It Takes Two: Week beginning: Monday 31st March 2014

Week beginning: Monday 31st March 2014 

Again, Perry and I felt it was important to work through the vocal performance of the song rather than the blocking. Through this rehearsal we decided to keep going through the song and noting any areas for improvement we have to work on to create a strong vocal performance.

During the rehearsals of the song we applied the feedback we received from each other and any aims or targets we had set ourselves. I often found pitching the first part of the song more difficult but as I begin the song I was determined to make sure my pitch was correct and in tune. As I practised the song more and corrected myself as we went through I began to pick it up.

I tried to add a softer tone to the start of the song I was singing because my characteristics of defeated and weak could be easily shown by the way I sung the song, my singing voice tends to be loud and obnoxious so portraying softness in my voice was far more difficult than I originally thought.

I was really uncomfortable when singing the "Ooooh"'s as I felt I was out of pitch and was embarrassed about sounding bad in front of Perry. I feel like I would need to practise this outside of our rehearsal sessions to gain confidence with that part of the song. 

Whilst we were going through the song I had realised I was far more familiar with the song from listening to it and learning the words to the best of my ability and as fast as I could. I felt this was needed for our rehearsals to be productive and to not let Perry down as he's my partner and both our work efforts should be the same. 

Although we've started applying emotion to the way we're singing the song I feel like we need to develop this more to truly show our interpretation of the song to the best of our abilities. 

I am really enjoying working with Perry and I feel the progress of the song we're making so far is really promising and I am looking forward to performing it when it's polished! 

We have both been working independently to work on learning the lines and the parts we find more difficult. 

Add more emotion to the way we're singing the song so that our interpretation and characterisation is strong. 

Starts blocking the song and singing it the way we need to stage it in the assessment. 

It Takes Two: Week beginning: Monday 17th March 2014

Week beginning: Monday 17th March 2014

Last week we explored and interpreted the song we would be performing for this duet project, this week we decided to start practising and rehearsing the song with a run-through of it and then deciding on what we needed to work on.

We performed the song the whole way through to discover what areas would need work on and where we could enhance the performance with harmonies, etc.

When going through the song both Perry and I gave each other some notes on each other's performances and what to look out for as it's important to be detailed and accurate in the performance from the start and avoid any routines/habits.

I realised that I was singing slightly too loud at parts and over taking Perry's voice by being too loud. Therefore, I will make sure to use an appropriate volume. I also realised that Perry had already learnt most of the song, where as, I hadn't so I felt that for our rehearsals to develop and for productivity to be strong I needed to learn the song as well too. I felt if I didn't I would be letting my partner down from all the hard work he had put into the song.

From the last project, I learnt that familiarising yourself with the song provides greater help during the rehearsal process and makes you feel far more confident. As this is a duet piece I rely on Perry and he relies on me so for that mutual respect it's important for me to have self-discipline.

In conclusion, I feel that this week was quite productive and we're quite relaxed with our performance at the moment, I do feel that we need to increase our productivity soon so that we're at a comfortable position and the performance isn't affected by us being stressed or frustrated with each other. 

Perry has managed to learn his parts of the song so I feel that I am obligated to learn my parts as soon as possible, I did make it an aim for last week to learn my lines so to stop this affecting our rehearsal process I need to take responsibility in learning my lyrics. 

I think the song we have chosen is a good choice for both our voices and is a reachable challenge for us. Some parts of the song are higher than others and I am quite a low singer so I feel that when it comes to the "Oooohs"I need to make sure I'm comfortable and confident in performing them by continuously practising them. 

After discussing other people's duet ideas, I feel that Perry and I have taken a unique turn to the project and worked together well so far. This gives me confidence in the project and I am taking full advantage with working with someone who I feel happy and comfortable when discussing ideas with. 

I think the more we increase the dynamics of the tones we used the far more impacting the performance will be and vocally challenging for us. The vocal quality we perform could really benefit our performance and help our interpretation of the song. 

I imagine that overall it will benefit us most to continue working on the vocal sides of the song before exploring the blocking in detail. 

I feel like we're utilising our rehearsal time efficiently and are working together well. 

I need to learn my lines to the song so that I feel more comfortable when performing the song. 

Continue with the vocal aspects of the performance and using more emotion in the way the song is sung. 

It Takes Two: Week beginning: Monday 10th March 2014

Week beginning: Monday 10th March 2014

This was our first session for our last project in this unit. For this project we need to get into pairs to perform the unit.

Perry and I decided to partner up as we feel comfortable working with each other and share a great chemistry from working together outside of this unit. We also had similar abilities so we felt we would be perfect to work with each other.

We discussed various songs we could chose and had equal parts for both of us and decided on the song "Stay" sung by Rihanna and Mikky Ekko. We felt we could interpret this song to explore two characters relationship and to develop characteristics of the song which isn't set in stone as much as a musical theatre number would be.

Here are the lyrics to the song "Stay" By Rihanna and Mikky Ekko: 

Red - Me
Black - Perry 
Orange - Both  

"All along it was a fever

A cold sweat hot-headed believer

I threw my hands in the air, said, "Show me something,"

He said, "If you dare, come a little closer."

Round and around and around and around we go

Oh now, tell me now, tell me now, tell me now you know.

Not really sure how to feel about it.

Something in the way you move

Makes me feel like I can't live without you.

It takes me all the way.

I want you to stay

It's not much of a life you're living

It's not just something you take–it's given

Round and around and around and around we go

Oh now, tell me now, tell me now, tell me now you know.

Not really sure how to feel about it.

Something in the way you move

Makes me feel like I can't live without you.

It takes me all the way.

I want you to stay.

Ooh, ooh, ooh, the reason I hold on

Ooh, ooh, ooh, 'cause I need this hole gone

Funny you're the broken one but I'm the only one who needed saving

'Cause when you never see the light it's hard to know which one of us is caving.

Funny you're the broken one but I'm the only one who needed saving

'Cause when you never see the light it's hard to know which one of us is caving.

Not really sure how to feel about it.

Something in the way you move

Makes me feel like I can't live without you.

It takes me all the way.

I want you to stay, stay.

I want you to stay, oh."

We had quite a long discussion on how we could split up the lines to the song to get a sense of conversation between two characters and decided that the most effective way would be what we finally decided. 

I felt that fully discussing this was good as we were listing to each other which is extremely important when working in partners. 

We then informed Alison of our song choice and she gave us the thumbs up so we could then discuss the relationships dynamics of the characters and how we were going to interpret it. Alison informed me that my vocal skills and ability in this project would need to have a bigger focus on and this song would be perfect for me to challenge myself but be a reachable and easier goal to achieve. This meant I wanted to strive for the best and make sure that Perry and I really focused and rehearsed the song so it was a strong vocal and acting performance. 

Perry and I were quite active in discussing our ideas for the staging and background story of the song to enable us a clear understanding of the characters' relationship. We finally came up with the idea of Perry playing a Doctor/Psychiatrist and a patient, played by me, falling in love but due to professionalism and to suppress their feelings for each other. 

We came up with their interpretation by exploring the text in detail and discussing what we thought of it. 

Lines such as: 

"Not really sure how to feel about it"

Could be interpreted as the confusion and frustration of not knowing what to do and how to explore the feelings when it's not accepted for the characters to do so. 

Or: 

"Round and around and around and around we go" 

The character's relationship can't be fully developed and the emotions they're feeling aren't being explored and the professionalism they have to keep is destroying them. 

After spending this session exploring the text and creating an idea of the context to the song and how we were going to perform it meant that now we could focus on learning the song and practising it. 

I felt this session was really productive and doing this interpretation of the song early will help us keep our rehearsals as sustained as possible. 

I'm really excited to work with Perry as I feel that our creativity will help us perform the song to the best of our ability and create an interesting performance. 

We know how to interpret the song and we can begin working on specific characterisations. 

We need to start learning and practising the song as soon as possible to make our rehearsal process as stress-free as possible. 

Begin learning the song so that rehearsals with Perry can be efficient and we can develop the song as much as possible in the following weeks.

It Takes Two: Monday 10th March: Project Brief

Monday 10th March

Project Brief 

"It Takes Two" is our final project for the unit "Singing Skills for Actors and Dancers". In this project we will have to imagine we are a successful member of a West End show and have been asked to take part in a charity event entitled "It Takes Two - The Top Duets of All Time".

The event will be widely publicised and will feature in the national news so costume and props may be used.

We will receive guidance in the choice of partner and song as it is vital that the song chosen will suit both performers and enables each of us to demonstrate our independent ability to characterise the song. We should also think about the relationship between the participates and use a wide range of physical and vocal expression to communicate our interpretation. The song may be from any genre and may be sung either accompanied or to a backing track. We must take responsibility for providing either sheet music or backing tracks in the correct key. The website www.musicnotes.com will be very helpful to us.

We will perform the duet to a public audience.

We will also complete Blog entries for this project and it is here that our singing coach will be able to look over all the work we have done in this unit and assess the improvement in our vocal technique over the entire unit. It is important that we include either video or audience evident of at least two rehearsals on our blog and that we keep a practise diary in which we reflect on strengths and weaknesses and set ourselves SMART targets supported by specific technical exercises.

I'm looking forward to gaining experiences with working another performer to produce a performance fit for an audience and explores relationship between two characters. I'm really excited to start his project and I can't see what this project has to come!