So Sing- rehearsal process and performance evaluation

So Sing performance

So Sing is a brilliant event based around music which celebrates the idea of people of all ages coming together to create music. At Worthing a College, we were lucky enough this year to host one of the evenings. We invited other students from different schools and performing arts academies to celebrate with us by performing some of their own material. 

We spend two weeks as a ensemble, working together over several rehearsals to create our medley of songs. The songs we chose were all different and contrasted, showing off everyone's varied abilities in differing ways. Choosing four songs allowed us to work together an an ensemble with some people taking solos and duets, with everyone else backing them up vocally. This allowed us to explore working as a team and allowing everyone a chance to work as a member of the team to show what we were capable of. For example during the song human, we allocated three soloists; Luke, Nathan and Charlotte to sing a verse each whilst the rest of the ensemble repeated a humming sound, acting as a vocal instrument to support the soloists vocals. The ensemble humming allowed the soloists to hear a backing beat to the sing, separate from the piano and guitar sounds. This helped them keep in time and at a steady pace. Without the ensemble effort, there would age been no tempo to the instrumental, which would have taken away sound from the song, making it sound slightly bare and empty. Including everyone in this song allowed for no one to be left out. Being part of an ensemble is all about working as a team, and this is something we showed especially through Human. 

Ultimately for the So Sing performance, I am expected to focus on my musical and physical skills. The musical skills will be shown through my use of voice; how I am able to sing within an ensemble, taking the role as a lead soloist and as an ensemble member. Secondly I will be assess on how I use my physical skills through dance and movement; showing how I interpret the songs through gestures and movement, also showing my enthusiasm through facial expressions and body language. I will





make a special effort to ensure these two skills are well combined, to create a well rounded performance. I will do this by ensuring I know all of the song lyrics and understanding how the movement ties in to the lyrics we will be singing. As well as this, I will need to make sure my performance fits with the efforts of the rest of the ensemble as this process is about creating a piece as a whole, not just as an individual. I will allow myself to do this by listening to the opinions of my fellow class members, watching and listening to how they perform certain parts of the performance, as well as working with certain members of the ensemble, one on one to develop certain parts. 

The four songs chosen to be sung in the medley are; 

1) Human- Rag’n’bone man – I will be able to show my emotions through movement to this song as it is a raw song, about making mistakes as everyone does, as we are all human. I will use pained facial expressions to show desperation and struggle. I will look to my fellow ensemble members to emphasise the idea that we are all going to be suffering together.

2) Tears dry on their own- Amy Winehouse – this song is very female orientated and sends a strong message out to females everywhere that men can destroy us emotionally however we will always fight back and come out on the other side, stronger than ever before. I will make sure I focus on my solo verse, to ensure it shows the idea of female empowerment through use of riffing notes, showing off my abilities. To show I am also able to work within an ensemble here, I will work closely with Amber and Emily in rehearsals as we all have solos in this song. I will work with them both on this. We will offer each other feedback on our vocals, highlighting the positives of the song and points where we could improve. We will definitely spend some time together, getting the pitching and timing correct before the show. This sing is performed as a counter medley with Ain’t no mountain high enough. 

3) Ain't no mountain high enough- Marvin Gaye- This song is performed as a counter melody with Tears dry on their own. This means the songs are sung as the same time, whilst accompanied by the same chords on the piano. You are required to have a full choir of singers to perform a counter medley to its highest potential, which we have. The song is a classic therefore I expect that we will be choreographing some movement to it, which will illustrate the lyrics we will be singing. This will allow audiences to fully understand our intentions behind the song through visual and heard aids. 

4) Keeping your head up- Birdy – This will be out finale song for the medley, meaning that we, as an ensemble, will come together for a final time in the performance. I expect we will add in some


harmonies to this song, which will sound impressive as there are a lot of us in the choir. We will work together to create a great sounding part harmony, which would not be possible if we had a small group working on this piece. 

Today, we started the rehearsal with a counter melody to warm our vocals up. This is when two different songs can be sung together, with the same backing accompaniment. In this case, Kim played the same piano chords whilst we sung two different songs in different groups. We worked together as an ensemble by splitting off into two groups which both took a song. We sung two sets of songs, four songs in total for the counter melody warm up.

The songs were:

1) Pink- Just give me a reason AND James Blunt- You’re beautiful 

2) Journey- don't stop believing AND Adele- Someone like you 

At first it was a challenge to Sing both songs at the same time as it was easy to be distracted by the song the other group were singing. To solve this issue, each group had the chance to sing through their song twice, before we combined the two songs together. It was distracting hearing the other groups singing and this for some members of the ensemble, was off putting. Having the time to run through the song individually as a group, helped us pick up the melody of the song and becoming comfortable with it, before combining the two together. This was a brilliant way to build up the skills needed to work as an ensemble, as it allowed us to vocally contrast with the other group; we were able to pick up how to hold your own tune whilst other lyrics are being sung around you. This makes you as an individual, a more versatile performer and when working as part of an ensemble, prepared you to be focused on what you are doing at the same time as being fully aware of what is going on around you. 

Amber, Emily and  I all have  a solo in the song ‘Tears dry on their own and decided to helped each other perfect our parts as they are from the same song. Amber and I partnered up for this process as



we both have similar range to our voices and worked together for WWRY, finding then that we worked well together as we compliment each other. We also added Emily to our partnership as she also has a solo in the same song, allowing us all to get feedback from one another to improve our contribution to the ensemble. 

We took some time out, just us three to go over all three parts, suggesting to one another how to sing the verse. For example, the song is low which suited mine and Amber’s vocals, as we both have naturally lower voices. We are both able to hit high notes however our voices are able to reach low notes with ease. In comparison we found out that Emily struggled more than Amber and I on the lower notes to produce the sounds, so we had to come up with a solution together. We firstly came up with the idea of the three of us having radio microphones for our solos, to amplify the lower notes as we were unable to project them as loudly as we wanted due to their low tone. This idea fell through as we would have sounded much louder than the rest of the ensemble, making it unfair as our voices would have been overpowering everybody else's. Our second plan we though of, which Emily suggested, was to take the notes up higher, making them more reachable for our tenner voices. We decided to split the lines in the verse, keeping the first part of our solos to the original low pitch then increasing the pitch of the second part of the note. This sounded really professional as we were able to apply our ideas to the song, bringing originality to the piece. Working as a group of three, away from the rest of the ensemble, gave us the opportunity to work as a smaller scale group, improving our solo parts which would eventually benefit the overall performance of the ensemble. I feel as though we have worked well today to improve our contribution to the ensemble, giving each other points to improve, which lead to the idea of bringing the pitching higher. 

Regarding the movement we put to the songs, our dance teacher, Kat, watched us perform the medley once through and gave us some ideas for movement following this. We ended up setting some movement today, putting some choreographed dance and gestural positions in place. We also decided that to some of the medley, we will improvise the movement as it will make a change for the audience to see lots of different actions going on at the same time. This also allows us as performers to express ourselves through naturally moving to the best of the songs we are singing. The freestyle movements


we performed allowed us to interact with one another, showing that we have built relationships within the ensemble, which is one of the factors which allows us to work together so well. To show this when improvising, I held short eye contact with other performers around me, including Izzy, Amber and Megan. This I felt, a brought s warm feeling and atmosphere to the piece, showing how well we work together as an ensemble and how comfortable we are around one another. Something else I did when free styling, was allow my body to move with the natural flow of the music, showing I fully understand the musicality behind it.

We choreographed some movement which the whole ensemble performed at the same time, to show our unity and ability to connect and understand each other’s movement. We performed reaching movements to Tears Dry on their own, showing emotion which illustrated the lyrics. We performed a palm raise for ‘Ain't no mountain high enough’ and a low movement of the hands with palms down to show ‘Ain't no river wide enough’ and the idea that the love they have for each other in the song is endless/bottomless and unconditional. When we performed these movements in unison as an ensemble, we were able to convey the idea’s behind the lyrics well as we had a large amount of performers, which gave maximum impact on the audience’s eye. The more performers and energy given, the stronger and more believable the performance will be. 

SO SING- EVALUATION

On Friday 17th February, at Worthing College, we hosted our first ever So Sing event in the evening in our Sealight Theatre.

I made sure when the whole chorus were singing together in loud parts and during the counter melody songs, that I fully projected my vocals, using my diaphragm and breathe control to make my vocals really fill the room. I also made sure that when we were required to sing with more of a low and quiet tone, that I would do this at the same time as ensuring audience’s were able to hear the lyrics we were singing clearly, through use of articulation. I was at the front of the choir, in the middle part of the front row. This made my job of projecting my voice and lowering it when appropriate even more important as at the front, you are always relied upon by other choir members, behind you and towards the back. At the front you set the standard as a performer, which is a vital role in being part of an ensemble. I feel I was able to take on this role as I stayed calm and focused, ensuring that I was confident on my lyrics and movement. On the other hand I feel as though I was able to take a back seat when necessary. When the soloists sung their parts, I was able to refrain from taking the leadership role and drop back to being valid member of the chorus by clicking in synchronisation with the rest if the ensemble and singing to correct parts.

Olivia made a small mistake,  forgetting one of her last verse lines in her solo in ‘Ain't no mountain’. This was a mistake that Izzy picked up on, she helped her by signing the correct line with her to help her remember and give her some confidence and peer support. By Izzy stepping in her so professionally, without making a fuss over the mistake, it ensured that the whole ensemble did not lose our sense of performance and team work. You have to look out for every member of your team, supporting one another throughout the rehearsal process and as well, in the performance which is what Izzy did here. She helped the ensemble stay focused and on track, allowing for the piece to keep its professionalism. Izzy's actions showed that she could look after herself as a performer as well as her team mates, which is a vital skill needed to be a successful performer in an ensemble piece.

I feel as though my solo part in the performance, to a verse in Tears dry on their own, showed that I was a polished, all round performer. Not only did I sing the lyrics to the song, I made sure I allowed my body to hear the musical melody, reacting to this through movement. I did not have any set choreography for this verse, everyone else my stepping to one side and clicking, then repeating this over and over again, to the other side and back. I allowed for my arms to express the way I was feeling when singing the song; I let my head roll back and eyes shut naturally, as this showed I was really feeling the lyrics and getting into the song. I allowed my arms to rise and fall, to show mynatural love for singing as this was my natural movement reaction; I let this happen freely. I also slightly adapted my voice sound to the R’n’B / Jazz style that the song originally sounds like. By this, I do not mean I completely changed the sound of my voice as this would not have been true to myself. By this I mean that I ensured I sung the verse with a slight influence/twang of the two genres, showing the versatility within my voice. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, being at the front of the ensemble leaves you with the responsibility of setting the standard high for the rest of the performers. The rest of the ensemble will also be listening and watching how you deal with the solo ( your reaction through movement and vocals.) This means that taking the solo role and lead role is a vital element to completing the ensemble as ultimately you need to guide the rest of the ensemble, demonstrating professionalism through your actions, which I feel as though I did well.

Overall, I am very proud of the whole ensemble for working as a team, using patiences and enthusiasm throughout the rehearsal process and the final performance to achieve a successful ensemble piece. I was able to encourage and support team members when being a soloist/ team leader and was able to contribute to being an equal member of the ensemble by staying fully focused and cooperated at all times. We did well to make a successful ensemble piece through hard work, dedication, friendships and equality.