Saturday, 8 October 2016

22/09/16 Lesson Analysis - Audition and initial thoughts on my character

To prepare for my audition I chose two songs that I felt challenged my vocal range. The songs I chose were in the performance of We Will Rock You so that I knew that the songs defiantly matched the musical genre, instead of finding a song that didn't relate to the characters I wanted to audition for as much. I chose 'We are The Champions' as my first song because I felt like this was a slower song than my next choice of 'Find Me Somebody To Love'. We are The Champions is a ballad and therefore it showed the length of my range in ensemble songs as it was more slow and I could show a warm energy to connect with the other members of the cast as they do in the performance.

I feel as though this song went well as I was able to sing it with confidence and I was strong in my vocals and controlled my voice shaking and nerves, which was one of my targets for auditions last year so I now feel as though I have overcome this target and improved my auditions. To improve this song I would have liked to have experimented with the melody and make the song sound my own, because I did it acapella, for example emphasise on some notes and hold some notes longer for emphasis on the ensemble and what this song is representing in the musical- that everyone has one and have overcome what they are trying to achieve in the first place.

I chose my second song 'Find Me Somebody To Love' because the part I was wanting to audition for was Scaramouch, as I felt that I could bring something different to the part and add a sense of seriousness to my characterisation, as I am often cast as a comedy character because it is one of my strengths and I wanted to challenge myself. I feel as though this song went well because my targets from last year was to improve my range for this year and work on 'belting' the notes, and therefore I chose this song because it is one of the most challenging songs in my opinion in terms of range and melody. I was able to belt most of the higher notes with confidence which I feel is a positive in the audition as it showed my strengths for this part, which is a strong female role and I think that if Scaramouch performs this song with confidence then it sets a mood of her character for the rest of the performance in the audience's view. I think that to improve I could now work on my range for the lower notes, because I have improved my singing in terms of 'belting' and using my chest voice to reach the tougher high notes, but I am still not confident in the lower notes as I naturally have a high pitched voice, therefore I think that if I work on reaching the lower notes then it could improve my singing performance more. There was one point in the song after the 3rd verse where the note in the song is jumping from a lower to higher note in the chest voice singing 'yeah' going straight into the 4th verse and this is where I finished the song in the audition. I feel as though this was the most challenging part of the song and didn't perform it to the best of my ability in the audition as I changed singing from my chest voice to my head voice for that one note, and this made my vocals sound weaker for that one note that ended the song, which I feel ruined the rest of my performance because usually the end note is meant to be the most impressive to leave an impression on the audience. Therefore I am going to practice my confidence in the higher notes so that I don't make this mistake again.

For the second part of the audition I had to read a duologue for the character I wanted to play. I wanted to audition for Scaramouch so therefore I read a duologue with Luke for Scaramouch and Galaleo. I think that this went well as I had worked on characterisation before the audition and therefore set a stubborn tone to Scaramouch's character, and I think this was effective because it added humour to the scene, which worked because the show is comedic throughout. I think that another thing that went well was mine and Luke's relationship in our characters throughout the scene. Me and Luke have known each other for a long time, and we had to make it seem like we had never met before this scene, and I think we did this well because I was acting 'rude' towards him through my voice and body language and he was using his voice to come across as interested. To improve I would have liked to have learnt my lines prior to the audition so I could act out the scene better and interacted with Luke. This is what I am going to improve on for my next audition because I also think it is professional to be more prepared to what I was in this audition.

I was given the part of 'Killer Queen' in We Will Rock You, which I was happy about because I said in the interview section of the audition that this is another part I would like to play for the humour as it is one of my strengths. I researched this character after I found out it was the part I would be playing and had already thought of some initial ideas for choreography, costumes and some of the songs. I thought that with the videos I have watched (linked below) of Killer Queen, she is a very subtle powerful person, and uses her power to control and manipulate people without them realising, however I though it would be humorous to play this part as a playful and energetic character, and raise my voice randomly to show the fact that she is crazy, and actually make her seem power-crazy, and that if something doesn't go her way, she will react dramatically as oppose to manipulatively. I thought about redirecting the manipulation side of my character into the playfulness as oppose to being more subtle about it, because therefore it will show that Killer Queen is 'crazy' and has so much power that she uses it more obviously.

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