<p>I've found this fabulous song called "Who Will Love Me As I Am?" from the show Sideshow, but I don't know whether to qualify it as a ballad or and uptempo number. What do you guys think? Is it not distinctly enough one or the other?</p>
<p>Who Will Love Me As I Am is a lovely song and it is a ballad. It is written as a duet, but could be used as an audition piece. Make sure your uptempo piece contrasts.</p>
<p>The difficulties with "Who Will Love Me As I Am" are:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It's a belty ballad, so you need a legit uptempo to contrast it. These exist but are harder to find than legit ballads.</p></li>
<li><p>There is built-in acting "trap" in this song: it is often played too sad ("angsty") for an audition piece. The context in the show is somber, if not sad - but for a general audition piece especially, you need to find an emotional range and allow us to "root" for you by showing some type of positive energy (perhaps hopefulness) along with the more "down" sentiments expressed by the song. This is true of all "sad" ballads used as general audition pieces (meaning when not used to audition for specific shows).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Good luck! :)</p>
<p>Yeah, that's the thing...I agree with Coach C. When picking audition pieces, you have to think of the whole picture of both of your selections. Even if you find a song that is good for you, that selection may preclude certain pieces for your second song. I recall my D finding a good pre-1960 ballad that was belty (her forte) but that would mean her upbeat had to be more legit. That ruled out so many upbeat songs. So, she did away with the belt ballad and tried to make the ballad be the legit song and the upbeat one be the belty one, as you need to contrast your two songs. So, while Who Will Love Me As I Am may work for auditioning for a show where you sing one song for a part, it may be a more difficult choice for a BFA audition where you need two contrasting songs. As Coach C says, a legit uptempo is harder to find than a legit ballad. </p>
<p>It is a great song, however. But as Coach C also says, you may wish to not do a song that is somber, and do a more positive type song. But if you do a sadder song, make sure the other song really contrasts in MOOD, not just tempo and singing skills.</p>
<p>Follow Coach C's advice and she is very well versed in all of this!</p>
<p>Thanks for all the great advice! I think I may have to save this song for another occasion ^_^.</p>
<p>One of the great things of searching for your BFA audition songs, is discovering good songs for yourself to add to your "book of songs" and you can save these as possibilities for one of the many auditions you will have down the line. After BFA auditions, most of your auditions will be for specific shows and often for specific parts and so you'll need a variety of songs for different situations. If this song is good for you, save it in your audition book for the future!</p>