What are you trying to prove?

In the last blog, I shared some ideas from So You Want to Sing Cabaret about how the role of the voice is to be in service to the text of the songs we are singing. This shifts our goal from making the most beautiful sounds possible to making the sounds that most appropriately express the lyrics. 

In the book, authors David Sabella and Sue Matsuki also identify what they consider to be the main objective for technical voice study when it comes to singing cabaret: "...to enhance the singer's vocal ability and options safely and effectively, giving them a greater facility with which to complete the storytelling while at the same time never calling attention to that technical ability while performing." They provide an example of an inappropriate use of the voice if, for instance, a soft, intimate song is sung with a fully resonant vocal quality. In this case, as they say, "we are taken out of the story and confronted with a use of voice that tells us more about the singer's vocal training than the story being told."  

They believe there are two primary reasons singers often make these choices. The first is that decades of pop and rock music has conditioned society's vocal performance tastes to a "higher, louder, longer" mentality. "Even in classical music," they say, "holding a note higher, louder, and longer—as if it were a test of endurance—is applauded." In these times, listeners are practically forced to pay attention to the skills of the singer rather than the meaning of the text.

A second reason singers make these technique-first performance choices, according to the authors, is that they feel they have to prove to everyone that they have a good voice or a solid technique. Sabella and Matsuki remind readers that, at the level of professional performance, we all assume that the singers onstage can, in fact, sing. They shouldn't need to prove that. As they write, this attitude sometimes has the opposite effect: "Very often it is the singer's own need to prove that they can sing that unfortunately backfires and results in highlighting a technical deficit, which might otherwise have gone unnoticed." 

Now, maybe the goals of a performance within a university theatre department are different from a performance on a professional stage. Maybe, in this program, you feel like you have to put your vocal skills on display because that is how you believe you are being evaluated and graded. Naturally, one of the goals of vocal study is to build technique, which is something we hope to see in your performances. But, as we discussed in the last blog, the reason we build vocal technique is so that we have as wide a range of vocal colors as possible so that we are better equipped to express the full gamut of emotional states our characters experience. So we're not just looking for a demonstration of ability. We want to see how you use your technique to tell a compelling story.

As Sabella and Matsuki put it, "the singer must continue to work on the mastery of vocal technique to complete the vocal gesture without the anxiety of needing to prove their own merit." 

We're all works in progress. None of us have an absolutely flawless technique. But when we get to performance time, it's no longer about building technique. It's about using our current capabilities to create dynamic characters. Coming into the final performances of the semester, you may entertain this question from So You Want to Sing Cabaret: 

"Are you willing to trust that the vocal training you have had resides within you and does not need to be proven to your audience?" 

Thanks for a wonderful semester. I'm grateful for all of you. Let's finish strong. 

Now go practice.

The Beauty Isn't

For a long time, the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), which is the largest organization of singing teachers in the world, only encouraged classical and operatic styles of singing. There were many members who were convinced that singing in any other genre (jazz, pop, and *gasp* musical theatre!) was inherently unhealthy and anyone undertaking such risky behavior was on the path to vocal ruin. 

Although there are some folks who still believe this, their numbers are diminishing, in part because organizations like NATS have done an about face. NATS now wholeheartedly embraces the fact that all genres of music can be performed in healthy and expressive ways when appropriate, style-specific techniques are taught. 

To help lead the charge of change, NATS has sponsored the So You Want to Sing series of books dedicated to promoting the styles and techniques of non-classical genres. The first book in the series is So You Want to Sing Music Theater. The last book—the twentieth—is called So You Want to Sing Cabaret, which I'm currently reading. I'm learning quite a bit about what distinguishes true cabaret from other genres and how it can be performed authentically. For instance, a cabaret is NOT just standing on stage and singing through a list of your favorite musical theatre songs. Even so, there is still a lot of crossover between cabaret singing and musical theatre singing. Many of the best-known composers of the songs in The Great American Songbook, which are often used in cabaret performances, are also musical theatre composers (Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, etc.). 

One distinguishing factor of cabaret, however, is the primacy of text. As stated by authors David Sabella and Sue Matsuki:  

"The voice must remain in service to the lyric at all costs. At all costs!...Professional use of the voice dictates that there is no correct sound. The right sound is simply the best sound for the story you are telling, which is not necessarily the prettiest sound you can make... It is not a dangerous or unsafe sound, to be sure. It is simply the sound that best communicates the lyric and aids in storytelling." (p.121)

We could argue that this should hold true in musical theatre, as well, and I think that most of the time it does. But there are some realities of the genre that may prevent a truly lyric-driven performance 100% of the time. For instance, cabaret performance venues are generally small and intimate. Even so, the singers perform with a hand-held microphone, not so much to be heard but to allow for a wider variety of vocal sounds and dynamics. Musical theatre venues are often much larger and can involve large orchestras instead of small combos. Although actors in musicals also sing with microphones, the mics are usually taped to the singers' faces at a fixed distance. This helps amplify the sound but doesn't allow individual actors to get closer or farther away from the mic for expressive purposes. 

That being said, we often spend so much time trying to create beautiful vocal sounds that we sometimes forget that, in a text-first genre like theatre, the most expressive and appropriate sound may not always be the most beautiful sound. Characters who are emotionally devastated or who are infuriated are probably unlikely to express themselves with perfectly balanced chiaroscuro tones. As Sabella and Matsuki say, that doesn't mean you should aim to make unhealthy or unsustainable sounds. But the reason we build vocal technique is so that we have as wide a range of vocal colors as possible so that we are better equipped to express the full gamut of emotional states our characters experience. If we only build the "pretty" sounds, we're limiting our options. 

In summarizing their thoughts on the topic, the authors pose this question: 

"Are you willing to sacrifice that which, through ardent vocal training, you have previously perceived as 'correct,' such as beauty of tone or range, in favor of lyric delivery and believability should the storytelling warrant it?" (p.121) 

As we prepare for vocal juries and class finals, you may start taking a deeper look at your tonal goals. While staying within the bounds of good vocal health, see if there are places in your songs where beautiful sounds may actually detract from the story or the character. And then dare to be more beast than beauty. 

Now go practice.