It’ll Be Good Practice for Him to Audition.
Dylan is a singer.
As such, his voice coach advised him to do an audition for a local competition. In the audition requirements it says, “Participants MUST be available to perform” in the Young Artists Awards Show.
When signing up for the audition (which costs $30), I realized that the Young Artists Awards Show was the same weekend as the high school musical. In other words, if Dylan were accepted into the finals and had a role in the musical, Dylan wouldn’t be able to perform in two places on the same night.
I mentioned this to the voice coach.
“It doesn’t matter,” the coach said. “It’ll be good practice for him to audition.” So we acquired an accompanist and paid the $30 for the “practice” audition.
This took place before we even knew if Dylan would try out for the school musical.
Then Dylan got the lead in the school musical. And the audition is in a few weeks.
This morning, after mentioning the upcoming audition to the voice coach, I got a long and detailed text: “Dylan can work with the accompanist during our lessons, and you can work out payment for that with the accompanist. Also, I recommend longer lessons during this time, while he is preparing for the audition.”
The audition cost me $30. And I knew we would have to pay the accompanist (something) for playing piano during Dylan’s audition.
But the text this morning had me seeing nothing but dollar signs: four longer lessons ($$$) with the accompanist ($$$) before the audition ($$$) – for absolutely NO REASON.
Dylan won’t even be able to perform if he succeeds at the audition.
So I mentioned my concerns to the voice coach. I said I didn’t know how much to pay an accompanist, let alone during voice lessons, and that the audition was just for practice anyway and that paying for a longer lesson was also going to be tough, especially since this was just for practice.
The voice coach – oddly and immediately – backed off.
“Okay, just a regular lesson with me then,” he said.
“Should I pull him out of the audition?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “He’ll have plenty of other opportunities to audition.”
Sigh.
So maybe I ate the $30 for the audition. But I sure learned a valuable lesson.
When I think Dylan should not audition, then Dylan should not audition.