Auditioning: Week beginning: Monday 27th January 2014

Week beginning: Monday 27th January 2014

This week I completed some further and the remaning of my research on the song "Don't Rain On My Parade", had various rehearsals of my song and my one-to-on with Alison. I've realised that we haven't got long until our assessment so I really wanted to start focusing on my performance and being comfrotable and confident when I come round to performing it.

Research

For this week's research, I focused on my staging of the song as I felt that I was confident with my knowledge from the last few weeks and I could now use that to supplement my performance.

I felt that the best way to begin staging this was a basic idea. My basic idea was to stand, centre stage, with a strong, stacked posture and remain standing straight throughout. I decided to do this because I felt like the song wasn't a song where I should be moving around too much but keep my power and authority by standing up straight, as if I'm not scared of anyone.

The Song:

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

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

Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade"

For this part I would stand in my strong and stacked posture but I decided to use a subtle hand movement during "don't" this reinforces the point that this character doesn't want to be treated as a child and she wants to live her life. By showing this authoirty at the start I feel like the audience would know that she's someone you shouldn't mess with.

Also, when I watched Barbra Streisand's version, the start of the song is very snappy as if she's had enough of someone's comment. Therefore, I wanted to interpret the start too and grab the audience's attention right at the start of the performance.

When it came to the line "Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter", I wanted her to open her arms as if she's slightly sarcastic and being patronising because that's how people constantly treat her.

"Don't tell me not to fly, I simply got to,

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

Who told you you're allowed to rain on my parade"

The next part of the song was far more passionate as I had her holding her heart at "I simply got to" but then becoming slightly angry by pointing to herself at "me" and then the audience at "you" with the sharp and fast gesture.

So far I've decided not to use any specific staging when it comes to the "don't rain on my parade" line as I want it be far more naturalistic and sincere. I feel like if I stage the song too much it will lose it's meaning.

"I'll march my band out, I'll beat my drum

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

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

I guess I didn't make it"

For this part, I've used my facial expression to convey I slight sly and arrogant look to the character as she's gaining confidence and losing her inabition. This meant by adding a slight smirk to the character and widening the eyes.

"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,

I gotta fly once, I gotta try once,

Only can die one, right, sir?

Ooh, life is juicy, juicy and you see,

I gotta have my bite, sir."

For the line "But whether I'm the rose of sheer perfection" I decided to add some humour by placing my fist under my chin as if I'm mocking the way people judge others and using a sweet/innocent face which had a child-like sweetness to it. On the line "right, sir?" I wanted to angle my head as if I was looking for approval mockingly - but in reality I don't care about what others think anymore.

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

I simply gotta march, my heart's a drummer,

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

This passage really build up the character's passion and confidence for "'cause I'm a "comer"" I wanted her to expand her fingers forward as if she's inviting the audience into her new found confidence and love for herself. When it comes to the "heart's" she holds her heart and closes her eyes as this emphasises the passion and love she has for being her own person and standing on her own ground.

"I'm gonna live and live NOW!

Get what I want, I know how!

One roll for the whole shebang!

One throw that bell will go clang,

Eye on the target and wham,

One shot, one gun shot and bam!

Hey, Mr Arnstein, here I am..."

This part is really fast paced and upbeat so I wanted the movements to be the same. The "NOW!" is really demanding so I wanted the character to point to the ground so the audience know that she will not be messed around with or treated like nothing anymore, she's going to live her lfie to the full the way she wants to. All this excitement truly then spurs her commitment to her lover and offers herself that she is going to be a strong and independant woman who won't allow people to shot her down, so for "Hey, Mr Arnstein, here I am..." and I wanted the character to open her arms so that she is open and expressing herself to the world confidently and is commited to her new thinking.

"I'll march my band out, I will beat my drum,

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

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

I guess I didn't make it,

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

I simply gotta march, my heart's a drummer,

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

This last passage truly explores the character's new found freedom and independancy where she isn't going to let people get her down or tell her what to do with her life and that she has found the control that she has always wanted and needed. As I way of making her seem like she doesn't care and is taking responsibiltiy on the line "I guess I didn't make it" she's smirkign and shurgs her shoulders as if she's saying that her life is hers and if she's following her dream then that's all she truly wants. Again, I used the grabbing of the heart on "my heart's a drummer" to show her passion and love for what she wants to do and how no one can stop her.

I decided that this would be the perfect way to tie up everything in the song but using a gesture on the line "rain on my parade", this part of the song is a cresendo so to emphasis this I wanted the character to work forward from her standing postition and look up to the sky as if she's imagining herself on stage and perform to a wild and huge audience, as this is her dream and no one is going to stop it happening anymore.

I think having a well thought out plan on what I am wanting to do and staging the song so that the characterisation of it is strong and there are clear elements of the characteristic traits through gesture and movements but also the deeper meaning of the song, which is, staying true to yourself and reaching for your dreams no matter what anyone says you can't do.

I tried to make sure the actions were appropriate and did add something to the performance. Now that I know what I'm doing, I can really focus on learning the song and making sure my vocal performance is as well through out and practised as much as the acting-side.

Rehearsal

Warm-Up

Individual Practise

I started by going through my breathing exercises, the first one being a simple breathing exercise to help control and provide awareness and I also used a new one too. 

I created a 'sssssssssssss' sound by breathing in and then piercing my lips together. The aim was to make sure the noise was sustained and didn't range in pace or volume. This was all done to the breathing control I used. 

This dedication to expanding my knowledge and skill in breath control will provide me aid not just in the performance but in my training as a performed throughout my project.

Last week I went through the first part of my song:

"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)"

I went through this part of my song to remind myself and to ensure that I knew the words to this part and I using the correct breath intakes. 

This week I decided to go through the next two parts of the song.

The first part I went through was:

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 used my diction and articulation again like I did in the previous part of the song but this time I began to emphasise some of the phrases such as "it's me and not you" to show the strain and annoyance in her words for being blamed for everything.

This part of the song is the same tune as the previous part, again I found the pacing slightly difficult so I had to keep practising to ensure that my pacing wasn't too fast. I also found it helpful to sing along with the backing track as this meant I could listen to the parts of the song and start getting use to singing with it.

The second part I went through was:

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)

This part was slightly differently, it become more upbeat and jazzy. The words were far more smoother together. The pacing between the last part as this part meant that it was much slower. After I had become confident with this part, I decided to put the three parts together and sing them through altogether. 

As I sung them through I had to keep going through it because I realised that I was singing them separately and not as the song together. I kept practising it through and although I was pretty confident with the lines I felt that I needed to focus more on the tuning and pacing of the song to perform it well. 

I think gradually learning the song part-by-part as helped me to be more precise in my learning of the song and knowing where and how I need to improve by the next week.

One-to-One

This week I had my one-to-one with our singing teacher. For the one-to-one, I made sure to bring my music sheet for the piano and to know be familiar with the lyrics.

My feedback from the one-to-one was: 

• The characterisation was well thought-out but I needed to really to go for it more and not hold back when performing it as the song needs a strong voice and a strong personality. 
• I needed to learn my lines more precisely as when I was slightly unsure it was completely obvious because the performance went down. 
• Keep using breathing exercises everyday to help breath control and aid the performance. 
• *Make sure I open my mouth so the words are clear and understandable when I sing.*

I also discussed whether or not to use the sheet music or a backing track during the assessment. My singing teacher felt it would be more effective to use the backing track as this would mean I could have the different instruments in the track and it would be a more entertaining performance and would help me. 

*To make sure I opened my mouth so the words were clear and understandable, I was given a mouth exercise using different notes*: 

"  doh,   ray,   me,   far,   so,   la,   te,   doh.  "

This exercise would help me open my mouth and explore the different vowel sounds which are of course going to make the sounds of the words.

I found this one-to-one with Alison really useful as it meant that I knew how to improve for my performance. Now I can make my independent rehearsals which more directive aims after having help from my singing teacher. 

In conclusion, I feel that this week has been productive but I do need to start spending more time on my song as the assessment is coming up soon. I've learnt nearly half the song and the rest to learn won't be too hard, but to perform confidently I know that this has to be done as soon as possible. 

One of the things I worked on last week was marking where I was going to breath and then doing some breathing exercises to help me with breath control. I carried on with doing the same exercise I did last week and also introducing a new one too. I feel like this emphasis on breathing is truly going to help me during this assessment but also aid any other performance I do as breathing is so important to an actor, singer or dancer!

I feel like having a one-to-one with Alison was extremely useful as now I know what to do before the assessment. I don't actually have long until the assessment so I know that I need to buckle down my ideas and really focus on completing learning the song and adding the characterisation in. I've been learning different things separately so the sooner everything is put together, the better. 

I am happy that I've sustained my breathing exercises and looked into new ones too also that I'm thoroughly thinking about how I'm going to stage my performance and the detail of the vocal performance. 

Learn the words confidently and accurately. 

Learn the staging and the song words together and start practising it to a performance standard.