Jamie Cullum singing assessment evaluation

Today we performed our final singing assessment unit of the year, Everything You Didn’t Do by Jamie Cullum.

One thing that went well for me was my projection and diction. I feel that when I sing with a big group of people, that naturally my level of projection increases. This is because I feel more confident being one of many voices rather than being one of only a few. Also, I found myself pronouncing my words very well and this helped me to understand the meaning of the lyrics, allowing myself to be able to put to correct amount of emotion and characterisation in to the overall performance of the song. This also allows the audience to understand the lyrics to a high standard.

One thing I could have improved on was my familiarity with the lyrics on the second verse. In the performance, I found myself having to really think about the lyrics to the second verse. To improve on this, I just needed to the look at the lyrics to this verse in closer detail then this would have been resolved.

Something I felt went well for everyone is how we all sounded together. The effect that over 30 voices had was very powerful as the volume was high and therefore, this brought out the confidence in everyone involved.

Overall, I am very happy with how the singing assessment went, both due to my personal efforts and how the whole group performed. I am very proud of everyone and how far they have come this year and pleased to have experience this whole year of musical theatre with them!

Friday 22nd May- final singing lesson

Today was our last singing lesson of this year’s unit. The focus was to perfect our last singing unit song, which we will be assessed on later on today. We are singing Jamie Cullum’s song, Everything You Didn’t Do. This is a good choice of song to be assessed on as it contains a three part harmony, which is an ideal technique to corporate in to a song, sung by an ensemble as it gives you the opportunity to show how individuals copes with different intonations, involved in the song. It also contains a mixture of staccato and legato notes which show off a singer’s ability to differentiate between the two note types.

We started with some vocal warm ups, accompanied by Kim on the piano. I always feel that after I have finished my warm ups with Kim, my vocal chords are fully ready to be used to the best of my ability. The most beneficial warm up for me that we used today, was singing octave scales and steadily increasing the pitch. This is a very simple technique which is used on a regular basis however; I find this to be the most helpful for me. This is because it naturally highlights were my vocal break is, the change between my chest and head voice. This allows me to work my vocal chords, as they are a muscle, in to increasing where my break is.

Once all vocally warmed up, the lesson’s focus was to go over, repeatedly, the song for our assessment, mainly to perfect the tree part harmony in the three part harmony featured in the last chorus of the song. We found that one of our weaknesses at this stage was the quality of our diction. We appeared to be lacking on the quality of how we pronounced the first letter of words. This was slipping due to our minds focusing on other details that were vital to make the song work, such as the lyrical order and the three part harmony.

I will be singing the original harmony, which is the easiest to pick up however the hardest to maintain as the other two groups are singing in a completely different pitch which makes it difficult to maintain the base harmony. This is also what everyone else in the group listens out to for guidance whilst singing their harmony; a natural way of singing within a group piece.

I feel I am ready to sing this later on and feel the group is also ready for this. We will be joining together with the other Musical Theatre group to sing the song, around the piano in the theatre. I believe this will be two times more powerful with the other group as there will be double the amount of us.