16 and 32 bar cuts.

[tinysinger87]

Posted: 11/1/08 at 9:11pm

I keep running into a problem. My ballad is "Lying there" from edges. I'm trying to cut it for auditions and I keep ending up with 17 bars, or 33. There's no way really to cut it less, is one bar over a huge deal?

[bwaylvsong]

Posted: 11/2/08 at 12:15am

No, in fact it's not even a small deal. Even in audition books, you'll find plenty of cuts that are not exactly 16 or 32.

[beyonddizzy31]

Posted: 11/2/08 at 9:10pm

The amount of bars isn't really as important as how long it takes you to sing them. The general consensus is 16 bars=30 seconds, 32 bars=one minute.

[MikesBarto2002]

Posted: 11/20/08 at 6:49pm

Here's the deal. I have done some audition in NYC where they asked for 16 and I did 32. The pianist didn't care, the director didn't care, and every once in a while, I even got a callback. You should try to stay close to the bar amount, but it is such a small thing in the long run. They teach you in school that you need to find that perfect cut, but rarely is the perfect cut exactly 16 or 32 bars.
Schools for Theatre

[SamanthaisFierce]

Posted: 11/20/08 at 6:53pm

If you're singing an uptempo and they say 16 bars...you can sing 32 because it's fast. But it never has to be exact, if they say 16 you could sing 20, 32 you could sing 40. etc. Especially if the extra bars are at the very very end.

[Act OCU, Scene 2]

Posted: 11/24/08 at 2:39pm

Typically all 16 and 32 bar cuts mean is that they want it all to be within a certain time. 16 bar cuts would ideally be about 45 seconds and 32 would be anywhere between 1 minute and 1 1/2 minutes. But it's very rare that anyone would take the time to count the bars, because it would take more time to count them than to just have you sing it.

[macbeth]

Posted: 3/4/25 at 4:58pm

I found this while searching for something else, but would go with the 30 second estimate and hope that they want to hear more.