Singing Musical Theater –

Classical and Musical Theater Technique (Part 1 of 3)

Spring and summer months often find voice studios and voice students focused on singing musical theater repertoire. What a fun time with so many high school musical productions. The fever for musical theater gets started.  Singers want to sing this repertoire and improve their voices for next year’s opportunities.  Dancers want to work on their singing and acting.  Actors and actresses want to work on their singing and dancing to get a better part next year.  The summer is such a great time to work on all three to improve your skill sets and have fun performing.  (Contact Susan about Summer Musical Theater Series opportunity at susananders@aol.com!)

When a singer wants to learn to sing musical theater, he or she should first establish a solid classical technique. “If you have safe and good classical technique, you can learn to sing anything.  For a classical student studying musical theater, focus on communicating the words and putting a little more spoken word into the song”.  (Florence Birdwell, singing teacher of Kristin Chenoweth, Lara Teeter, Kellie O’Hara)  (Buccleugh, Kathleen Farrar, “Know Your Voice”, Classical Singer, April 2012.) http://www.classicalsinger.com/magazine

By learning the fundamentals and physiology of singing, you learn how to sing in a healthy way.  Aligning the breath, posture, and support puts your singing on a stable plane.  Once you master that you work on understanding your individual instrument. 

Where does your voice change in character?  What vowels work best for you through tough spots?  How do you make your voice work through your transition points?  After that, you can explore where your passions lie (musical theater, pop, country).  Figure out how YOU sing a song best.

Getting a firm base in technique will guide your singing to where it can and should go based both on your passions and physical capabilities.  Find out more about agility of the singing voice in my next blog.  What can singing classical music do for your musical theater repertoire?