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Hi everybody!
My name is Justin Stoney and I'm the founder of
New York Vocal Coaching here in New York City.
Welcome to episode 59 of Voice Lessons To The World.
The show where we want to help you guys as singers
by answering your questions from all over.
And I'll give you a chance to ask questions later
but our question for this week comes from
Hannah M. in Hayden Idaho.
And Hannah writes, "Dear Justin, can you help me find some great
musical theatre audition songs?
Yes Hannah.
Yes yes yes, I think I can.
Because so many of our singers and actors here in New York
are Broadway performers or aspiring Broadway
musical theatre actors, singers, and dancers.
So we know the importance of having great audition material.
Actually sometimes how you present yourself can be
even more important than talent itself.
You need to have the right audition songs to
present yourself well at musical theater auditions.
It's one of the keys to being a successful Broadway performer.
So first, I see this mistake a lot.
People having books that look something like this
for their Broadway auditions.
Instead of something that looks like this for their Broadway auditions.
Now if you're an actor and you go to an audition
and you see another actor that has this kind of songbook,
don't let that intimidate you.
This is actually not such a great idea.
Even though you might think,
oh boy I don't have that many songs.
Maybe I don't have what it takes.
No, actually this is not a wise strategy.
You don't want to have hundreds of songs
that you're singing for auditions.
That's not sustainable nor can those songs
actually be all at audition level.
Really it's about having quality and not quantity.
So a smaller, more warhorse, ferocious kind of book,
this is what we're looking for, for auditions.
So now, what should be in this book?
Today's Broadway world is extremely diverse.
You've got basically three categories.
Traditional musical theatre, contemporary musical theater,
and pop & rock musicals.
Traditional would be more of the older stuff.
Contemporary musical theater is the newer.
And pop & rock is musicals that are using pop & rock songs
to drive the story.
So for your audition book we want to
represent those categories well.
You are going to need a ballad and an up-tempo
in each of those three categories.
A ballad is a slower song that's usually
more sung, more emotional and perhaps more intimate.
Whereas an up-tempo is faster it has more personality
more life and sometimes more comedy to it.
So if you have a ballad and an up-tempo
in all three of those categories,
traditional, contemporary, and pop rock,
that's six songs.
It's not that many.
But if these are great songs
that's going to cover you for probably about 90% of auditions.
Then from there if you want to throw in
a jazz or country song, maybe a song from
another style that you're very good at.
That can be a good idea.
You might want a comedy song that is
particularly funny or quirky or different
just to spice things up on the comedy side.
You might want to find a song that is a perfect role for you.
If there's a dream role or a part that you just think
you're perfect for, maybe have a song from that show just in case.
Another thing is, if there's a song
that means a lot to you, that's very personal to you,
that's another thing that you might want to
include in your audition book.
But then we're talking about six to perhaps twelve songs.
Again that's not that many songs.
But if all of them are excellent songs.
You're going to be covered for every one of your auditions.
The Broadway singers that I have who are having
a lot of success always are doing it that way.
They're bringing in the same material every single time
because they know it works.
It's a mistake even though it seems wise
to try to suit your audition song to the audition that you're doing.
In other words, I see actors all the time
scrambling, scrambling to find the right audition song
for their upcoming audition.
This is not a good idea.
Even if you do find the perfect song,
you haven't worked on it for that long,
it's not in your body, it's not in your voice,
and you've got this energy of scrambling
to get the right thing versus saying these are the songs that I do.
Let the casting team bend to you a little bit.
Bring in what you do.
Do it very well.
And then let them say let's try this other song on for size.
Let them call you back.
Put a little bit more of the pressure on them
so that it's not always on you to be trying to
suit the needs of everybody that you're performing for.
It's a much more confident energy and it tends to
help people get many more parts
and a lot more success taking that approach.
Finding what you do and sticking to it.
So now how do we find the exact right songs
that are going to suit those categories that I talked about?
Let's come up with some ideas.
First of all we want to be aware of your age and your type.
You don't want the songs in your book to be too old or too young.
You also want to be aware of what's your type.
Are you a leading man?
Are you an ingénue?
You don't need to stick to strictly to them.
You might be, for example, a character leading man.
That's an acceptable type.
So, you can bend it a little bit but you
don't want to be way off as far as the type of character
that you're portraying in the songs that you do.
The other thing is don't do songs that are too overdone.
We might love songs that are from shows like Wicked
or Les Mis or Phantom of the Opera.
But these songs have been played out so many times
they're not really good audition songs.
It looks a little amateurish to bring in something
that is so well known.
On the other hand you don't want to pick something too obscure.
A lot of times actors think that they found some rare
and obscure gem of a song that nobody has
and nobody's heard of it before.
Actually if nobody's heard it before and it's very obscure
there might actually be a reason for that.
It might actually not be so great.
Alright, so actually if you bring in a song that's too weird
the casting team is thinking what the heck is this song?
And they're not thinking about you and about your performance.
So try to pick something that's not too overdone
but also not too off the beaten path.
Also your pop & rock songs that you pick for your book
they need to really be pop & rock songs.
Broadway world doesn't love it when they say bring a pop song
and you bring something from a poppy musical.
No you want to bring something from the radio.
A pop or rock song that you might hear on the radio
from a real pop & rock artist.
Broadway is doing a lot of real rock artists these days.
So you don't want to sing a Broadway sound with a little rock.
You want to sing something that's actually a rock song.
Next you want to make sure that you're not trying
to impress anybody with the things that are in this book, right?
It seems like an audition is the time to shine, the time to impress,
this is another huge mistake that actors make in their auditions.
I promise you they're not going to be impressed.
Casting directors make it their job to not be impressed.
They've seen it all from the worst to the best.
And they're just trying to cast the show.
They're not trying to be impressed with you.
So don't try to impress them.
That means don't sing too high for no reason.
Don't sing too loud for no reason.
You don't need to be belting it out.
And you don't need to prove anything to anybody.
You're not trying to impress.
You are enough.
If you come in with material that you love
that says something about you and if you say it truthfully
and it shows off your voice pretty well,
that is a great audition.
Because now we get to know you,
and we can decide are you right for this show or not?
So don't try to impress with your material.
Find stuff that really reflects who you are
and also what you have to say.
One more note on this material...
Know that the Broadway world will sometimes say
we would like a head voice.
We would like a mix, or we would like a belt.
Now we've talked about these things on the show right?
About different registers of your voice.
So when you're a female especially,
you're going to need songs that are in your head voice
and then also songs that are in your belt and mix.
Make sure that you've got all your registers covered
in the songs that you choose.
So one more thing is what is a 16-bar?
Because many auditions will call for a 16-bar.
Well, a 16-bar cut means 16 measures, right?
So for the songs that you choose for your book
you're going to need the full song
but you're also going to need a 16-bar cut.
Now 16-bars is really not that long.
It's usually about 30 seconds.
And most of the time you do want it to be exactly 16 measures long.
But let's say it's a double-time song,
it's doubly fast, then it could be 32-bars.
But we want it to be around 30 seconds.
It's more of a feel, but it's real this is
how long you have in auditions many times sometimes 30 seconds.
And actually these days they're even doing 8-bar cuts
which means you might have 15 or 20 seconds
in the audition room to show what you do.
So how do you find the 16-bar?
Usually it's going to be the last 16 of the song.
But it could also be any 16-bar within the song.
Just as long as it has a clear start and end
and tells a little bit of a message and
has a note that you want to display.
Perhaps one of your high notes.
That's what a 16-bar is all about.
Is getting you in and out showing something clear, very quickly.
So identify the best 16-bars of your song.
The best 16 measures.
And make sure you have that marked for your audition book.
And then one last note, you guys know me.
I love the voice, I love to help you guys as singers.
But really, I want you to know your Broadway auditions
are not all about the singing.
I wish that they were.
As a voice teacher I wish that we could all
just sit back and say wow that was the best voice
we heard all day let's cast that person.
But it's really not about the voice.
You need to know with what music that you pick
and then also the auditions that you do
that you need to act first, sing second.
Make sure that the acting value
what you're saying, why you're saying it,
and are you very clear on the story that you're telling?
Make sure that that's the first priority and let the voice follow.
I promise that it will but if you're worried about
how you sound or picking songs where you try to sound great
that's really not the right focus for your auditions.
So, Hannah and everybody, I hope that that gives you
a good path for developing a fierce
warhorse Broadway audition book
and I hope that all of this has been helpful for you
guys today as singers.
If you've got questions that you'd like to see us
answer on the show, you can send an email to
Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com.
And we just encourage you don't lose the joy,
don't lose the passion, don't let anybody tell you
that you can't sing.
You and I both know it's not true.
Don't let them tell you that you can't audition [♪]
for Broadway or for musical theatre. [♪]
Go after it and find the greatest material for your book. [♪]
So that you can really shine in auditions. [♪]
If you guys are in New York City [♪]
and you'd like to study with one of our staff [♪]
you can visit us at www.NewYorkVocalCoaching.com. [♪]
And if you like these videos I do encourage you to [♪]
download our free app. [♪]
It's for iPhone, iPad, and hopefully more in the future. [♪]
And if you like these videos you can also visit [♪]
www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com. [♪]
I'm Justin Stoney. [♪]
We'll see you next time. [♪]
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