The story of my West End debut

I wrote in an earlier blog about my early experiences in the West End.

I had an email a couple of days ago from a fellow pianist wanting to know how I got into the West End business in the first place. I'll be copying you in on my response a little later, but in the meanwhile, here's the story of my West End debut.

My very first job was 8 months understudying on The Sneeze, a series of 8 Chekhov plays with a cast headed by Rowan Atkinson and Timothy West. I was covering the performances and doing the understudy rehearsals every week.

I had told the producers very early on that they simply weren't paying me enough money to sit in the theatre every night waiting to see if the pianist turned up. Instead, I would ring the theatre at 6.45 each evening (and 1.45 on matinee days) to see if I was needed.

Well, the eight months came and went, and nothing happened. In the last week of the run, we had our end-of-run party on the thursday night after the show in a posh West End club. It was Russian-themed with vodka and Russian food and was very exciting to someone newly arrived in London.

The next day I was actually in the local sauna, and at 6.45 I thought I'd better get out and ring the theatre. "Yes, you're on tonight, Michael's got food poisoning". At first I thought they were joking (it was April Fool's day after all) but they were deadly serious, so I threw on my clothes and ran to the theatre.

Of course the tubes were crowded and I arrived late, but they had held the curtain for me and made an announcement to the audience. So I ran across the stage, into the box and started playing the show, too frazzled to be nervous. Apparently Timothy West said "Oh, he's rather good isn't he?" After all, he had never heard me play!

All went well until the play The Sneeze, which is a silent play to Russian-style ballet music. I love playing this music, and I did extremely well until the last two pages. Apparently, I took the music rather faster than Michael played it, and everyone on the side of the stage watched as Rowan had to fairly throw himself around the stage to fit in all the business.

I'm glad to say that I got a big ovation at the end. In fact, some of the cast thought it was a set-up between me and Michael to give me a chance to play the show before it ended, but as I pointed out to them, if I'd known I was to play that night, I wouldn't have been in the sauna!


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)
The Voicebox Videos DVD website tells you all about the Looking At A Voice endoscopy video series
The Vocal Process website has a series of free articles on vocal technique and style, memorising and different musical genres.

Once More With Feeling - Putting Emotion Into Singing

Here's an article I wrote recently for an articles submission company. It's aimed at tribute band singers, karaoke singers and anyone who wants to sound like their favorite recording artist.
It's also aimed at those who think (or have been told) that they need more emotion or commitment in their performing.

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Let's talk emotion. There are three major elements that make most people chose their favorite singer or recording artist
1. the sound
2. the song hook (the catchy bit, often the chorus)
3. the emotional level of the performance.

And of course you couldn't really call it singing if it didn't have emotion. So how do you sing with the same emotion as your favorite artist?

First, let's separate out a couple of things. If you want to sing for yourself, it's perfectly ok to feel the emotion and get really tied up in it (sometimes we just need to do that to help us feel better). However, if you want to sing for other people (and particularly if you want to sing professionally), getting tied up in the emotion of the song is just not going to work long-term. The problem with feeling strong emotions is that they can cause your throat to close up. The result? You can't sing. That's a bit of a problem for a singer!

Here's a secret that not many people know. When your favorite singer is suffering through their song, he or she is not necessarily feeling those emotions. Part of the job is to help you to feel them, to show that they understand what you are going through, that they've been through it themselves. So you can really identify with them and their pain (and of course buy their album).
So the "trick" is to sound like you are feeling the emotion without letting it overwhelm you. That way you can make everyone believe you are going through something huge, but you can carry on doing the gig, and repeat it night after night without becoming a vocal wreck.

Here's an exercise I use in my vocal studio to help my singers discover how to portray strong emotions. You might want to do this by yourself (when no-one else is home).

First, listen to the song you like and decide what the main emotion is - sadness, anger, hurt, happiness. Really listen to how the singer tells you what emotion it is, not with the words they use but with the sound of their voice.

Now talk out loud as if you have that emotion too - if it's happiness, tell an imaginary friend how happy you are. If it's anger, act out shouting at the dog. Notice what your voice does, what sounds you make, what tone of voice you use, how fast or slow you speak, whether you speak high or low, and even whether you stay speaking high (or low) or move around with lots of different pitches. (At this point, don't worry what your body is doing).

Happiness will often have the sound of an inner smile or a "bubble" going on behind it. Hurt will sometimes be slow-moving or have a "crying" sound behind it. Anger might sound sharp and hard. Remember each feeling/sound.

Now take a phrase from your chosen song and make it sound happy. Start by "being" happy or "thinking" happy, and move on to sounding happy without feeling the emotion. What do you have to do?

Now sing it again and make it sound hurt. What do you have to do? It might be the same as what you do to portray "happy", it might be different.

Go through as many "emotions" as you can, and discover what you have to do for each one.
This is a very powerful way to discover emotion in your own singing - you start by feeling the emotion itself, then you notice what that emotion does to your voice, then you reproduce the effects of the emotion in your singing, so you "portray" that emotion without feeling it. Believe me, as a professional performer myself, it's not cheating! If I really felt angry or hurt or deeply sad when I performed, I wouldn't perform well - I'd be too wrapped up in the emotion to be able to sing at all.

So now you can put everything you've learned together. You will be surprised how much your singing and communication skills have improved. And I'm sure it's given you a greater understanding of how skilled your chosen singer really is.

Enjoy!
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Jeremy Fisher trains singers and performers to find and maintain their best. He's the author of Successful Singing Auditions, creator of the UK's first endoscopy video ebooks, and is fascinated by bringing technology and innate skill together.http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk/

[you are welcome to publish this article on your own website or blog provided the author's biog and Vocal Process weblink above is included]

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)
The Voicebox Videos DVD website tells you all about the Looking At A Voice endoscopy video series
The Vocal Process website has a series of free articles on vocal technique and style, memorising and different musical genres.