Picking Songs

College Majors Musical Theater Major
1

<p>Hi All,</p>

<p>Still very new to the site and feeling very overwhelmed with all that needs to be done to prepare for upcoming auditions. One of the hardest things at the moment is trying to find 3 great songs. For those who have gone through this, how in the world do you pick? My daughter's voice coach is wonderful but not when it comes to picking songs. He seems to give her songs that are too old for her. I could really use help for those of you who have done this, i've seen that many of the kids go in with 3 songs and the school may pick 2. Was there any rhyme or reason to the songs they chose? Did you go for lesser known songs, well known songs, songs from a Broadway show, songs from Musical Theatre composers that may not have been performed in an actual show yet. Golden Era, Modern, yikes! </p>

<p>My daughter is a mezzo soprano, can hit high notes and loves both comedic and ballad pieces. I would love suggestions of favorite composers, even specific pieces to look at. We both are feeling like we are analyzing these songs way too closely, trying to find the "perfect" songs. We get that its how you perform it that matters but when is a song "too" well known or not known at all? Help? </p>

2

<p>It all depends on what schools you’re looking at, but all schools ask for two contrasting pieces. This usually means one ballad (more of a legato line) and one up-tempo, and some schools will also ask that one be from classical musical theatre repertoire (generally this means before 1965 I believe, but the schools that require this will specify a cut-off year). I myself am going through this process as well and am also having trouble finding adequate songs, and there aren’t as many songs for us guys as there are for girls (at least according to my teachers and my research but I could be wrong). I just finished reading Mary Anna Dennard’s book “I Got In” and she provided many different ways you can approach the audition piece search, so I recommend looking at that as well!</p>

<p>There is a website called Stage Agent where you can search for audition pieces and filter results by gender, voice type, song type (ballad/up-tempo), and show era. Just be careful with this website because many of the results are songs that are quite overdone these days, so make sure to cross-reference the results with a “Do Not Sing” list, which you can find somewhere here on CC I believe (??). And also, their results for contemporary songs seem to stop at a certain year as there are no songs from the past 3 to 4 years of new musicals.</p>

<p>Also, make sure to pick songs that are age-appropriate. I find it helpful to google composers, see what shows they’ve done, look at the character breakdown of the show to see if there are any of a relatable age, and then see if they have any songs (can be a solo or even an extended solo section in a duet or chorus number, since the full song is not needed at auditions). I’ve done this a few times and have discovered numerous songs that I did not know of before from shows that I didn’t even know existed.</p>

<p>Final words of advice: Don’t choose a song from Les Miz or Wicked, sometimes Andrew Lloyd Webber is frowned upon, and also Sondheim and Jason Robert Brown are not recommended due to difficulty for the accompanist to cold read and also most of their pieces contain mature content.</p>

<p>This is what I know from my own research, it might not all be accurate but I hope it helps!</p>

3

<p>First place to start are “do not sing” lists- which may help with what NOT to do. Here is a conversation on this topic from the forum, if you Google, I recall others online, sometimes even from specific colleges.</p>

<p><a href=“Do not sing list - Musical Theater Major - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/1615618-do-not-sing-list.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Now, there are those who will tell you go with you gut, and do what you love/are good at- and to heck with everything else. That can be very valid advice, passion shows. BUT, I have shared an anecdote before that is worth retelling. One of D’s best friends is an really talented young man; great singer, good dancer- ridiculously handsome, already has and agent in nyc… everything you think would give you an edge in the process. When it came time to choose songs- he decided what he wanted to sing, and nothing else would do. He sang two songs from shows currently on Byway (one from a character MUCH older than 18), and a song in an accent. He will be attending a BFA program (that I will decline to name here) which he considered his “safety”, he was declined by his top programs (which I will also decline to name) Now- are there a million factors, of course there are. But at one of his auditions he was asked why he had chosen songs that were “do nots”…and he has been left questioning his choices. Just sayin’</p>

4

<p>Another word of caution - carefully follow the guidelines for each school For example, when Michigan says 16 bars, they mean 16 bars and not one more. The girl in front of my daughter at the Michigan audition accidentally sang her 32 bar cut of a song and was chastised strongly because of it. She should have stopped the accompanist when she realized he was playing the 32 bar cut instead of the 16 bar cut, but she didn’t. And she was quickly dismissed.
Totally opposite? Carnegie Mellon said if they were counting the number of bars you were singing instead of paying attention to your singing, then something besides the number of bars was wrong with your selection. Of course they want your cut close to the number of bars requested, but they are not counting every measure. So like everything else in this process, nothing is absolute for all schools. My advice is to err on the side of being precise with the number of bars requested, just in case someone is counting.</p>

<p>Our D’s book had six songs in it, broken down as follows:
1 16 bar cut ballad
1 16 bar cut up tempo
1 32 bar cut ballad
1 32 bar cut up tempo
1 pre-1965 selection (this was her up-tempo piece)
1 more contemporary, but not current piece (this was her ballad)
1 classical piece in a foreign language (needed for Bachelor of Music schools like OCU, NYU Steinhard, Baldwin Wallace, etc.)
1 art song in any language (needed for Bachelor of Music schools)
1 pop song
1 Disney song</p>

<p>She was asked for all but the pop song at some point during the audition process. Because each song had two different cuts (16 bars and 32 bars), it helped her to have separate copies of the same piece for each different cut in her book. That made it easy to show the accompanist what to play rather than trying to mark the different cuts on the same sheet of music.<br>
Do not put anything in your book you don’t sing well and have prepared. Better to have 3-4 polished pieces than 6-8 if you are crossing your fingers they don’t ask to hear half of them :)</p>

<p>Another thing to think about if going to Unifieds, you may need a track with the piano accompaniment for some schools. Our D’s vocal coach recorded accompaniment for all of her cuts/songs which she kept on her phone. She used these both to practice with and had them at the ready should she need them during an audition, along with a speaker to play them on. I believe she only used the recorded music for one audition (CCM) at Unifieds. Most of her auditions did have an accompanist present - even a couple who said to bring recorded accompaniment. So bring your book and your recorded accompaniment to all auditions just to be prepared for whatever is needed that day.</p>

<p>You will find most people spend so much time researching and agonizing over song and monologue choices that you will not get many specific song recommendations on CC. </p>

<p>As far as what songs to pick, my advice is:
. be age appropriate - could you play that character on-stage today?
. do not do anything from a show currently on Broadway
. do not do anything readily identifiable with someone well known unless you want to be compared to them
. do check out the “overdone” lists, but also don’t pick something so abstract the auditors have never heard it
. pick things you are 100% comfortable with and enjoy. you will be living with these pieces all year so you better like them!
. do some early auditions and get some feedback on your selections. If they are not well received, you still have time to select and prepare something different before the meat of audition season is upon you.</p>

<p>Having said all that, if you can just knock a well-known song out of the park and feel the most comfortable singing it after doing all your research, go ahead and sing it. But make sure you can knock their socks off if you go that route. In the end, do what shows your talent off at its very best. But know that these auditors can be pretty persnickety. So be smart with your choices.</p>

5

<p>We felt this way last year too, just breathe follow the advice given above and it will work out.</p>

<p>My S found songs by starting with the artists he likes. He researched all the shows they were in, found characters in the appropriate age range and then found songs that way. </p>

<p>You can also use the musical theatre anthology books, Mariann Cook from Rider has a book out Teen Pop Broadway Collection. Matt Edwards from Shenandoah also has a blog that we found very helpful. There is also some very helpful information from Dr John at Otterbein in the Otterbein section. </p>

<p>Don’t even try to figure out rhyme or reason to this process or what the auditors are thinking or looking for. As far as lessor known etc remember they’ve all heard 1000s of auditions and have likely heard it all so…follow any specific instructions on the college’s site, choose material that shows her strengths and that she connects with. Good luck!</p>

6

<p>Done right, this is not a simple task for most people. It is hard and takes a lot of work. @vvnstar has given some great advice. If you use the search feature, you can find old threads with advice on song choices, there are lots of them but it takes some digging to find them and lots of scanning to find “the good stuff.”</p>

<p>One basic way to start would be to go through and list the composers for all the Tony nominees for “Best Score” and “Best Musical” for the period in which you are interested (the nominees, not just the winners). Even though many of their works may fall on someone’s “overdone” list (beware of putting too much stock in many of these, by the way), they will have written lots of great stuff to choose from - there is a reason they were nominated! Then google them, see what they wrote, find the age appropriate ones using StageAgent, and start listening to them on youtube.</p>

<p>If you have not seen these already, here are some guidelines published by colleges that might help you:</p>

<p><a href=“http://ccm.uc.edu/theatre/musical_theatre/auditions1/dos_and_donts.html”>http://ccm.uc.edu/theatre/musical_theatre/auditions1/dos_and_donts.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.otterbein.edu/Files/pdf/theatre/On%20Campus%20BFA%20Guidelines%202013-14.pdf”>http://www.otterbein.edu/Files/pdf/theatre/On%20Campus%20BFA%20Guidelines%202013-14.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>“The College Audition Blog” by Matthew Edwards from Shenandoah has lots of really great advice (can’t post a link because it is a blog).</p>

<p>I would definitely recommend following all stated audition requirements, but beware of worrying about every "overdone’ list that you find - we only pay attention to such lists that are published by colleges. I once compiled several of the “overdone” lists floating around on the internet and the result eliminated a large portion of the Broadway Canon. When I showed it to an MT department head, he laughed and told me to throw it away.</p>

<p>Here is a long quote from @drjohn from Otterbein that I really like:</p>

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7

<p>To clarify- I agree with posts above that say don’t put TOO much stock in “overdone” lists, they are right- 1/2 the songs of the entire genre seem to be on the list!! But DO pay attention to they “types” of songs that are not recommended. Everything I have ever read cautions against doing songs currently on byway, and songs with an intense accent (b/c it’s hard to hear your actual voice).</p>

8

<p>Thanks so much everyone, helps so much. One question (for now)… When they say a “musical theatre song” do they mean the style or from a specific show? I dont want her picking one or the other incorrectly because we misunderstood. </p>

9

<p>It could mean either- though a song that has been IN a show would virtually always qualify. (there are some shows like Rock of Ages that are made of covers of songs by Journey etc- that would be less appropriate) There are also songs that are “standards” which would qualify as well, even if they were never in a show- or aren’t particularly identified with a show. Think “Night and Day” or “Come Fly with Me”. (yes, both of those have been in shows- but I don’t think it’s the main way someone would identify them)</p>

10

<p>And additional suggestion would be to look at to the schools performance history and select songs that compliment their seasons. For example, if you look at carnegie mellon you can see that they choose traditional, legit musicals (les mis, South Pacific…not that they’ve done these specific shows, but just this genre) as opposed to edgy pop or rock type musicals like what pace normally performs(rent, spring awakening). The reason I say this, is because just like in any audition know your type and know what the “casting director” is looking for. I was not surprised to see posts on cc that “x” new freshman had already been cast in the fall production of “x” show at “x” university. If you can also find out what shows they are planning for the upcoming year that might also let you know if you would “fit” into their program. It’s similar to auditioning for a repertory theatre. Sure the student may be expected to grow and learn, but you’ll need to compliment their program in some way.</p>

<p>Of course some schools have very specific requirements such as pre1950s so be mindful of those. Otherwise vvnstar’s list is an excellent representation of a standard audition book format and perfect for any audition including out of school. </p>

<p>Specific mezzo songs that I love:
Ballad
Moonfall(mystery of Edwin drood)
Notice me Horton (seussical)
My white knight (music man)
Superboy and the invisible girl (next to normal)</p>

<p>Disney
Reflection(Mulan)
God help the outcast (if she has good low notes as well hunchback)</p>

<p>Uptempo/comedic
Divas lament(Spamalot)
Honey bun(South Pacific)
I could have gone to nashville (nunsense)
The suns whose rays are all ablaze (mikado)
Oh bless The Lord my soul (godspell)
Blue hair (black suits)</p>

<p>Oh I could go on and on…</p>

11

<p>Such great advise, thank you so much, feel much better about this part of the auditions.</p>