Let It Go

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 

Let it go

Read about Idina Menzel's completely different performance the next day! 

Jason Robert Brown

And one day you find yourself in a theatre surrounded by a bunch of avid theatre nerds and you are all there because in time and space you have sat listening to the original cast recordings over and over and some of you have performed in amateur productions of his shows and the music is what gets you. And although it is not a large venue, it is entirely intimate and you can hear his breath and the plosive p’s and b’s and t’s and feel the pressure of his pinky hitting the top notes of the piano. And he excudes so much energy so much passion so much life as he plays and sings the songs you know so well but suddenly tonight they are new because the brain that wrote them is performing them in front of you and you wonder how he can possibly still be sitting with all that energy surely he must be floating surely the way he taps his foot so insistently that the whole auditorium can hear it feel its pulse surely he must need to stand but his back is straight and there he is sitting playing the piano and singing. And he is utterly marvellous. The way the music is driving and full of vigour but the lyrics are melancholy and funny all at once and the whole room is transported to intimate worlds far away in the land of America but still so familiar it could have been your own living room. You have had that conversation. You have had that heart break. You have felt that loneliness. You have shared that laugh. The magic of watching the craft come to life. Feeling like you are there as he writes the notes the chords the lyrics  the song is created in front of you before your eyes inside your very ears. And all there is is a piano a microphone and a man in a spotlight. And it is lovely. It is breath-taking. It is music. The end.