Audition Materials

<p>I also recommend a "friend listening" club. A group of like minded friends each pony up the money for two or three CDs, and then the members swap CDs for research/listening. It's much less expensive than buying everything you might be interested in.</p>

<p>Also, check out the Public library system. Believe it or not, our local Cypress (CA) houses the majority of the musical theatre song books and scores, for the entire county. If the county libraries will do an interlibrary loan (with other public systems), that would be a worthwhile research venue, too.</p>

<p>eve</p>

<p>Hi, brdwybound:</p>

<p>I have ordered the 16-bar Theatre Audition books for my intro to Musical Theatre class, and am interested to see what you think of them. I think it is a great resource for beginners to start research with. I wouldn't worry about the material being overdone; but it is always best to run your ideas past a coach or teacher who is "in the know" about current audition trends (especially overdone material).</p>

<p>Love to hear what you think of the book,</p>

<p>eve</p>

<p>I've looked at the books, and think for anyone with a decent MT music collection, there is little new. And, for the most part, the cuts are obvious. However, for someone starting out, it may be a way to become acquainted with a lot of rep fairly quickly.</p>

<p>I would liken it to the discussions about monologues - while it's okay to find one in a monologue book, you still need to go back and read the entire play; likewise on the music - find a cut you like - but PLEASE learn the entire song as well.</p>

<p>Thanks, MusThCC! That's what I suspected, but thought that our true "newbies" will find it helpful to get something to bring to class to work on. It's a really terrifying thing for many of them, first musical theatre class, choose a song without any teacher input (other than approving it or not).</p>

<p>I appreciate your quick, candid response.</p>

<p>eve</p>

<p>Thanks for all your help! I haven't made my decision about ordering the book yet because many of the songs in the book are ones I already know and have the music too. I think once school starts I'm going to get some help from my old music teacher who has hundreds of musical theatre sheet music books, and possibly check out a local library that has some CDs so I can get a feel for some new songs. </p>

<p>Thanks again!</p>

<p>Bumping up for newbies</p>

<p>Here is some advice from British director Simon Dunmore on auditioning. <a href="http://www.simon.dunmore.btinternet.co.uk/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.simon.dunmore.btinternet.co.uk/&lt;/a> Click on the link on the left for "Advice on auditioning for drama school." It is specifically for British drama schools but I think most of it applies to US drama and MT schools as well. Also make sure you look at the link on the left for his list of "Playwright's Worth Exploring for Audition Material."</p>

<p>Howdy everyone :)</p>

<p>Just thought I'd share some information and resources that have taken me a LONG time to obtain and figure out! lol.</p>

<p>on finding sheet music:
-visit your library and look for some broadway songbooks (they may be organized by composers, shows, style of voices, etc)
-visit <a href="http://www.sheetmusicplus.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.sheetmusicplus.com&lt;/a> and click on their "Broadway" link. They have all kinds of books with sheet music.
-if you are in a hurry, or have a particular SONG in mind, <a href="http://www.musicnotes.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.musicnotes.com&lt;/a> is AMAZING! You Pay Per Song and you can instantly download and print the sheet music you need. You can also (if it is a certain format) TRANSPOSE the song to fit your voice! And you can preview how it will sound. It costs roughly $4-5 for each song. NOTE: I found a coupon code for 15% off: MNCABIN. Use it when you checkout!</p>

<p>-Side note: there are different types of books you can buy. Some are categorized by composer (eg Gershwin), show (eg hicago), random (eg Broadway's Best), and also by STYLE OF VOICE (eg BASS/BARITONE).
There are anthologies that have all songs for a specific voice part (for bass/baritone, tenor, mezz soprano, belter, duets, etc). Specifically, "The Singer's Musical Theatre Anthology" seems to have several volume for each part and has a great selection. You can also purchase accompaniment CDs to go with the anthology.</p>

<p>you can also look on eBay & eBayStores for used copies at cheaper prices.</p>

<p>Look around those sites and you should find what you need (especially if the library or Barnes n Noble don't have a good selection)!</p>

<p>Hope this helps :) I'm still learning about all of this but I wish I didn't have to figure it out mostly myself - So now you know :)</p>

<p>Anyone else who has info/resources, don't hesitate to add theM!</p>