On Feb 12, 2007, at 3:27 AM, Cecil Rigby wrote:
Since Mark admits to not being a purist the following comments are not intended for him personally---
but I'll answer anyway....
WHY do people insist on singing something outside their range in auditions? !&^#! I'd much rather hear, and can much better judge, a singer who sings in their range as well as they can. And I admit wanting to hear them do standards as much as possible- otherwise it's comparing apples and oranges between singers vying for the same seat. Four altos who audition with music meant for an alto are more likely to get a fair judging than four who sing pieces outside their ranges, I think.
I've got some experience on both sides of the audition process -- both as a coach helping singers choose and prepare songs, and as one of the faces on the other side of the table giving advice on putting together a cast for a show -- so I'd like to try to answer your question.
But I'm honestly not sure what you mean by "singing something outside their range". Do you mean a singer whose comfortable vocal range is X picks a song that lies Y and she attempts to sing it anyway and therefore sounds like crap because she's really an X? Or do you mean a singer whose range is X but rather than finding a song that was written for X instead picks a song that was originally written as Y and transposes it down to X so that she can sing it?
If you mean the former, then the main answer is that I basically agree with you: I think any singer who auditions with something outside of her preferred range is asking for trouble, and I would never advise it. The partial exception is if her voice is an X but she's aiming for a part that she knows requires singing Y. If it's too far a stretch, she's just not going to make it, so she should give up on the part. But if she's good, or it's only somewhat outside of her comfort zone, it's a reasonable aspiration. In that case, simply singing plain X in the audition isn't going to convince the panel, because they will rightly wonder, "Yeah, but can she sing Y?" and they aren't going to cast her in the Y role if she can't prove her ability there.
If you mean the latter, then there's lots of reasons to sing a transposed in audition. For starters, accept that for whatever reason - to avoid their own personal boredom, I suspect -- many audition panels will specifically ask auditionees NOT to audition with a song from the show. Even if they don't, as a singer you always want to sing what you know best and have well prepared, so you can't expect to always be able to sing a song from the show anyway.
So the singer is not singing the actual piece from the show, but she does need to pick something sufficiently similar in style and range and character so that that panel will see her in the part. Combine that with the need to pick a song that the singers knows and does well, and it's not always an easy match to make. If I have a song candidate which is a good fit in every way except that it was originally written in a different key, I'll go with that candidate and transpose it to where I need for this audition. (Note that I am NOT advising singing in a range that differs from the role you want or from your favored range; I AM advising that you might take a song and MOVE it to the range which matches both your favored range and that of the part you want (which ought to be the same).)
Add to all this that not everyone is a professional singer. The savvy professional has done her homework and built up a solid audition repertoire. She knows the standard roles she'll be going for, she knows the songs that are best suited to them, and she's already learned a good and varied collection of them so as to be prepared for any occasion. We're not talking about her. There's a whole world of amateurs out there doing amateur musical theater. At least half the singers at any audition really aren't trying for any solo role at all; she just wants a spot in the ensemble and maybe one little solo bit from the chorus somewhere. But she's still got to sing something. Her voice is what it is, and my job as coach is to find something she can sing that will show it off reasonably well, possibly with a short preparation time. My first thought is to find out what songs she already knows. My priority list for any singer is: #1, a song that you already know dead cold, and #2, it's a song that you connect with and love enough that you're happy to sing it over and over. Everything else -- whether it's the "right" song for your voice, whether it's a good match for the show you're auditioning for, how well it reduces to 16 or 32 bars, etc -- those are all important, but they pale next to #1 and #2. The difference between someone singing the song that she loves and has been singing since she was 12, and singing the song that her teacher/coach has assigned to her because it's "right" for her, is enormous. I know some coaches differ with me on this a bit, but in my opinion that difference is enough to outweigh a world of wrongness. So if she sounds good singing "The Man I Love" down in Sarah Vaughan contralto, why should I quibble about original key? Yes, I'm sure Gershwin had a very good reason for pitching it where he did at the time, but why is that relevant for this audition now? Why can't the song transposed down be a vehicle for showcasing this singer for who she is?
mdl _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
