Successful Singing Auditions in Motherwell

Am sitting in Glasgow airport typing this into my blogspot account. Ah, the wonders of the internet.

We've just finished giving our Successful Singing Auditions masterclass to the students at Motherwell College. It's 6+ hours of practical advice and techniques on successful auditioning.

Gillyanne and I get meaner each time we do this course. We started at Motherwell by making the students sing only 16 bars of their two chosen pieces. 24 songs, one after the other. The 16-bar audition is now starting to happen in the West End, and I think the Brits got the idea from the American College system of auditions. On one of my trips to the US I sat in on one of the auditioning days, and it was a revelation. Each person has to do the following: give their name, do their spoken piece, sing their song and finish by giving their name again. All in the space of a minute and a half!

The fascinating thing is that you really can tell in a few bars/lines whether someone knows what they are doing, whether they have prepared, and what standard they work at. The process acts as a quick filter for the panel, showing them who to move on to the next level of auditioning, and who to let go.

Gillyanne and I are used to working with singers at most levels (we tend not to do beginners), and doing the 16-bar auditions in Motherwell gave us a great snapshot of where each singer was heading. After they had all sung, we shared a number of great auditioning techniques, and then spent the rest of the day working with each person in front of the rest of the group.

Most of the students told us that they found it pretty scary, but that they realised we were being kind to them(!) It's good preparation for when you have to face someone like Simon Cowell. Love him or loathe him, he certainly sees a huge number of singers, and he has to make a decision quickly.

Incidentally, we had some great feedback from one of our participants on the public Successful Singing Auditions last week. One of our more experienced actresses went for an audition the following day. Here's what happened:
"I felt so different about it as a result of your workshop. I sang 'Tell Me' and I've never felt better. I think I tend to try too hard and it turned out really well, I was asked to read, and they all applauded after!"

Now that's what I call a result!

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)

Looking at a Voice

Have you ever wondered what a voice actually looks like? I mean, what actually happens in there?

Well, the first way of looking at a voice is to book yourself into a Voice Clinic for an endoscopy session (where you have a camera inserted into your nose or down the back of your throat).

The second (and easier) way is to have a look at my latest addition to the Vocal Process website. Looking at a Voice is the UK's (and possibly the world's) first endoscopy video ebook.

Go back with me a couple of years. I've been coaching singers professionally for more than 20 years, but I had never really seen what a voice actually looked like. Well, I thought it was about time I started looking at my voice - after all, when I majored in oboe at music college (yes, really) I knew how to take my instrument apart and what the pieces did.

So a couple of years ago I found myself in the voice clinic in Nottingham with a small camera up my nose. Looking at your voice is just so fascinating - you can see your vocal cords* working and everything moving when you speak or sing. I've been wanting to share that video ever since.

*(The scientists are calling them vocal folds now as they are actually folds of muscle and tissue).

Well it's finally happened. I found a great ebook programme called Ebook Pro that can take embedded audio and video files. So last month I put up the first in a series of downloadable endoscopy videos. Because these videos are designed for people who have not seen a voice before, I have started each one with a commentary with photographs that tell you the name of each structure that you see. Then there's a section of the endoscopy video and I tell you about things to watch out for.

I didn't want to charge an enormous amount of money for them (and you should see how much some of the American institutions are charging for theirs!), so you'll see on the website that each download costs just a few pounds. Also being digital files, they're available immediately. I've already had a great response from these, with downloads from as far afield as Australia and South Africa.

I'm always interested in feedback so if you like the idea of the Looking at a Voice series, let me know what you think. You can also suggest vocal video ebooks you might like to see - I've already got orders for a video ebook on opening your throat (retraction) - that's coming soon!

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)

One of my pet hates... (2)

Well, the last blog was so long I've had to split it up. So on with the topic:

Trying to sing pop with an operatic setup is like trying to fit a quart into a pint pot - the operatic vocal setup is designed to portray big emotions unamplified over an orchestra. The pop/CCM voice is designed to sing into a microphone 3 inches away - the emotions can be just as big but are expressed in a different way. Of course it works the other way around too. I suppose I should mention Michael Bolton singing Puccini (I quite liked it but I know a huge number of opera singers who were offended).

Occasionally you get a classical singer who goes a long way towards making it work: Renee Fleming singing Janice Joplin is almost unrecognisable (and in this case that's a good thing). She grew up with the music, and sang in a band in (I think) her late teens, so she has a muscle and musical memory of that style.

There are others who make crossover work - Bryn Terfel singing almost anything because he has the ear and the heart. Dawn Upshaw makes the Musical Theatre repertoire work for much the same reasons as Renee Fleming - she grew up with it and so has a muscle and musical memory of performing it. Barbara Cook created the role of Cunegonde in Bernstein's Candide without much formal training (for those of you who don't know it, it's a wickedly difficult "operatic" role full of technical challenges). She then had a very long career singing contemporary ballads and swing numbers.

Still, each to their own, I suppose. It's like the new version of the University Challenge theme tune on television - the producers felt they needed a change from the original (a classic), and so rescored it for string quartet. Some people think it's funky, and reflects the programme's intellectual bias. For me, it's a little different.

Oh dear, is that my Dad dancing in a disco again?

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)

One of my pet hates...

is people who try to sing different genres using the same vocal setup.

The business of "I have a highly trained voice and it can sing anything as long as I sing how I normally sing" seems so arrogant to me. It misses the point of the existence of different genres. Classical or opera singers seem to be the worst culprits, singing "crossover" without any thought at all towards style. Maybe there are just more recordings of them around. With respect to one of my operatic colleagues, who likes this CD, Kiri te Kanawa singing Blue Skies is a no-no for me. It's that picture of a formal classical singer "letting their hair down", like your dad in a disco or a politician at a pop concert. And the absolute epitome of "I'm begging you not to do this" was the TV ad a few years ago with the three tenors singing "Jeengle Baylzah" (the Christmas song) and looking like Rottweilers about to attack in their efforts to produce volume and high notes.

Perhaps I should qualify the opening statement - people who try to sing different genres using the same vocal setup without thinking. There are some spectacular examples of people singing a genre (not their normal one) and bringing something new to it. Filippa Giordano singing "O mio babbino caro" is SO different from the norm that it is quite thought-provoking.

I suppose it's the usual battle of the music versus the text and which you prize more highly. And really there's no right or wrong about this, since different people prize different things. I think this goes back to understanding the background to a piece and why it was written.

OK, here come the generalisations: in my opinion, opera is about grand emotions, passion, and musical or instrumental writing (there are many mythic and heroic themes in opera); musical theatre is about drama, text and big emotions (often happening to ordinary people); pop/contemporary commercial music is about personal, angst, strong emotions, rebellion (often teenage, always happening to you personally).

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)