Coaching "The Girl in 14g" with different singers

It’s been fascinating working with different voices on this piece. Mostly they’ve been Musical Theatre-trained (usually by Gillyanne Kayes or me), but I also have a working operatic soprano singing it. Since she actually does sing Queen of the Night professionally, the staccato coloratura sections up to high D hold no terrors for her. Although she does complain that the patterns aren't quite the same and she had to relearn them after 15 years of performing!

I’ve been working with her on the jazz sound and the sounds for the main character – mousy narrator and broadway belter. The jazz setup has a low larynx, lowered tongue (with lots of mouth space) and altered vowels, with a breathier voice quality.

The narrator uses what my RSAMD students refer to as baby twang – small, bright, piercing and definitely not pushed. With this particular singing we are not using full-on Broadway belt for the finale, but a very good replacement, reinforced twang. It's very effective.

Performing this song contains the added task of moving quickly and safely from one voice quality to another. In my operatic soprano’s case she has to "rack down" on the opera sound to match the others.