Teaching the Teenage Musical Theatre Singer

Australian singing teachers are aware of the high demand for training in musical theatre vocal styles. A search of the ANATS Find a Teacher webpage (31 March 2022) found that 237 of the 296 listed teachers specialise in teaching this genre. Many of the singers creating this demand are teenagers at the beginning of their singing training. What do singing teachers need to consider when teaching musical theatre vocal qualities to male and female singers who are experiencing the profound physiological and emotional changes of adolescence?

The adolescent singer experiences changes in vocal range, breath capacity, registration and vocal timbre. Co-ordinating a voice in transition can be a significant challenge, especially when singing ‘vocally athletic’ musical theatre styles that require a high degree of flexibility, endurance and coordination across the whole of the vocal range as well as mastery of the two main vocal registers and specific resonance strategies (LeBorgne and Rosenberg 2021). Some vocal qualities such as belt, are produced at relatively high degrees of pitch and volume and may be risky for younger singers if produced inefficiently. Singing teachers must have a thorough understanding of the functional elements of these styles as well as the vulnerabilities of the adolescent voice in order to guide their singers towards optimal vocal production. However, there is very little research on the ways that young singers produce these qualities and the risks and benefits of differing pedagogical approaches to training teenage singers in these styles.

This presentation will review research on the adolescent singing voice and on the physiological, acoustic and perceptual characteristics of the musical theatre voice and consider the pedagogical implications of recent findings. Recommendations and areas for continuing research will be highlighted in the hope that we can build a body of knowledge and practice that is relevant to current teaching practice.

Tracy Bourne is a singer, singing teacher, writer and director and a Visiting Fellow at the School of Music, Australian National University. She is Director of Voice at Radford College, Canberra and maintains a busy private singing studio specialising in musical theatre voice.

Tracy originally trained as a classical singer (Qld Con, Melb Con) and studied acting at the Victorian College of the Arts (Company 93). She worked professionally in new opera and theatre in the 1990s and moved to Ballarat in 2000 to take up the position of Lecturer in Singing at Federation University. In 2016, Tracy completed her PhD on the physiology, acoustic and perceptual features of the music theatre voice in male and female singers. She has published in international journals and contributed as an expert teacher to three international books on contemporary vocal training.