State ISSMA Round Two

This time around it was vocals.  Kaylee wasn't very nervous, until we got there, and we got to the room, only to find out that two of her other friends who just had solos in there got Silvers.  So we looked at the sheet, and there were a lot of silvers.  Her pianist and voice coach was also the same for the other girls, and she said "I didn't want to worry you, but this judge is very strict.  So and so performed flawlessly and still got a Silver."  (Side note; so and so's voice isn't the best, even if all the notes are hit correctly, but still).

When Kaylee started singing her solo, she looked up and saw the judge's head shaking in a "no" motion.  She decided she didn't need to see that, so she looked up over her head the rest of the time, and you could hear a little bit of nerves in her voice here and there.  But she sang strong and true.  At the end, the judge said "Is your vocal coach here?"  We all went :o.  She said "Have her sing with her head back against a wall. She is tilting her head way too far back, and it's affecting her power".  She asked if anyone recorded it, and I said I did, and she said "Show her, and you'll see what I mean." Then she said "When you come back in two weeks, make sure you've worked on that!"  Come back in two weeks--that means she made it to State, which means she got a Gold. She was the first to get the Gold from her group.  She was pretty excited.  And the judge--who gave good critique--has Parkinsons or some other physical ailment that causes her head to shake, by the way.   So I think the judge was hard, but fair.  Maybe the best kind of judge, in a way.

Next up she had a vocal trio.  She wasn't nervous at all about this one, and once we heard it, we all knew why.  The girls sounded great together, their voices blended really well together, and it was just a lovely piece.  Their gold was no surprise.

Kaylee's really disappointed that she can't take it to State.  She won three golds at District, and could take all three to State, except she is going to be on her Senior trip to Disney over State, and it's paid for, fundraisers and all, and it's only for 3 days.  So, she's going to miss State completely for vocal, which really disappoints her, and only leaves the sax for her to try for gold at State, and the sax piece had some work to go.  She's always more nervous playing the sax than singing, which is ironic, because the sax comes almost naturally to her whereas she always is working on singing.

Here are the photos and video of the trio.

Kaylee practicing in the practice room with a ton of other people practicing different songs all at the same time.  I don't know how you can focus with all the noise in the practice rooms.

Girls with medals.

Kaylee, Keyton, Caitlin