"My chickens just ooze"

The second song (see the previous blog) proved a little more difficult to find. We were looking for something that was a little more character-based (rather than lyrical), so after discarding several songs (and composers) I suddenly thought of Bernstein, and his Broadway period.

"I Can Cook Too" comes from On The Town, and is a tour-de-force for a character actress. I have played this song for only two other people, but thought it would fit this client extremely well. I played and sang a few bars and I could see she was really excited by the prospect of learning the song. It's very wordy, but it is based around only a few musical patterns. This makes it fairly easy to learn, if not to memorise!

We started with what I think of as the main section. This client picks things up very quickly, and it took only about 10 minutes to teach her all of the patterns and their small variations. We did a stagger through to check progress, and she was 90% note perfect.

Incidentally, I use the stagger through in much the same way as a theatre director uses it in rehearsal. You have done the movement blocking and learned the lines, but things are very much "work in progress". The stagger through gives you a rough idea of the shape and size of the piece, and the areas that need either checking or serious work.

I knew that my client would be dedicated in her learning at home, so we moved on to the characterisation and voice qualities. In this particular case, the piece in the key we were working sits up around middle B (a seventh above middle C), and needs a slightly higher larynx position than my client was giving.

I worked with her on the possible speaking voice and patterns of the character, and we started with a young New Yorker, ditzy and blond to get the high energy and vocal height. We then made her slightly older and more "brunette" but keeping the high energy and presence. Using the characteristics of a speaking voice/dialect/vocal fingerprint helps in getting an actor into a different singing mode.

We also played with the idea of flipping into falsetto on certain notes or words. This client's background is classical-type training, which tends to focus on the beauty of sound and line. She is now starting to get really excited by the idea that sound is only one part of the musical theatre equation. It can be much more fun to experiment with dramatic characteristics and different, even "unattractive" sounds, if they serve the text and drama.

This song will work really well, for both auditions and for her song portfolio. She is coming back on Monday for a wash and brush up before the auditions (they're both on the same day). This is a client that I feel can cope with new songs for auditions - but I can't say I would recommend it for everyone!

I'll keep you posted.
PS Just in case you're worried, the title of this blog is one of the lines in the song.


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