Music is something that has become a big part of my life, if it wasn’t for music, I don’t know what could take its place in my everyday life. Ever since I was younger, I have always been fond of music, but it wasn’t until I was ten years old that I took singing as one of my hobbies.

I remember I was always watching these singing shows like American Idol and The Voice and I always thought they were so talented and that I wanted to be just like them, but the problem was, I had never sung in my life. I knew that I wanted to try it so I asked my parents if I could enroll in singing lessons and to my surprise, they agreed to allow me to take singing lessons.

I was a young boy at the time that had had no singing experience in his life, so to hear my parents say they allowed me to take singing lessons had me very excited. I think my parents agreed to it because they knew how much I loved music.

I was this young child who used to watch American Idol every single year and one day, I wanted to be like that. I wanted to stand in front of those judges and sing my heart out and make it past those first auditions.

I would lie if I said I didn’t want to be on television, I think that was most little kids from my era dream back in the day, but, I also wanted to be like all these people I saw, I wanted to make a career out of music.

I kept on going to my singing lessons and then an opportunity struck, America’s Got Talent auditions were coming to Philadelphia one year and that was only about 30 minutes from where I lived at the time and I tried to watch America’s Got Talent as much as I could, it wasn’t something I religiously watched like I did American Idol, but I had seen it here and there and thought this would be a great opportunity.

I was thirteen years old, and I asked my parents if they would be ok with me doing this; they said yes and that they would allow me to sign up for the auditions. So I did just that, and signed up to audition for the show in Philadelphia and since I was a minor, I had to have a parent take me to the audition.

I remember being the auditions being in the fall; I don’t remember exactly what month they were held in, but I remember them being in the fall because it was a tv show that always aired in the spring/summer. I kept going to my singing lessons every week and before I knew it, it was audition day!

We had to be there by eight in the morning so I remember having to wake up early and getting there with the line already wrapping around the building and standing out there for what felt like hours, but in reality, the line moved pretty quickly.

Once I got inside the venue, they had booths set up and you had to have paperwork completed before the audition process so once you got up to the booth; they had someone check to make sure that all the paperwork was complete and once that was complete, you would be given an audition number and be seated in a room until they called our numbers. You would be called in a group of six so once your number was called, you would go into a room with the group of six, they called you with and a producer would be waiting.

Once the producer called your name, you would stand on an x they had taped to the floor and perform your act for them. I got up there and I was nervous but I put my all into the song I sang which was “Rolling In The Deep” by Adele.

Once I was done performing, I had to wait for everyone to do their act and once everyone was done with their performance; the producer said if you made it to the next round, you would receive a phone call informing you if you had made it to the next round. Unfortunately, I did not receive a phone call.

Even though I did not make it past the first auditions of AGT, that did not stop me from trying to achieve something I considered a dream a mine. A few years later, I auditioned for The Voice and American Idol with the audition process for each show being the same as the audition process for America’s Got Talent, the only difference being that for The Voice and American Idol, you were told on the spot if you made it to the next round of the auditions.

I did not make it through either of those first auditions, and I remember being devastated that I did not make it through. But I have grown since then and maybe one day, I will get the confidence to audition for one of those shows again.

I guess the moral here is to never give up on your dreams. I never gave up on my dreams and while I did not achieve what I wanted to achieve, I did gain a lot more confidence in singing than I had before and I still sing to this day. Believe in yourself first and foremost and never stop trying to achieve your dreams.