BTEC performing arts

1. Singing in character
Focus: The focus for today’s workshop is to explore and develop effective use of character in song and transfer skills into performance. Another
focus in today’s workshop is to observe the rehearsal process of a partner, evaluate it and identify ways to improve their work, To work as a
director. Therefore, my target for this workshop is to make an attempt at doing both singing and acting together with the correct use of
character.
Singing in character: In today’s workshop, we looked at a few musical theatre songs. We looked at West Side Story and we discussed how the
actors show character in ‘America’. They used call and response to show a discussion, but they have the same melody to show they are united. I
then looked at some other songs that I could sing individually to experiment with character added. We then partnered up and discussed how we
could portray the character. The song I was given was ‘On My Own’ from Les Misérables. We videoed our first attempts at the song after only
having a few days to learn it and put in the character. When I first did it I misunderstood the song, I thought the songs emotions was happiness
and dreaminess. Allana, my partner told me how to portray the right emotions of sadness and loneliness, she suggested that I hold myself as if
protecting myself for the loneliness. Musically I changed the way I sang the song to the backing track, this mean I slowed some of my words
down and speeding them up when I felt it was needed. I had to portray the emotions of sadness and loneliness because in the song Eponine’s is
singing about how Marius doesn’t love her back. We then practiced, and we discussed more ways to portray the character through the use of
gestures and vocal dynamics. Such as give myself a hug when I sang “I feel his arms around me” and on the next line I slowed down how I sang it
so there was a pause in between “close” and “my eyes”. We then videoed again to see if the characterization had improved. It had, however, I
had gained a pro-longed blink that made it look like I was being too dreamy. I tried to remove the pro-longed blink but I found it hard because I
made me feel slightly more confidently
Directing: As Allana practiced her song I took a directional role. I listen to how she sings it with her emotions and her techniques. I told her that
she could push her emotions stronger through the song because at first, she didn't have clear emotions throughout the song. However, as time
went on and the more she practiced her emotions became clear and her song was very strong.
Strengths: During this lesson, I realised my strength we are learning the lyrics to the song. I didn’t have much practice in singing so to be able to
learn song lyrics quickly was good. Also, this will help me in the industry because when in a performance learning song lyrics quick is a good
talent to have.
Weakness: However, my weaknesses were the characterization of the song, and I struggled to sing the song as well because I haven’t done much
singing, so I didn’t know how to do all the dynamics and technical things when I sing. By the end I learnt how to add some of these techniques

2. into me sing but I still found it hard. From my target at the start, I have achieved the target of attempting to do both singing and acting at the
same time. I struggled to do the characterization whilst singing, but to improve I will continue practicing. Also, I will practice different songs with
different characterization.