A travelling life for me...

Back home from the Channel Islands, and straight into the next job.

First, the journey back. Fishing boat from Alderney to Guernsey, the Catamaran from Guernsey to Weymouth (arriving at 0250), car to North London (our baritone's excellent and patient partner), then tube and train back home. 26 hours door to door from Alderney to South East London. Then up to Glasgow on the Monday night for two days' intensive teaching at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Tired, me?

The two days at the RSAMD began with a class for the Musical Theatre MA students on casting, repertoire and the FOAL Process. This is the process for finding your Falling Off A Log areas that I created for the Successful Singing Auditions book. I have added a few more questions since the book was published, and now include a question on "what would you be cast as in a non-speaking TV commercial?"

This is a useful question as it relies on your look and your energy-types, rather than your voice or singing styles. For those of you who are interested (and who know me), I would be cast as a vicar, a university lecturer, a musician or a botanist (how true life is). Other examples we had for the students were a gas-station attendant dreaming of higher things, a Disney newlywed, a wacky Human Resources manager, and the man left out of the group in a pub in Malaga. That last one is pretty specific (but apt) and we came up with a great song that matched it. Email me for the answer!

Having got our FOAL words and commercial castings, I then took a song and worked it with different subtexts to fit the casting and the FOAL key phrases. I also introduced the students to an exercise I use a great deal in my private sessions as a singing coach - changing the subtext to fit different types of audition. So Sondheim's "Good Thing Going" became suitable not only for the original (Sondheim show ballad) but also for Les Miserables (grittier, more dramatic, darker, more heightened emotions) and for Beauty and the Beast (more lyrical, smoother, regretful, higher passions).

It's a very effective way of making your audition portfolio work harder for you.

Visit http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk for the latest downloads:
the Vocal Process eZINE (free electronic magazine)
86 things you never hear a singer say (free ebook)
Looking at a Voice (endoscopy video download)