Bibliograpghy

Biblio is with the other one from last year!

Well Did You Evah

This song we chose in a bit of a hurry and we should have decided on a second song earlier. I have found this song tricky as there are lots of lyrics and they do not really make sense because both the characters are drunk. We chose Well Did You Evah and made our own arrangement by cutting out certain lyrics and swapping and changing sections to make sense for our narrative. Abi will play piano for this piece and not sing as it is a duet. This piece is heavily character based and the song has more of a speech quality - recitative which was a popular style  in early Jazz in 1920's - 1940's. After reading sections of The Jazz Age;Popular Music in the 1920's, it explains about flappers and how they behaved. This was useful, although the roles that Meg and I were playing were not specifically flappers, I found that this gave us some characteristics to go off as both of our characters are drunk in the song and we are playing young females.

Evaluation of Performance

For my evaluation I would like to overall rate my performance a 6/10.

I felt as though I was not prepared enough to go onto stage with regards to dance more so than music. I also nearly forgot my lyrics in Well Did You Evah. Because I had a lot of quick changes that were never rehearsed I felt like I was concentrating more on those than the material I was performing. I missed an entrance because I could not get my dress changed quick enough.

I enjoyed performing and I think that this has been a learning curve. I liked the use of acting through song in both of my music pieces and I felt as though my diction could have been clearer.

We worked well and effectively as a group towards the end of the rehearsal process and even though I was worried about forgetting my lyrics I seemed to have remembered them which I was pleased about.

I have struggled with the blog and essay writing process as I sometimes get a mind block and become unsure of what to write. I think that if I focus more the written work next year, I will become a better student.

I will take on board what I have learnt from this module with me to next year such as; working as a group and performing things I do not feel really confident with.

Overall, I think the performance could have went better as I could have been more prepared but I think the actual music pieces we the strongest part of the show for me and overall I am happy with how I performed.

Working as an ensemble and essay writing

Working as an ensemble can be tricky because everyone has different opinions and so on, however it can also have its benefits such as lots of different skills are being brought together to create a piece of music. We have struggled so far as a group because we feel like it would be helpful if we had some people in our group who could play other instruments such as trombone, drums and other instruments to create a fuller sound. Although we can use protools to help us do this we have had several rehearsals where we have spent hours trying to figure out how to use the programme and we have had no joy so we decided that we were wasting too much time rather than working with the skills we have.

"The conductor must develop a rehearsal plan and schedule (or general strategy) as well as acquire many teaching strategies to rehearse effectively" Preface, Conducting and rehearsing the instrumental musical ensemble.

Next time we do group work I think we should assign a conductor within the group.

Blending voices has been something we have had to work on as Meg and I have powerful voices whereas Abi not so much and we also need to blend our tones to sound like one voice when in unison and when harmonizing.

Another aspect of this module I have found tricky is essay writing. I have not had much experience at essay writing in the past and the main thing I struggle with is finding references appropriate to what I am writing about. 

For next year, I would like to improve my essay writing skills by using the library services and spending more time planning my essays. 

Music and Theatre - The Modern Musical

"Although musical theatre has ancient origins, the form of the musical as we recognize it today only began to flourish during the late 19th century." Pg 10, Musicals The Definitive Illustrated Story.

Although in class we have looked at Jazz in particular, I have been looking a little further into musical theatre of this era. I have learnt that musical theatre became much more popular in this time period. Vaudeville and Music Hall seemed to play a big part in the musical theatre scene. Also this style would fit perfectly for our When I piece. Although our song is a little bit slower I think that some of the dancing could look similar. This video might be handy for us to show the dancers.

I would like to focus on how my voice sounds in When I and try to make it sound more 1930's. I am going to try adding some more vibrato at the end of phrases. At the moment I am unsure on how else I can make the piece sound less modern. I find writing songs difficult and although we have been given a specific brief to follow I have struggles with making a melody line and lyrics. The chords that we chose we okay to chose but it is then building from them and making a song that I have been struggling with. Abi helped to create a melody line but by doing this, it doesnt sit too well in my vocal range but I am practicing a lot outside of lecture time and we are getting together a couple of times a week for a few hours to rehearse.

This is a massive learning curve for me as I have never done anything like this before. I thought before we started this task that it would quite easy but it has turned out there are lots to think about in order for everything to come together

Group Work - When I

In my group working together are myself, Abi and Meg. We have decided to use Yahya as we needed a male vocalist within our piece.

Our scenario that we were given:  Broadway Musical/Casino in 1931. Two young lovers hitchhike to Hollywood to make their fortune. The girl hits it big and she loses interest in her boyfriend, who hasn't done well.

At first our song had more of a 'Doo-Wop' feel which is 50's rather than 1930's. As Abi plays the piano she created more of a charleston dance beat and we sped the tempo up so the dancers could tap dance to the piece.

Orginally, we were going to perform our own arrangement of 'I Got Rythym' however we began to play around with some chords and began trying different lyrics and we came up with When I.

The main idea behind this number is girls dancing in glamorous costume as if they work in the casino with feathers in their hair and with big feather fans. I have personally found this song very difficult to sing as I feel that it does not sit in my vocal range very well however after adding a few harmonies with meg I think its blends better together. This song is very challanging for me and I don not feel too confident with this piece as I feel as though I can not perform at my best. I feel like becasue of the melody line, my voice can sound 'whiney' which is why I am trying to perform the song with more of chest/speech quality rather than mix or twang. However, this whiney sound could work well character wise. The role that I am portraying, I want her to be annoying and vain and very over the top so the twang quality and nasal sound may work well.

My main concern at the moment is the process of combining our song with the dancers as they keep expressing that they do not understand our song and they would prefer to not perform tap to our piece. This is okay with me but I feel as though I am letting the dancers down. I think there is a lot of miscommunication between our msucican group and the dancers. As a dancer myself taking part in the dance module also it can be awkward for me as they are expecting me to give them ideas for the dance for our song.

Also, another difficulty is the use of Protools. We would like other instruments on our track however we are even finding it tricky to get Protools to record the piano. Even though I did attend both Protools workshops I still find it a little bit too technical so for the moment we are planning on performing the track live with just Abi playing piano as this is what we have been rehearsing and we want to feel comfortable with our performance.

I have linked a recording of When I from our rehearsals

gfhj

Musical Theatre Singing - My Solo Recital - Using the Mixed Quality

For my solo assessment I wanted to perform a contemporary Musical Theatre piece that allowed me to explore vocal techniques such as; acting through song, vibrato, chest belt and tilt voice. My main struggle is tilt voice (head voice) as I find it tricky to keep the dynamics still strong and powerful. So that the piece has a variation of dynamics it is vital that I put different techniques to practice and another that I tried was using a mixed voice.

 Using a mixed voice can take a lot of practice as it is blending and mixing both tilt voice and chest belt by using the nasal resonance creating the technique of twang.

However, using too much of the nasal quality will result in the note sounding too 'nasally' and therefore sounding more like a whine which is not the sound needed for this piece. Getting the right balance of both qualities is the aim. Another advantage of using the mixed resonance is that if performed correctly, the higher notes in the piece can be performed without pure belt voice which is much easier on the vocal folds and resulting in less injury overtime making you a stronger performer.

"The definition I use is the continuation of a 'chest'-like tone above the main passaggio but with more 'twang' and 'cry' added. There is no sensation of gear change." Pg 39, Teaching Singing in the 21st Century.  I wanted to use this quote as it clearly explains the mix voice in brief.

For example, if you have a show to perform 8 times a week it would not be possible to sing high chest belt notes every show for such a long period of time without inducing the risk of vocal health issues such as nodules or vocal fold strain, even if the diaphragm is being used correctly each time. It is possible for the mixed quality to resemble a belting sound and this was the aim for me when performing and rehearsing my solo song. I chose to perform 'See I'm Smiling' from The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown.


Here is the original version of the song from the demo album. I wanted to put this on my blog as although some of the lyrics are different from the more up to date version and the one that I performed, I thought that this recording shows more vocal play with different techniques and in particular the mix quality.

1920's Musical Theatre History in Broadway

The 1920's were considered as the 'Boom Years' for Musical Theatre as it was one of the most popular forms of entertainment.

We would like to use this style as shown in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBOnb9-BY_U

The style of dance - Charleston and the the umpa bass line is the idea we are going for. However at the moment our song is sounding a little bit 50's doowap but once we start to play around with the vocals and bass line we should be able to develop this into a more Jazz feel.

Another video which is a great example of how we want our piece to feel is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxWVH28E1KY

I have referring to a modern musical called the Drowsy Chaperone which is set in the 1920's and is a funny musical theatre show which is over the top and slapstick. This is how we want our piece to look overall.

Musicianship 1B - Second Semester

Firstly I would like to discuss the area of Ensemble group work. This module has shown me that working affectively and efficiently as a group will lead to a stronger outcome. As a group we initially struggled to source appropriate material to fit our given brief: A Vegas casino setting within a scene of a 1920's-1930's musical. A storyline consisting of two lovers taking a trip to the casino and the female hitting the jackpot and then dumping her boyfriend. 

Being three ladies, we weren't too sure on how to delegate roles as the brief includes a male and a female. It has been decided that we will use Yahya as part of our arrangement for him to play the male role and for myself to play the female. Meg and Abi will play the role of people working in the casino. 

The main issue that as a group we have come across is the arrangement of the song into Protools. Although I did attend both Protools workshops, I have found that I am still struggling to use the equipment. It can be frustrating as we all know what sort of sound and arrangement we would like on our track it is just the difficulty of putting in into practice. 

In the beginning we played around with some chords and some lyrics which gave us our first attempt at our song, however we shortly realised that what we had written was not era appropriate.  I have included a short recording of a section from this. I have also included an up to date recording of our current arrangement