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| image from Billboard |
Singing musical theatre
Is hard work
You are required to
Sing, act, and sometimes dance
All at the same time!
Belting
Sometimes referred to as
Controlled screaming
Requires technique.
Training. Breath.
Control of vocal chords
The diaphragm.
Being able to access
Every single body muscle
Whilst singing about
Love, loss, and dreams.
Movie musicals
Along with the Patti’s and Kristen’s and Bernadette’s
Have made it look effortless
And that’s the performer’s job
Right?
To make it look easy.
But the ease
Belies the effort it takes
To be. That. Good.
There is a theory
That belting changed
For women
With Lloyd-Webber’s
Evita
Before Evita, women were usually belting up to B’s and C’s
Think Don’t Rain on My Parade or Rose’s Turn or On My Own
Yes, the women could/can sing higher
But the money note sat right in a woman’s chest voice
Noboooody is gonna raaaaaaaain....
Etc.
Then Evita
And Patti. With a belt range from here to eternity
And the game changed.
Belts were written and sung up to E’s
Which sit higher in the voice
And now we have our Defying Gravity’s and Surabaya Santa’s and
Let It Go’s
And in the words of Jason Robert Brown,
Girls
Belting as hiiiiigh as they can.
Bette, Pink, and Idina
All performed iconic songs
At the Oscars last night
And in varying degrees,
Nailed it, hit it out of the ball park,
Or weren’t quite there.
Pink’s performance
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
The slightly husky voice
Capable of deliciously pleasing
Vocal gymnastics
The end of the first section
“Somewhere beyond the raaaain”
Rain, hitting the traditional money note
Bb
Satisfying to the ear
(And mighty satisfying to sing)
The chorus, one of the most well-known refrains,
Somewhere over the rainbow
Needs to be seamless
Smooth
The octave jump between
Some and where
One of those phrases that sounds easy
But try singing it
Without sliding
Keeping the where light
Remembering you’re singing about
Rainbows and dreams and lullabies...
Pop singing is less precise
Allows for riffing
And sliding between notes
And showing off.
Pop is about sound.
Musical theatre is about story-telling.
Pink sang
Someday I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up (breath) where the clouds are far
Be (breath) hiiiind me.
Twitter was ablaze
PHRASING!!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!
MUSICAL THEATRE 101!
DON’T BREATHE IN THE MIDDLE OF A WORD!
And I’m certain no self-respecting music director
Conducting one of the most iconic songs of the
Twentieth century
Would have gone through rehearsal and said
“Those breaths in the middle are totally cool.
Good job”.
The song ended on a satisfying
Ab
Rich, resonant
The chords underneath creating movement
Resolve.
A lovely performance, but too breathy
For musical theatre. Even a pop rendition of musical theatre.
Perhaps it was nerves
Perhaps it was the
“Oh-god-I’m-singing-THE-song-at-the-OSCARS-in-front-of-LIZA-FREAKING-MINELLI” adrenalin
Sometimes nerves just grab you by the throat
And no amount of rehearsal
Meditation
“I’ve got this” vibes
Will be controlled
Once you’re on that stage
There is no going back
The show must go on.
Then the In Memoriam
Wind Beneath My Wings and
Bette. Oh Bette.
How to sing musical theatre 101.
She walks out, cool as a cucumber
Takes her place
And starts singing.
Her face radiates calm
She is in control
She is telling a story -
Dear friends who have departed
I am singing this for you.
A quick sneaky little mid-phrase breath -
You always walked a step (breath) behind -
But her face remains calm
It’s about the song. Not about her singing the song.
She connects with the audience
She connects with the words, the text,
Thank god for you
Vocally
She sang the song in a lower key
From the original
Riffed down rather than up
Never belted higher than a B
Came straight off the top notes
But it was all about connection
Control, calm and
Breath
Finally, THE. BIG. NUMBER.
The most written about
Played, covered, and parodied
Record-breaking Disney tune
Since Part of Your World,
Let It Go
Sung by Adela Mazim. Oh Revolta.
The musical theatre community may never forgive you...
(I’ve done it myself. Fraught with nerves
In a presentation
I kept referring to my co-presenter, and good friend,
As Ethey, instead of Ethel
I didn’t even realize what I’d been saying until afterwards
When everyone asked
WTF?!
It’s mortifying)
So Idina.
The beltress who is
Maureen. Elphaba. Queen Elsa
Emerged amidst
Sparkling Swarovski crystals
She looked tense
You could almost read her inner monologue
Stay connected. BREATHE. I. Got. This.
And it made us nervous to watch
Oh god, she’s gonna crack...
But the notes kept coming
Clear and strong
And while it’s a song she has sung
Many times over
Unlike Bette, it’s not standard repertoire, yet.
She’s not had years to perfect the performance of it
It wasn’t about story-telling
Or being an ice queen liberated from the strictures of a patriarchal society.
It was about BIG NOTES.
AND BELTING.
You could see the relief in her eyes
Every time she nailed a big note
It’s an awesome song
It speaks to us
It’s empowering
It’s gutsy,
It builds and swells,
And right to the last phrase,
I held my breath...
She might actually nail it?!
Let the storm rage....
That last money note,
A bitch of an Eb
OOOOOON...
Her voice cracked.
Dammit!
Too forcefully hit
Too much tension.
I pity the woman
Who’ll play Elsa on Broadway.
Eight times a week of
Let It Go is going to wreak some sort of damage.
In one night
Pink, Idina, and Bette, showed us that
Belting is hard work.
Even for highly regarded
Pop stars and Broadway veterans known
For their belting prowess
(Except for Patti. Nothing seems hard for Patti. Watch this and you’ll understand what I mean).
Somewhere beyond the excitement
Of the big belt
Perhaps we need to return
To story-telling
Where the music serves the story
Rather than “controlled screams”
Of terrifying heights
Dominating our minds and vocal chords
And for the belt
Learn to
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