have them sing the song "I still call Australia home" in lines. The director would walk past the kids and tap 3 on the head and only those three would go through. When Olivia showed up, they were running late so they put the first and second group together in the big room (40 kids) and ran the song. Olivia got her head tapped and she got through to the next round!

In the second round, the three kids picked went into a room with one of the staff members one on one. She  asked to hear one song (maybe two) and if she likes you she would let you go up to the final round. Only 1 of the three kids from this group would go up to the third round. Olivia sang 'Somewhere over the Rainbow'.

Then the lady asked her some questions. We did not practice interviewing- we didn't think too. The lady noticed that Olivia liked busking (street preforming) and asked her how much money she would make. Olivia said 'about $70.00 an hour' then the lady asked 'what she spends her money on' and Olivia said- 'I give it to my friend Millie, she has Cancer'  then the lady asked if Olivia would sing one more song. She sang 'Angels brought me here' and the lady invited Olivia to go through to the third round. We didn't realize it at the time, but the interviewer was looking for kids with stories, and that question alone determined what Olivia's story was for the rest of the round. We never realized how busking for Millie would give back to Olivia months later but it did. Thank-you Millie!!

Once Olivia was at the third round she was invited into another room where she was video tapped. They asked to hear 'Roar'- Olivia was floored. Then they asked if she knew any other songs. When Olivia filled out her song list (required when you applied online) she put down a bunch of Disney songs and church songs. There were not many to choose from, but the lady found one. She picked 'walking on sunshine' which Olivia hadn't sung for about a year, and had never practiced with Cherine. The lady pulled up a back tracking from online and Olivia started to sing. She remembered the words and got through.

At the end of this round, they told Olivia that they would email her in 6 weeks and let her know if she would be 1 of 100 kids invited to show up at the blind auditions in Sydney. So the waiting game begins!

So proud of you OLIVIA!