#1 - Favourite Things from The Sound of Music
#2 - Take Me To Heaven from Sister Act
#3 - At Last by Etta James
Reasoning behind choice #1 - 'Favourite Things'
I chose this song because I simply love the musical The Sound of Music! I've grown up loving it and when I was little I used to watch this scene with the song over and over again. I love the maternal essence Julie Andrews has with the character and her relationships with each of them during the thunderstorm. Throughout college, my class have repeatedly called me 'the Mother hen' of the group and therefore I feel this song fits me well. The song isn't necessarily hard to sing, which means I can add a variety of riffs into it and focus on good vibrato without having to worry about hitting some of the notes. If wanting to act it, this will also be able to do as I can apply this to the tone and vocal quality of my voice.
One thing to say about this one is that whenever this song gets into my head, it becomes very difficult to stop singing it as it has quite a repetitive tune!
In the musical, this song is performed right after Liesel has come back to the house from being with Rolf. A thunderstorm has erupted, and she climbs through the window of Maria's room to which Maria notices. Instead of telling the Captain, she gives Liesel dry clean clothes and lets her get changed in the bathroom. Meanwhile, the thunder and lightening become more deafening, causing the rest of the children to come barging into Maria's room, scared of the loud sounds from outside. When the other 6 come in to join them, Maria sings them this song to calm them down right before being caught by the Captain for being up so late.
Piano or backing track? I decided to go with piano music for this song. I looked everywhere for instrumental versions of this song and ended up buying one from iTunes. Unfortunately, when I listened to the whole thing, it sounded very 'karaoke' like and put me off a backing track completely. I think that if you are to have a backing track, it should sound as though you are performing to the real thing, rather than a piece of music someone's put together on Reason. With this decision, I went on to buying the score from the internet.
Reasoning behind choice #2 - 'Take Me To Heaven'
I actually hadn't heard of this song until Hannah W played it to me, this time last year. Ever since then, we always sing it around one another and characterise it due to Deloris Van Cartier being quite a diva. I looked into the song online and watched quite a few YouTube clips of the musical. It's extremely comical and some of the songs have room for comedy additions. This song however isn't as comical without the dialogue; because of this spoken text, I'm not going to perform this part of the song - just the singing. It's not necessarily the funniest song but it is quick-paced, groovy and has room for Deloris' cheeky character hidden within it.
Personally whenever anyone has heard me sing, a lot of people often say I have somewhat of a 'black' sounding voice with a rich, wholesome tone to it. This means that songs sung by black performers tend to welcome my singing voice a bit more than white performers' songs. I see this as a positive as I really enjoy singing soul/motown/r&b music. In addition to this, because it's a 'musical' song, it makes it even better to sing to.
One thing that this song has that, 'Favourite Things' doesn't is the high and challenging range that's needed to be sung. The song has a few changes in tempo and style. For example to start it is well-driven, whereas half-way through the middle of the song it changes to being more laid-back and relaxed. In these changes, this is where it begins to get difficult as Deloris hits numerous notes which are all quite tricky for me. I feel however that with this song I will be able to improve on my abilities in the time given, for it to sound reasonably decent.
This song is based at the very beginning of the musical after the short prologue about the convent needing being in need. Deloris Van Cartier is performing this song to her gangster boyfriend, Curtis Shank, in his nightclub. She claims it's her birthday and is performing this song in the hope that Curtis will introduce her to a record producer that day. When this doesn't happen, Deloris is frustrated and upset thus shifting her to the next song in the musical.
Piano or backing track? For this song, similarly to the one before, I have chosen to use a piano score. I looked at instrumental versions of this song online and could only find one. Although this one sounded 'real' and unique, the only thing letting it down was that you could still hear the performer singing it in the background really quietly. I figured this wasn't good as if it were being performed on a loud stereo system and I'm quieter than the backing track, you would be able to hear the performer's singing and would lose its touch. I therefore bought the piano score; it looks difficult to play but I have faith in Gary who will be there to play it for me.
Reasoning behind choice #3 - 'At Last'
'At Last' has always been a favourite of mine to sing. Whenever I have the house to myself, I sing this song with multiple riffs anywhere I can put them. It's an old jazzy song which therefore means I think it suits my voice well. There are a couple of moments in this song that are a little too high for me, however I don't see this as a worry as when I'm 'in the moment' of singing this song, I don't seem to worry about the high parts, thus me being able to hit them with a small amount of ease. Etta James' song is extremely well known and the meaning behind the song has an incredible amount of emotion in it. I feel that I will be able to do this if I practise it well enough. I believe that a difference in tone, vocal quality and different dynamics will help me achieve this. The one thing that will challenge me on this would be the lyrics. Even though I'm perfectly literate with english grammar, with this particular song, I find it difficult to remember the order of verses due to them all being fairly similar.
This song is all about finding the one person you love. By looking at the lyrics, it suggests that the singer was upset and lonely beforehand. The song exudes her feelings and emotion as to how happy she is to finally be in love. She sings of when she sees this person 'smile' and how they're both in heaven to have finally found one another.
Piano or backing track? For this final song, I've decided to go with a backing track. My main reason for this is so that it adds variety in my 3 choices. In the backing track the strings section at the beginning of the song really adds emotion and feel to the piece, however when looking and listening to it on a piano score, it doesn't quite have the same effect as listening to an orchestra play it all together. Another reason for having a backing track is that all of my timings will be the same as I rehearse them. With a piano, I know that Gary would play it to follow my singing, therefore it would be much easier to practise with a backing track when the instrumental backing is the same every time in rehearsal.
To summarise:
- 2 of them are from musicals and 1 is an actual song
- I have an easy, a medium and a hard song (#1, #3 and #2)
- 1 is maternal, 1 is upbeat and fun and the other is about love
- They're all female songs
- They're all achievable
- They can all be acted out or properly 'performed' with emotion
- 2 of them are being done on the piano and the other is through backing track
Target for the project:
- To apply exercises to my songs in order to help me achieve them to a high standard.
- To practise regularly.
- To pay close attention to where I'm going wrong, so I can correct myself and put them right.
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