i cant sing, i need help

[mysticfairy582]

Posted: 11/3/09 at 8:40pm

This is my senior year and my goal is for my teacher to stop joking baout my lack of a good voice. I can sing a alto range, i dotn know notes, but i cannot belt. Fear is my enemy, so does anyone know of simple songs that are not over done, and that make anyone sound good? btw, it is like 25% of my grade so i realllly neeed help.
Thanks =)

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 11/3/09 at 10:30pm

If there was a magical song that makes everybody sound amazing, you would think everybody would be sick of it by now. There's no way to trick people into thinking you can actually sing if you're bad, but if you're serious about singing, you should consider taking voice lessons. I could pretty much not sing when I started voice lessons in June of this year and can now carry a tune pretty well.

[bwaylvsong]

Posted: 11/3/09 at 10:39pm

The trick in this kind of situation is to find a song that shows off your acting abilities, so the audience won't really notice that you can't sing since you'll be so funny/ invested in the character/ etc.
Maybe try something originated by Carol Channing or a similar actress. Something like Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend?

[WOSQ]

Posted: 11/4/09 at 12:06pm

You may want to suggest to this teacher that the goal is not to comment on your lack of voice (which always makes people sing better...not), and concentrate on the matter at hand which is to improve what voice you have. This can be done with a smile, but the point might have to be made.

I am assuming this is a one-on-one coach and not in a classroom situation.

Then find the original 1951 cast recording of The King and I starring Gertrude Lawrence. Gert was a huge stage star at the time, but of limited singing range, maybe 6 notes seriously, and most of those notes were flat. Anyway The King and I was written for her, hence Mrs. Anna's songs as written are not rough going: I Whistle a Happy Tune, Hello Young Lovers, Shall I Tell You, Getting To Know You, Shall We Dance, all are not big rangy songs. The secret to them is how they are presented. You have to take the lyric apart and figure out what the text is saying and then the sub-text.

Gertrude Lawrence was a comic actress so some of these songs have humor in them; maybe not Hello Young Lovers and Getting to Know You, but certainly the rest. You would have to decide how much and where.

It is only later productions and recordings that Mrs. Anna's songs are done with big sopranos using head voices and octave leaps and such. The original arrangements and orchestrations are mezzo.

This is why you have to go to 1951.

[mariusmyhomeboy]

Posted: 11/7/09 at 2:05pm

I can't believe your teacher jokes like that.

What about Send in the Clowns from A Little Night Music? It has short phrases and not a lot of range.

[Gobstopper]

Posted: 11/13/09 at 12:45am

"Send In the Clowns" was my first thought as well.