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4. Ensemble Pieces - The Book of Mormon and Matilda the Musical

 Along with our assignment of choosing two solo songs we had to partake in two group pieces. This started at the beginning of the unit, we took part in vocal warm ups and we listened to the songs that were chosen together.  The first song is 'Hello' from The Book of Mormon, this song looks at themes of religion in a very comedic way, it was chosen due these themes that it holds and because of my class being very light-hearted and a comedic bunch!  The second song that was chosen was 'You will be found' from Dear Evan Hansen, this song like all Dear Evan Hansen songs holds themes of loneliness, feeling hopelessness for people who are struggling, it is a big contrast to our first song as it brings a strong message with it however, we eventually changed this song for something more fitting as a class. We chose 'Revolting Children' from Matilda The Musical, this song has a lot of choreography which we thought would be better to sing with as well. The song is about s...
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3. Song #2 The Great Debate

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For my second song there was a bit of a debate on what I should sing. At first I decided on singing Waving Through A Window from Dear Evan Hanson, this is because the song is very special to me, the lyrics are incredible and talk about struggling to belong in the world and watching other people pass, moving on with their lives.  I decided against this song because it is sang by a male and I feel like my voice didn't suit it as well as I originally thought because of the key, some of it was too low and some of it was too high for me personally. The first verse and chorus is sang in a very shy way which is not like my character profile at all.  So as a final choice of song I chose There Are Worst Things I Could Do from Grease because its a familiar song to me, the show itself is over 30 years old and I have heard the song countless times throughout my life which made me a lot more confident to sing. The character of Rizzo is someone who I can relate to a lot more than Evan Hanse...
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2. Song #1 'I Know Where I've Been'

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For our assessment we were asked to pick two solo songs, I found this a little bit difficult if I'm honest as my voice is unique in a way that it doesn't quite fit most songs sung by women as they are quite high or men's songs as they are too low, so finding common ground was hard. However, I chose I Know Where I've Been from Hairspray as my first song.  This song in particular suited my voice best because of the range and the power. Whilst I am not particularly a soul or gospel singer I still think this was the best choice, this song also carries great meaning behind the lyrics that also help with I sing it as well. Having good lyrics behind a song can help with your onsets, it creates the emotion. This song as an example is about integration, unity, loss and love which can create a lot of powerful overwhelming emotions which leads to a lot glottal and aspirate onsets. The character Motormouth Maybelle sings this song, in the show she is shown as a very strong and flam...
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1. Onsets and Offsets

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As a musical theatre performer, student or enthusiast there is three areas you need to know. Acting, Dancing and one of the most important is singing, so naturally as a musical theatre student it is something I must dive into.  Starting off the singing unit we have been given two songs to sing as an ensemble they are Hello from The Book of Mormon and Revolting Children from Matilda and we were also told to pick two songs, one of them can be a duet if we please. Each song is to be presented back in different stages each week. First week is 8 bars, then 16, then 32 and then the full song, this is to show confidence levels and also progress with our singing journey. Following our songs we have also been taught different techniques we can use to push our character or help build up stability in our voice. There you can see the different types of way you can use your voice when it comes to singing, there are two things to remember: onsets and offsets. These are ways you start...
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