Picking up from last time –
I walked in and he took my pile of songs. Rick asked if I wanted a copy. It was a moment that went by in an instant, but I still felt silly for not just keeping one in my hand. I also felt silly for needing one… I just wasn’t confident enough in the brand new song (that had kept changing so much) to do it cold. (Bleh.)
I put my songs on the music stand, and as Rick passed the rest of the packets out to people, I couldn’t stand the silence. (I’m never good at silence.) So, I said, how are you doing today? Everyone said they were great and having a great time.
One person said, “You’re the last person before lunch. So we’re in a great mood!”
Once my songs were passed around and Rick sat down, he said I could go ahead and start. He asked if there was anything special they needed to know for a set-up. Then he looked down and said, “Oh, it’s about you! Okay then, go for it whenever you’re ready.”
I acted the song. They laughed! And that made me happy. Thankfully they laughed at “BMI doesn’t want near rhymes,” which is a line I was hoping they would love. (So, it was great that they seemed to.)
(Although, you know what’s crazy? Even though I practiced the song a million times, somehow it didn’t dawn on me until afterward that I should’ve rhymed “three times.”
In the rest of the song, the word that’s the second-to-last syllable is the one that rhymes. So near rhymes isn’t totally right. But let’s just pretend like that’s not a big deal.)
When that song was over, one of the women proclaimed, “Hot off the presses!” I laughed and said, “Yes, very hot off the presses!” (The panel was 3 women to 4 men, btw, for those of you keeping score at home.)
Then Rick asked me to go ahead and do my second song. So, I did. That one I performed straight out. I didn’t have to look at it. I was performing out just over people’s heads, so I didn’t completely see what people were doing. But it seemed like some of them were watching me instead of the lyrics. And I thought I saw at least one person taking notes. Here’s hoping that’s a good sign.
When that song was done, Rick asked if I’d set it to music. I said, “Yes, but it doesn’t have to be!” And I think there was something in the silly nervous way I said that, that made one of the panelists laugh. (They were so intense in the emails about not singing. I just didn’t know if they wanted the songs to be thought of without music.)
Rick asked what music it was set to, and I said music I wrote. (Again, I think I said that pretty super hesitantly – which was probably not good. I wanna be cool like “oh she writes music,” but I don’t want to seem like I can’t collaborate with a composer! What do they want from me?)
Then he said they’d like to hear the third song. (Ooooh, I ended up doing the 3rd song! I’m hoping that’s good that they wanted to hear more as opposed to being so on the fence they felt they needed to. Who knows what anything means, really, right?)
And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow.