<p>I am a high school music teacher. My training is classical voice and I specialize in music theory education. While I do not teach musical theatre myself, I have a lot of students who come to me for advice. Many of my students have lists and ideas about what songs they they want to sing for college musical theatre auditions. </p>
<p>I try to send them off to my more knowledgeable colleagues, but one of the colleagues I thought was knowledgeable about this has started sending some kids out there with Jason Robert Brown material which seems (to me) unsuitable.</p>
<p>I also read somewhere that colleges don't like kids to audition with Sondheim songs. </p>
<p>Is there any kind of written guideline out there that tells what is inappropriate for college musical theatre auditions?</p>
<p>pageturner, what do you mean by "inappropriate"?</p>
<p>Some colleges don't want kids to choose to sing from Jason Robert Brown because the music is difficult for some accompanists to play. It's not the content of the songs: it's the music.</p>
<p>Ditto, apparently, for some Sondheim songs.</p>
<p>In the "classical" world, there is a general consensus of songs and arias that we would not recommend for a high school student to sing, due to the vocal difficulty of the piece: for example, for years, Puccini's aria "Vissi d'arte" was in the NYSSMA manual as a level 6. Most teachers now agree that that aria shouldn't be in the repertory until a student is in graduate school. It is no longer in the manual.</p>
<p>With the Sondheim, my impression was that the songs (not all, of course) are too mature/heavy (character-wise). From what I have been hearing from Jason Robert Brown (the potential audition pieces I have heard, anyway), those songs are huge- almost aria-like in content. It seems to be a lot for a 17 year old.</p>
<p>I understand about the accompaniments. My concern is for those young voices. But, maybe I am wrong. </p>
<p>(given the perfect accompanist) Is any musical theatre song fair game for auditions?</p>
<p>pageturner....you can look on some of the websites of the MT BFA programs and see the specific examples suggested for audition songs. It has become as specific as not using anything popular and current because it is so overdone, ie. something from "Wicked", or "Phantom", etc., etc. Some will even say to use something that was written for a musical theatre play prior to 1960. On the same note, they say no Shakespeare, or accents/dialects to be used in monologues, so I think if you look at some of the links you will find it helpful.</p>
<p>I guess what I would like is a general statement to say "look at this, keep away from that" since I think the kids should practice so they do a few songs very well, rather than a whole bunch of songs in a mediocre way.</p>
<p>Plus, I don't want anyone at the auditions to say "You have no business doing that piece!" (something that is often said in the classical world-and I hate that).</p>
<p>There is a series of very good books that I bought for my son that has songs for Musical Theatre in the different ranges and they are already cut to a 16 bar size. You could probably recommend those as they seem to be pretty dependable. The name is "The 16-Bar Theatre Audition". Each book has about 100 songs excerpted for successful auditions. These books can be ordered from Amazon or some books stores have them in stock or can order them. There is one for Soprano, Belter (Mezzo-Soprano), Tenor, and Baritone/Bass. My s attends a performing arts high school and his teachers and department heads like these books very much..they are kept in the musical theatre directors office for students to borrow. Hope this helps. :)</p>
<p>Hi page, I will give the general guidlines for selecting audtions songs for college auditions.
1. First thing make sure it suits your vocal range and fits your personality.
2. Make sure you can sing the heck out it. If you can't belt properly, don't
do it.
3. Do not use anything from a show currently on Broadway.
4. Do not use anything from a recent hit, ex: Les Mis, anything from Disney.
5. Over used songs, the ones everyone knows, On the Street Where You Live,
I Could Have Danced All Night, Luck Be a Lady, etc.
6. Do not use a song that is a signature song for a well known performer, you
be compared.
7. Do not use an accent, do not wear a costume, but do act the song, you
need to connect emotionally with the song.
8. All audition programs have guidelines on their websites, follow them.
9. Always have a back up song in each required area.
10. Have your music prepared properly, in a black binder on non reflective
paper (not in sheet protectors) properly marked, tabbed and two tables of
contents.</p>
<p>I undertand your concern with regard to more difficult music and young voices, I have not heard of an audition pannel expressing concern for a young voice singing music that was too difficult in the MT world, it differs greatly there from the VP world.</p>
<p>Is it a bad idea to choose a musical theatre song that is not from an "actual' musical for college auditions? Some schools stress the pieces being from a musical or operetta but some just say 'musical theatre' songs.... I hope that made sense...</p>
<p>NMR, one example is that there are musical composers who have written MT songs but these are not part of a full fledged musical theater production.....there are MT composers, for instance, that have songbooks out of their MT songs.</p>
<p>I think a "must have" for any music educator interested in MT, is a series of books with sheet music for songs in a particular range readily available called the The Singer's Musical Theatre Analogy. There are now also accompaniment CD's available. </p>
<p>One word of caution however, although there is a lot of positive use for them, please know that there is also a lot of "overdone material" in there, and it may be wise to focus on mastering some of the lesser known material.</p>