This week we had no time during performing arts lessons to rehearse and so we only had our after school or lunch rehearsals to work on things meaning we got less done this week than we would’ve hoped to have done. Nevertheless, we managed to sing through Summer Nights as a full cast and teach the rest of the cast Grease is the Word’ as planned which did help tremendously in terms of confidence of knowing the dance. We also managed to get a very tough run through of all Act 1 scenes just dialogue.
On Tuesday lunchtime we were focussing on singing and so it was vital to do a vocal warm up which I asked our Musical Director ( MD) if I could lead to which she said – I led the cast in 2 types of vocal warm ups so that we were sure not to strain our voices when reaching the top or bottom of our ranges. The first was a simple exercise counting up and down from 1 to 8 with each number increasing in note so that you would cover a wide range and stretch your vocal cords. We did it once starting from the bottom and then once from the top so that we had worked both ends of our range equally. Afterwards we did a vowel exercise where you go up in fifths but each time you change the noise coming out – this is good to warm up the shaping of the mouth too so that our pronunciation is good whilst singing.
When singing Summer Nights, it was apparent that my breathing to reach the high notes towards the end of the song was going to be challenging as I was barely reaching it without even projecting. In terms of the beginning of the song, I found it quite easy as it was relatively in the middle of my range and so I could sing the notes comfortably which allowed me straight away to try and bring character through my singing which was one of my targets : I did this through accent ( American ) and tone ( arrogant) to portray how Danny feels in this song. Because I was struggling with the very last note which was very high and then changes to an even higher note and then even higher again which u hold for 2 counts of 8, my MD said that for now I should just hold the first not to practice holding a high note for that long and then with practice I can start to change note and try to hold it. I will practice this at home of during performing arts lessons so that I will be more prepared the next time we sing it through as a full cast.
In Tuesdays after-school rehearsal we were teaching the rest of the cast the choreography to Grease is the Word’ , this wasn’t challenging for me as I had learnt choreography over a month ago however I did find it useful for confidence that I remembered the choreography and allowed me to experiment even more with my characterisation and interactions with other characters throughout the song. I also found it helpful to sing along to the music when dancing on Friday because it helped me add attitude and even more character to my performance.
Friday night the directors decided to test how far we had come and how we coped under pressure, as well as testing our line learning so far and whether we had been practicing scenes as a cast outside of rehearsals. From the get go it was clear that we had not been putting in enough work, focus was lost with every line slipped and every scene had at least 5-line slip ups – whilst on top this seemed horrendous and we felt awful after the run through, personally this was very helpful to me as I now feel more motivated to up my game and work just as hard outside of rehearsals as I am in rehearsals so that next time we do something similar I don’t feel as embarrassed as we all just did after that run. Hopefully the rest of the cast shares my feelings and goes home and learns every single one of their lines from act 1 as I plan on doing as this will make us feel much more confident and ready to run it next time.
To conclude this week I discovered I needed to work on my ability to reach the high notes but I will work on this at home by using breathing exercises to control my breathes before those notes, but I also learnt that I’m not comfortable with all of my lines and blocking and so I need to go home to practice lines and next week need to meet the cast members and run through several scenes all together.
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