When I play musical theater auditions, my memory is approximately five seconds long. As a pianist in the room, I spend the day taking in so much information that my retention level drops significantly. If an actor tells me to skip a few bars of their song, I may well have forgotten that instruction by the time we get to that point in the tune. Therefore, your audition music must be thoroughly and clearly marked. The cleaner and more explicit the written directions are in your sheet music, the better chance you have of staying on track with your pianist. There are a few elements that should always be indicated, and you can follow this link for an example of properly marked music.
Starting/ending points. You should have the starting measure of your song marked with the text “Start Here” and a bracket that encompasses the piano and vocal staffs. Be sure you decide whether you want an intro or not. If you are not using a musical intro, I recommend that you take a bell-tone (a simple octave that the pianist plays to give you your starting pitch). If your melody starts on the pitch G, simply write “Bell-tone G” above the vocal line on the starting measure. You should
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