Auditioning: Week beginning: Monday 20th January 2014

Week beginning: Monday 20th January 2014 

We have a lot of independancy during this project to practise our solo on our on accord. We have been told various ways to help us cover the research needed and how we could use that research to benefit our performance. 

Research:

This week, I have researched two contrasting performances of "Don't Rain On My Parade". Our singing teacher gave us the idea for this as it would enable us to choose a more direct and focused take on our solo song. 

Here are the two versions I choose: 

The original performance by Barbra Streisand in the musical "Funny Girl":

The TV Show "Glee"'s performance sung by Lea Michele playing the character 'Rachel Berry':

The original performance of course has a lot of characteristic significance, as the song was written for the character of Fanny Brice and as a musical, was appropriate to the plot and everything surrounding the song. The song is one of Barbra Steisand's most famous performances and is deemed as a classic performance.

In this performance, I feel like I could gain and interpret the song as the character of 'Fanny Brice' in the musical, by playing a specific character this will help me use my movement and vocal skills to truly portray that character as from the previous research I did where I wrote a character profile can help me to choose appropriate ways to interpret the character.

As an actor, I would probably find this performance much more useful when it comes to playing a character if it's specific and I know exactly what to do and how to do it.

The second performance is part of a TV show called "Glee". This performance shows the song being interrupted differently, but with the same meaning behind the song of telling people to stop ruining someone's happiness or pride. The character of 'Rachel Berry' has suffered some hurt through her love of musical theatre and singing where people deem "untalented" or "worthless" even though these opinions are by virtue of jealously. The character sings this extremely passionately as it means something to her, she's interpreted the song personally.

I think comparing two different performances of "Don't Rain On My Parade" has helped me to explore how I could interpret the character from similarites of each piece.

As a performance and characteristic standard, I feel like the "Funny Girl" performance will be far more useful to me but I use the "Glee" version more vocally as my voice more like to the character of "Rachel Berry" as I have a loud projection and I articulate and use diction more.

Rehearsal:

Last week I wanted to start really focusing on learning the song as the basis of my performance. I found my sheet music online at www.musicnotes.com in preparation for my one-to-one with Alison. Unfortunately, I didn't have my one-to-one this week but this did enable me to explore the vocal difficulties I was facing and become far more comfortable with the timing and words.

Warm-Up

Our singing teacher has told us before we go off in our independant rehearsals, we need to use the time to complete a vocal warm up in groups of three to four. This will enable us to make sure that we're not straining our voice and put our knowledge of singing warm ups to another project in the unit.

Individual Practise

I decided to sing the song the whole way through, with the help of the lyrics, when I did this I realsied that I needed to focus on my breath control because the song needs alot of power behind it.

To do this, firstly I wrote out where it was appropriate to breath:

"Don't tell me not to live,(breath) just sit and putter, (breath)

Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter, (breath)

Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade, (breath)

Don't tell me not to fly,(breath) I simply got to,

If someones takes a spill, (breath) it's me and not you,

Who told you you're allowed to rain on my parade,(breath)

I'll march my band out,(breath) I'll beat my drum (breath)

And if I'm fanned out, (breath) your turn at bat, sir,

At least I didn't fake it, hat, sir,

I guess I didn't make it, (breath)

But whether I'm the rose of sheer perfection,

A freckle on the nose of life's complexion,

The cinder or the shiny apple of its eyes, (breath)

I gotta fly once, I gotta try once,

Only can die once, (breath) right, sir?

Ooh, life is juicy, juicy and you see,

I gotta have my bite, sir. (breath)

Get ready for me love, 'cause I'm a "comer",

I simply gotta march, my heart's a drummer, (breath)

Don't bring around the cloud to rain on my parade.

I'm gonna live and live NOW! (breath)

Get what I want, I know how! (breath)

One roll for the whole shebang! (breath)

One throw that bell will go clang, (breath)

Eye on the target and wham, (breath)

One shot, one gun shot and bam! (breath)

Hey, Mr Arnstein, here I am...

I'll march my band out, I will beat my drum, (breath)

And if I'm fanned out, your turn at bat, sir, (breath)

At least I didn't fake it, hat, sir, (breath)

I guess I didn't make it, (breath)

Get ready for me love, 'cause I'm a "comer",

I simply gotta march, my heart's a drummer, (breath)

Nobody, no, nobody (breath), is gonna rain on my parade!"

By marking out my breathing, my muscle memory would start helping me to control my breathing and I won't have to focus on if I'm running out of breath during my performance and my performance will stay strong and the way I want and need it to be. This also meant that I could make sure when I'm taking breaths they're are aiding my performance by being deep and useful and not distracting an audience who may be watching.

The second way I focused on my breath control was to look at some warm up exercises. I feel like it would be useful for me to start using breath control exercises to stregthen my control and as part of my warm up too.

The breath control exercise I use this week was a simple breathing exercise:

I made sure I was standing in neutral with correct standing and posture. This meant:

Weight balanced - If the weight is balanced the performance will look relaxed. By balancing the weight equally your posture will be upright.

Shoulders relaxed - The more relaxed the shoulders are the more relaxed the body is. If you have tension in your shoulders then this can cause strain whilst performing, making you look like you're uncomfortable. If the shoulders aren't relaxed there will be strain on the spine and the chest won't be able to be held high.

Open chest - An open chest allows more control over breathing which is an essential part to singing.

Hands by your sides - The focus should be on your singing so if gestures/actions aren't needed then the hands should be relaxed at the sides.

Knees relaxed - Tightening or locking your knees can make your body tense and affect your breathing so every part of your body should be relaxed.

Feet in parallel - You should be standing with your feet in parallel slightly apart, grounded on the floor with the toes opined forward. This will help when containing a strong posture.

This was the best postition for me when you're focusing on your breathing as the body should be relaxed and the chest open for the air to easily enter and exit from your lungs. This early awareness which help me sustain it throughout my rehearsals so then it will come to me in the assessment naturally.

I used a simple breathing exercise where I place my hands on my stomach and felt it expanding as I breathed in and reducing as I breathed out. I noticed that my shoulders kept rising up, to stop this from happening I then did the exercise lying down. Once I had established that my breathing was strong and being executed correctly, I used counts to control my breath in-take and out-take.

These are the counts I used:

• 4 in, 4 out.

• 4 in, 6 out.
• 3 in, 6 out.
• 3 in, 8 out.
• 2 in, 8 out.

I found this exercise incredibly useful because I was aware of how much breath I needed to take and then how to regulate that breathing to ensure that there was enough left for the remaining counts.

I feel like this exercise would aid me during my rehearsal time of my solo song as it will start helping me to regulate my breathing and aid my performance. Hopefully, the more I do this exercise the better my breath control will be and I can aim to further improve it.

After I sung the song the whole way through and then worked out where I needed to breath, I started to go through a short passage of the song to slowly work through it and be accurate with the small details.

My first passage was:

"Don't tell me not to live,(breath) just sit and putter, (breath)

Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter, (breath)

Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade, (breath)"

As a musical theatre number I knew that diction and articulation would aid the performance of this song well. Therefore, as I was learning it I made sure you pronounce my "t" and "d"'s. I also found that the more the diction used the words are far more stronger and powerful, this was useful as the song needs to be a powerful way to tell someone that they're are not going to ruin someone's pride or happiness with their pessimitic or arrogant comments.

As I was singing the song I felt like I needed to work on my pacing more as I was slightly out of time with the music. I used my foot to create a beat which then helped me to sustain the create pacing through the passage of the song.

Overall, I felt that this week was a great rehearsal week as I've explored two different performances of my song and gained knowledge and further interpretation of how I would like to perform it, I found my music sheet, started to work on breathing - a huge factor to this song, and started to go through the first passage in detail. Therefore, I feel this week has been productive and that I've successfully used my independant time efficiently.

I know that to progress further I will have to keep up some of the techniques to sustain the aid of my performance and explore other techniques/stratergies thoroughly.

My improvement last week was to start going through the song in detail which I have by using breath control and starting to explore how, vocally, I am going to perform it. I didn't have my one-to-one with Alison this week so my aim for this week may be similar to lasts.

I have increased my awareness of how I would like to interpret the song using research. I have also planned my breathing so that I can work on my breath control and improve it for the performance and aiding my singing overall.

Sustaining the breathing exercises throughout this week to improve breath control.

As I didn't have my one-to-one with Alison, I am going to aim to at least know the basis of the song lyrics and the tune I will be singing it in. I also will start applying my characterisation to the song.