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Kurt's Singing Voice

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Kurt's Singing Voice - Page 10 Empty Re: Kurt's Singing Voice

Post  Porcelain 1/15/2014, 5:38 pm

Agreed! When I first heard the Chipmunk Song, I found it to be a waste of three very talented singers, like many do.  suure But after reading Marie's review, I look at it in a much different way! It's amazing she managed to explain so much about that song. Now I can appreciate the song as well as the fantastic performance to go with it.
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Kurt's Singing Voice - Page 10 Empty Re: Kurt's Singing Voice

Post  Glorfindel 1/15/2014, 6:17 pm

Oh my.............thank you.

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Post  Glorfindel 3/9/2014, 9:03 pm

After much delay I finally finished another review (Get Back). I really hate that it took so long, and I would like y'all to know I feel terrible about that.  No 

This review fought me tooth and nail: it just wouldn't get finished.
Besides a technical reason that caused quite a long delay (which you can read more of in the review itself), I discovered that a large part of all the extra effort I had to practically force myself to to get this review posted lies in the (negative) feelings I have for Glee in general, and the Beatles episodes in particular. I guess a certain proposal had a lot to do with that, lol.
Never again will I make fun of or belittle writers block, phew.  ooppss

Anyways, I wanted to get that out before I post the review.
I didn't want more negativity and frustration popping up in yet another review. Not that that won't ever happen again, but I think for the next few songs I will be reviewing I'll be safe. Starkurt here I come. fanny2

But first: 'Get Back'. Enjoy.
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Kurt's Singing Voice - Page 10 Empty REVIEW: Get Back

Post  Glorfindel 3/9/2014, 9:06 pm

REVIEW: Get Back (GB).
 
In the 2nd episode of season 5 Glee continued the elaborate 2-part Beatles tribute. For Kurt this meant he got a few lines in a group number (Let It Be) and a Hummelberry song: ‘Get Back’. These songs are be the 4th and 5th Beatles songs that Kurt sang on the show (after ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand, ‘Blackbird’ and ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’), not counting ‘Silly Love Songs’, as he was only lipsynching in a Warblers song, and I think it’s safe to say that so far he done good on them.
  
Youtube :

The Beatles:


Glee – episode version:



Glee – full iTunes version:


  

The lyrics :
- the cut verse = italic
 
Kurt:
(verse 1) Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner, but he knew it couldn't last.
Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona, For some California grass.

Rachel and Kurt:
(chorus 1) Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged.
Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged.
Get back Jojo

(chorus 2) Get back, get back, back to where you once belonged.
Get back, get back, back to where you once belonged.
Oh, get back Jo.

Rachel:
Oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh, yeah, get back Jo! Yeah, oh oh oh oh
Kurt:
Go home.

Kurt:
(verse 2) Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman, but she was another man.
All the girls around her said she's got it coming, but she gets it while she can.

Rachel and Kurt:
(chorus 3) Get back, get back, back to where you once belonged.
Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged.
Get back Loretta.

(chorus 4) Get back, get back, back to where you once belonged.
Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged.
Woo...
 
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The harmonies :
First of all you might like to know that Chris and Lea are singing in the same key as Paul McCartney (and John Lennon).
There are only 2 verses in ‘Get Back’ and 4 choruses, plus some “oohs” and “aahs” from Rachel that were not in the original of course (can you imagine Paul McCartney or John Lennon doing those, lol?).   Razz
The verses in the Glee version are both sung by Chris alone, just like Paul did in the Beatles original. No harmonies to be found there, then. The choruses are full of harmonies though, and none of them are the same. So let’s see what we’ve got.
 
I already mentioned the 2 front men of the Beatles above, and I would want to look at their version first. Normally I do this the other way around, by starting with an analysis of the Glee version and then checking back to the original to see what they did the same and what Glee changed. But since the (harmony) changes Glee made in the choruses of  ‘Get Back’ all derive from 1 particular chorus in the original Beatles song, I thought it best to start at the source.

The original GB was basically a Paul McCartney solo. All John Lennon did was sing the second chorus with him, but John wasn’t even singing on the backup vocals of the other choruses: those all had Paul singing alone.
What’s interesting is that when John joins Paul in the second chorus you’d expect him (John) to sing back-up to Paul’s lead. But despite singing all of the other choruses solo/lead melody Paul surprisingly switches to a 2nd voice on that particular chorus. John Lennon is the one singing the main melody in the second chorus. You can hear it clearly in this live version as John is a tad too late when he has to start singing.
 
What’s even more surprising about this is that John is singing his chorus one octave lower than Paul did!  ohmy
Paul’s main note in the chorus is the G4 (on “…back”), whereas John sings on a G3 there. Because John is singing so much lower Paul’s 2nd voice is set higher than the lead melody (and if you’re interested: most 2nd voices are set lower than the lead melody).
And as Paul’s voice has not been edited softer while John’s low voice otoh is not dominating the harmony this creates the effect that it almost seems as if Paul is still singing lead voice (as he did throughout the rest of the song) but the melody is somehow a bit twisted.
I must confess that I never heard this while listening to the song casually before, and only noticed it now that I took a better look at it for this review.   blinkk 
I’m not sure why they did it this way. I’m not a Beatles expert, so I don’t know if John sang the chorus lower simply because he couldn’t sing that easily as high as Paul did, or that while composing the song the octave lower chorus was deliberately written (and Paul couldn’t reach that low that easily, so he let Paul sing it instead), maybe because they wanted the 2nd voice to be set higher to get the desired harmony effect and it just wouldn’t have worked one octave higher. Whatever the reason for this is: it’s inventive and a bit out of the box, which is typical for the Beatles.
 
Here’s a diagram of how the Beates did the harmony in that 2nd chorus:
 
Kurt's Singing Voice - Page 10 Getbackbasis-1000_zps12e4e29b
 
Paul’s 2nd voice is quite simple but again also surprising: mostly fourths (when thirds and sixth are more common), with the voices fanning out at the end from a sixth to a seventh to the same note in octave on “…belong.”.

To recapture :
- All the choruses except for the second are sung by Paul alone, and the octave he sings in is high (octave 4).
- The second chorus consists of  John singing the lead melody, but 1 octave lower than Paul (octave 3).
- Paul sings a higher 2nd voice to John’s chorus, consisting mostly of fourths, with a widening to an octave at the end.
 
The choruses in the Glee version are all variations to this, but Hummelberry shake things up a bit. hapitgh
 
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Chorus #1 :
The first chorus of the original Beatles version is sung solo, so if Glee had copied the original then Kurt would have sung his first chorus solo too. But as you can hear Rachel sings along with Kurt.
Kurt is singing the main voice, at the same height/octave as Paul McCartney sang it. Rachel sings a 2nd voice, which I expected to be the same as the Beatles one, but it is not. It’s different in 2 ways:
1) the original has mainly fourths as intervals, but Rachel sings a harmony only a third higher than Kurt.
2) Kurt is singing the main melody on the same height as Paul instead of going to the one octave lower chorus John sang, but the 2nd voice of Rachel is still higher than Kurt’s lead. This has the result that both lead voice and 2nd voice are almost an octave higher than the original harmony (Kurt an entire octave, Rachel an octave minus 1 semitone).
 
I hope the diagram I made to show this is clear:
 Kurt's Singing Voice - Page 10 Getback1stchorus-1000_zpsd5f2a1fc
 
- The lowest yellow line is the original lead voice from John on his chorus.
- The green line above that is the original 2nd voice from Paul.
- The blue line is Kurt singing lead voice, which is the same as the original lead from Paul (the purple line right underneath the blue).
- The red line is Rachel’s 2nd voice, in her harmony of mostly thirds.
- The lighter green line (the highest one) is the original 2nd voice drawn 1 octave higher so you can see the difference in notes/intervals between hers and Paul’s 2nd voice.
 
As you can (hopefully mince ) see in the diagram Rachel’s 2nd voice deviates from the original, with just 1 semitone making the difference between a harmony in fourths and a harmony in thirds.
- In the first line of the chorus, when they sing this harmony for the first time, Rachel does not keep singing high up (to create the fanning out when Kurt’s melody drops a lot lower), but instead her melody drops as well along with his, so they end as they started: in a third interval harmony.
- The 2nd line in this particular chorus ends with the original broad octave interval as the original, as Rachel goes back to the same 2nd voice as the Beatles did (when the red and the light green bars meet).
 
I like this first chorus.  neutre
Chris is singing lead on a comfortable height for his hazy chest voice to shine to its fullest, and Lea is singing in the part of her vocal range that has power but also a ‘light’ and flexible quality to it, which both work very well for this harmony (and I wish they would use it more on Glee). The fact that their harmony is an octave higher than the original is not jarring at all, it fits very naturally into the song.
 
The “Get back, Jo Jo” line is also sung with the same lead+higher 2nd voice structure.
 
Just in case:
A little disclaimer is in place here, because the main reason why this review had such a big delay as it had was because I basically wrote this part of the review 3-4 times. :( 
The reason why I had to rewrite it so many times is that I had a lot of difficulty hearing the harmonies in this chorus. Not because they are so difficult in themselves, but because the original harmony was firmly stuck in my head and sort of ‘overlayered’ Rachel’s voice whenever I tried to figure out her 2nd voice part. I guess the Beatles original got stuck in my head over the years a lot firmer than I thought it had.

The first time when I wrote down the harmony of the first Glee chorus for this review I simply assumed it would be similar to the Beatles one, only 1 octave higher up. And that’s where I messed up. Because when checking it a few days later I heard something different: the harmony I explained above (with Rachel singing on thirds instead of fourths). So I sighed very deeply a couple of times and started rewriting that part of the review, and (which took up the most time) drew the diagram again. 
But then, when I gave the entire review a last look over I could only hear the other (original) harmony again, and needless to say I freaked out.   brikwol 
I abandoned the review, sulked for a few days, and then decided to enter the game again, but this time flanked by 2 linesmen I trust with a good musical hearing. And darn: of course each of them heard only 1 of the 2 possible harmonies, so that didn’t help me much. dryy
In the end I decided to go with what my daughter heard (the harmony in thirds),  because:
1) she is young and therefore does not have the original Beatles song stuck in her head to distract her,
2) she really has a good ear (a chip from the old block, and in her case even doubly-blessed), 
3) where’s smoke there’s fire: if she can hear the notes of the Rachel’s thirds harmony without me hinting at there even being one that means it excists, right?
Anyway, I’m sticking with that conclusion, just don’t tell my husband (as I didn’t pick what he heard).  phr34r 
 
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Chorus #2 :
This is the chorus that in the original version was sung by John (on the lower octave) with Paul singing a higher 2nd voice in fourths. On Glee they also switch the lead voice around for that second chorus, meaning that Rachel sings the lead voice now whereas Kurt jumps to the 2nd voice.
Kurt sings the same 2nd voice that Paul sang in the original, on the same octave. But due to Rachel singing 1 octave higher than John Kurt suddenly does not sing a higher 2nd voice to Rachel’s lead, but a lower one! The voices get flipped around, and consequently the intervals in the harmony also.
 
Kurt's Singing Voice - Page 10 Getback2stchorus-1000_zpsd9031e74
 
- The lowest, yellow line is John’s lead voice again.
- In the middle there are 2 lines together, Kurt’s (blue) and Paul’s (green), as they both have the 2nd voice on the same octave.
- The highest line, the red one, is Rachel, singing the lead voice on the same octave as Paul did (the purple line right underneath).
 
It’s the same harmony, right? Or not?
Now we come into the headache inducing territory again.  Mad 

In the original harmony the distance between the lead voice and the higher voice were mostly fourths with the fanning out at the end to the octave notes. But because the roles between the 2 voices are reversed in the Glee version (with the 2nd voice being below the lead voice) musical mathematics dictate that the intervals are also reversed, like a mirror.
And here comes the boring technical stuff, so bear with me:
An octave has 8 basic notes (really: the name “octave” sort of gives that away), but when it comes to counting/naming the place of the intervals the next octave’s first note also counts. (Like the calculation of counting trees on a road: the first tree counts as well as the last tree. So when you have 1 tree after every yard you have 9 trees on 8 yards.) You don’t count the spaces between the notes, but the notes themselves.  Shocked 
Each interval has a complimentary one, or a mirrored one so to speak, and when you count them together they always amounts to 9 (because you count the notes and not the spaces between them).
 
The interval “first” therefore has the eight interval as its mirror (1/8), the second interval has the seventh (2/7), the third has the sixth (3/6), and the fourth has the fifth (4/5). Basically these intervals consist of the same notes, so they kinda sound the same when you reverse them.
I say kinda, because when you e.g. play a third interval in notes such as C-E it definitely sounds different than when you play a sixth interval, like E-C. The latter interval has more ‘space’ inbetween the notes and therefore creates a more ‘airy’ sound, while the C-E one is ‘thicker’. But the overall meaning of their harmony, the ‘feeling’ the intervals provoke, especially when used in a chord, is mostly the same and often exchangeable.
 
So the essence of the now reversed harmony of Glee’s 2nd chorus of ‘Get Back’ doesn’t change, but when it comes to the placement, the ‘space’ they create you can definitely hear, almost feel a difference between the original and the Glee version.
What in the original harmony of the chorus were fourths have become fifths now, which creates a slightly bigger but hardly noticeable ‘gap’ between the 2 voices. Maybe this difference is only distinguishable for the musically trained ear, but it does distort the original harmony somewhat.
 
Now you might think this is just nitpicking and way too music technically nerdy, and I’d probably agree if it weren’t for the fact that I really don’t like this chorus at all.  Evil or Very Mad
The energy is off, it’s not as sparkling as the original, or for that matter Hummelberry’s first chorus.
And flipping the harmony and singers around is imo to blame for that:
- By taking the 2nd voice below the lead voice it becomes a bit sluggish, like a heavy weight pulling the lead voice down. And the slightly bigger interval gap (from fourths to ‘airy’ fifths)  only enhances the feeling that the voices are being torn apart by this heavy weight.
- It also doesn’t help that I think Chris’ voice is stronger in this song and in this particular chorus/range than Lea’s, so her higher lead practically gets lost in the heavier 2nd voice of Chris, which also increases the heavy weight feeling and as a side-effect it makes Lea’s voice sound thinner.
Whereas the original has a dark/heavy lead voice as basis with a ‘lighter’ but still powerful and edgy higher 2nd voice above it, in a closer fourth intervals harmony.
 
Because of the mirrored intervals the ending of the first line in this chorus is off too, as instead of suddenly hearing the 2 voices break away from the fourth intervals harmony with the nosedive of the lead voice so they end up an octave apart, we get the 2 voices coming closer together and ending together on the same note. An eighth interval (octave) is more layered in sound than having both singers ending on the exact same note because you can distinguish the 2 voices more clearly. With the same ending note the voices blur together, and basically the harmony disappears: The chorus therefore ends a bit in an anti-climax.
They at least avoided this in the 2nd line, when Rachel did not take the nose-dive of the lead melody but stayed at the same note till the end, creating a better fifth interval ending. 

All in all I think this chorus didn’t work. And as this was the only part they cut from the episode, it makes me wonder if I wasn’t the only one who didn’t really like it.  saispa 
 
Chorus #3 :
This is an easy one: it’s almost the same as the first one, with Kurt singing lead and Rachel the higher 2nd voice. The only difference is that Rachel goes lower in the end of both lines, instead of continuing to say the high notes on the last one.
 
Chorus #4 :
This chorus is totally different from the other ones, and it even abandons the basis of the original chorus of the Beatles. Its basically Kurt singing a line and then Rachel repeating it with a few variations. In music terms we call this an “echo harmony” which name sort of speaks for itself.
At the very last line Kurt does the same thing Paul McCartney does in the last full chorus: he sings the “Get Back” a note higher, but he also adds a little improvised cascade downwards on the last line.

I like this chorus too, as it's different and fresh after 3 somewhat similar choruses.
 
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The Arrangement :
What I really liked about Glee’s ‘Get Back’ version was that they exchanged the guitars and drums of the original with pianos. That gave a little less emphasis on the beat and more flow and energy to the song (with the fast keyboard runs), plus there’s also the lovely piano solo in the middle (played by Billy Preston in the Beatles version).
The use of the grand pianos in the episode during the song matched that arrangement nicely. It makes you wonder what came first: the idea to arrange ‘Get Back’ with only pianos or the idea of having Kurt and Rachel do a choreography with grand pianos being wheeled around. My guess, as this is Glee and they make things up without thinking about the consequences for the music department: the latter.  Rolling Eyes 
 
This next paragraph got written only because my music education put some never ever to cross rules in my head and I simply cannot let this one slide. The many grand pianos in the dancing class room were explained by Rachel saying that dean Carmen wanted the pianos tuned by the students. Not that Glee is a bit realistic on a sunny day in California anyway, but:
1) Pianos being used in conservatories or similar music schools, and especially grand pianos would never be tuned by students, let alone freshmen. Usually a school like that would have a professional piano-tuner on staff.
2) Twirling those pianos across the room, sitting and even walking on them does not help the tuning proces at all, and as these were grand pianos which are usually a lot more expensive than normal pianos I bet miss. Tibideaux would have expelled half of the students in that class room had she walked in during the song.  Razz 
3) There’s no way that a dance teacher like Cassandra would allow several grand pianos and stools to be wheeled in and pushed around on that wooden floor. Dance floors must be as smooth as possible and are being taken care of meticulously. Not even normal footwear would be allowed except when there is special floor covering forming a path. Pianos would be placed on special coasters.  Rolling Eyes 
But I admit the visuals were fun and inventive, although it was not the first time furniture was used to do choreography in that same dance room. Maybe NYADA has a special class for that.  tonguue 
 
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Lea :
As much as I love the excisting Hummelberry duets (and would love to get some more too, thank you very much Glee) I wish this song was not one of them. In general I appreciate it when in Glee more singers can get involved in a song that in its origin is a solo, especially when they add new harmonies, because I think the Glee music people write (additional) harmonies very well. But this is one of the few times when I think that Glee should not have tweeked an original song to make it a (sort of) duet.  mince 
Sometimes it works, sometimes it can even enhance the original, sometimes it’s merely acceptable, and sometimes it distracts and the added voice is just…..annoying noise.  unsure 
In my opinion ‘Get Back’ would have been better as a Kurt solo, with Rachel or other random singers strictly on back-up in 1 chorus (like in the original). Or if they simply couldn’t resist putting her in the song (it’s Rachel after all  Rolling Eyes ) they should have kept it to Lea singing the back-up 2nd voice on all choruses but without all the howling and moaning.
It feels like Lea was shoe-horned in because Glee is so used to its own patterns when it comes to the singing (and imo also in its storylines, but that’s another subject) and God forbid miss Rachel Berry does not get to sing prominently in a song when she’s in the same room as another singer, even when it is a song that is being sung to her in the show.  dryy 
This Hummelberry song shouldn’t really have been a Hummelberry song at all, let alone a duet. And as ‘Get Back’ is not originally a duet to begin with (unlike some other songs *cough*Come What May*cough*) I think I’m allowed to say that.  fanny2 
 
What also doesn’t help is that imo Lea does not have the voice to sing Beatles songs (or at least not the ones we heard from her in this episode). Of course she can technically sing them, she has one of the strongest and most beautiful voices of the cast, but I don’t think she has the right style and timbre to sing (these) Beatles songs. It’s too clean and too belted.
The choruses I can live with: it happens very often on Glee that other characters in glee club or elsewhere provide the back-up for a solo singer on a song, even when on many occasions the actors are just lipsynching the words on back-up tracks made by studio singers. So the choruses Lea sings back-up on (#1 and #3) are fine by me. She's okay on the chorus with the echo too (#3), but the second chorus is bad, and  the improvisations throughout the song are distracting and annoying. Her “ooh”s and “aah”s don’t fit in the song at all, and to be completely honest (meaning: harsh) they kind of cheapen it.   Embarassed 
Let me be clear: most if not all of the blame for this goes mostly to the music producers/editors, not Lea.
 
The interactions between Kurt and Rachel (or Chris and Lea) in the episode during this number was great, a real joy to watch. There wasn’t much dancing, but that was very generously compensated with many glances and genuine smiles, and don’t forget the head banging and gorgeous leg action going on.  neutre 
I hope we will get a real Hummelberry duet soon, as it is ridiculous that Kurt and Rachel have been living together for a year (and 1 ½ seasons) now and yet their last duet was at the beginning of season 3.  No 
 
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Chris :
Glee is letting Chris sing in his low register a lot more in season 4 and especially season 5. And I love that, although I have to state for the record here that I love his high register equally as much (maybe even a little bit more). It’s amazing that besides his rare, beautiful countertenor and his unique ‘colfertenor’ Chris also has quite a distinguishable tenor voice that can’t get mixed up with or mistaken for the many generic male voices on Glee.  wub 
I hope Glee will let him continu to use both registers, and especially give him songs that mix them together in all variations and styles possible.
 
In ‘Get Back’ Chris sings only in his low register, and quite high up in it even. The song stays mostly between the C4 and the G5, with a few sidesteps either way. The verses start on an E4 and goes up to a G4, and those are the notes Chris usually is the most comfortable switching to the high register on whenever he is singing with both his registers (his ‘colfertenor’).
For ‘Get Back’ he therefore had to be careful to choose the low register to sing those notes, but I don’t think that was hard for him since the entire song was in low register and that’s an easy muscle memory/mind set to lock the voice into. If he had to switch somewhere in the song to high register and back again then reminding himself to not automatically switch on those most convenient notes for him would have been more difficult, simply because he had to think about on top of everything else. Now he just needed to shift his voice in a fixed gear and go.  Smile 
 
As I said at the beginning of this review, Chris has proven several times already that his voice suits the Beatles songs very well. ‘Get Back’ is no exception to this rule. His low register is a little hazy by nature, and coincidentally so is Paul McCartney’s. Maybe that’s part of why Chris sings the Beatles songs so well.
He added a little grit to his voice in ‘Get Back’, but not as much as he did on ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’, as the song doesn’t need it. What the song does need is a little wink and a smile, as the lyrics are catchy but a bit nonsensical. And I think Chris expresses that feeling very well, both in his singing and in his acting in the episode.
 
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Final Remark :
In my ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’ review I already mentioned that that song and ‘Get Back’ are far from my favorite songs of the Beatles. They’re fine, just nothing special imo. But it surprised me how much ‘Get Back’ apparently got lodged into my brain, as it was so difficult for me to hear the new Glee harmonies (even though I rarely listen to the Beatles on purpose). So the song still must have left some sort of impression over the years. And that’s what a lot of Beatles songs do. Young or old (and I’m not that old) : everyone knows and can hum along to at least a few Beatles songs. They definitely stand the test of time.  neutre 
I’m glad that Glee revived a couple of Beatles song for the show and made them more accessible to viewers who normally wouldn’t listen to them. Maybe they got curious because of Glee and will check out the originals now too.
 
I’m also glad that Chris had the chance to sing on several Beatles songs, and did so well on them. What delights me even more is that he not only did well on the ballads but also on the more uptempo ones, and that he was able to give them enough edge.
It’s not that I myself didn’t think he could (because I’ve suspected that he could ever since he sang ‘4 Minutes’) but the idea that he could not has been one of those assumptions that repeatedly made its rounds in the fandom and eventually is taken for truth by many.   dryy 

‘Get Back’ was not the first song on Glee in which Chris could show he can also sing the more edgy  pop/rock like songs (I remember how the fandom unaminously flailed when Chris growled that one line in ‘Black or White’), but it was the first that clearly had him front and center, as in practically being a solo. And since this review was written when we’re well into season 5 we already know there’s even edgier and more growling songs to look forward to.   aa54 
It’s certainly not the only reason why I marvel at Chris’ voice so much, but the fact that he turned out to be such a versatile singer when for many years he (and the fandom) thought his voice was beautiful but only suitable for a limited ‘niche’….. well, those days are definitely over.  hapitgh 
 
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Last edited by Glorfindel on 4/19/2014, 10:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Post  brisallie 3/9/2014, 10:55 pm

Good review Marie  Smile I personally love Get Back as I think is a sort of cheerful song, I think changing the guitars to pianos was a nice touch. And yeah, I agree Chris has some hazy in her lower register that for me makes a difference from the other male voices of Glee Cast, except Kevin who has also a has a distinct voice.
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Post  ColferInspired 3/9/2014, 11:03 pm

Love the review.  Smile 

'Get Back' is my favourite from that episode.
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Post  fantastica 3/9/2014, 11:06 pm

thank you so much Marie, but you have to hurry up because the new songs are piling up.  Smile 

 bisou 
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Post  Buenos 3/9/2014, 11:33 pm

fantastica wrote:thank you so much Marie, but you have to hurry up because the new songs are piling up.  Smile 

 bisou 

Yes you've slacked off long enough.

Wonderful review , now get back to work.  coool tonguue 
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Post  Delight 3/9/2014, 11:48 pm

Thank you, Glorfindel, for the in-depth analysis of another Kurt song.  neutre 

I have to admit that although I like the Hummelberry camaraderie in the performance and also how Kurt sang lead in the song, it didn't really grab me as much as their previous duets (like, for example, For Good). It was an 'okay' song for me, and if you hadn't pointed out to me that the choruses were sung 4 different ways, I wouldn't have noticed. You've opined that this song didn't really work well as a duet, and I agree.

Another thing that I have to agree on-- more Hummelberry duets (proper ones) on Glee would be much appreciated. However, with the feud going on in the loft now, it would seem there would be less opportunities for this. Or more. I mean, they can always try to repair their friendship by singing songs, as Glee is wont to do.

Glorfindel wrote:...I remember how the fandom unaminously flailed when Chris growled that one line in ‘Black or White’

I remember that line in the song preview. That line was glorious. It made me extremely frustrated that Kurt didn't get to sing the whole song on his own but... Missed opportunities, thy name is Glee. *sigh*
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Post  Glorfindel 3/10/2014, 8:27 am

Buenos wrote:
fantastica wrote:thank you so much Marie, but you have to hurry up because the new songs are piling up.  Smile 

 bisou 

Yes you've slacked off long enough.

Wonderful review , now get back to work.   coool tonguue 
Kurt's Singing Voice - Page 10 871863
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Post  Ireth 3/10/2014, 11:51 am

Glorfindel wrote:
Buenos wrote:
fantastica wrote:thank you so much Marie, but you have to hurry up because the new songs are piling up.  Smile 

 bisou 

Yes you've slacked off long enough.

Wonderful review , now get back to work.   coool tonguue 
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Awww, no bisou 

You can take a break, this was a really good, informative review and I can't even imagine how much work you put into it. Your daughter as well. Smile
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Post  Glorfindel 4/19/2014, 11:03 pm

Next I’m going to post an old review from Glee Forum I haven’t posted here yet, it’s from September 2011.
For those who don’t know this: my older reviews are all posted on Glee Forum in the Kurt/Chris section, but as that forum has made a number of threads private now so only members can read them I’m planning to post those reviews all here and on glorfindel-m.tumblr.com as well.
 
Initially I wanted to post them all in chronological order again, as the Glee forum reviews had a deliberate built in learning curve in the order I posted them, so each new review e.g. introduced a new music technical term, and the discovery of the realms of Chris’ voice was spread out over the reviews as it was over the seasons of Glee.

(So for those of you who have only read my latest reviews it could be that there are some music terms that you are unfamiliar with. Please don’t hesitate to ask me about them.)
But as I got a question about ‘As If We Never Said Goodbye’ the other day and decided that the easiest way to answer that question was to show them this review. Since then I have been rereading the old review, rewriting it though not really changing it, more reformulating certain sentences better and explaining a bit more to get my points across.



(BTW: rereading your own, old stuff is absolutely horrible to do.  Mad )
 
So…..please bare in mind while reading this review that it was written 2 ½ years ago, when Glee was in its 2nd season (and didn’t suck as much as it does now), when we didn’t know what the show would do with Chris’ voice beyond what they had done so far, when he was mostly lumped in with the girls, when the whole WSS debacle was still in the future and Kurt had never even heard of NYADA yet, when we didn’t know that Chris was writing his own movie scripts and books, and when we thought we’d never see a shoulder of Kurt exposed in the show ever, let alone a nipple.
Lol: it’s like a whole new world now.  Smile 

 
What is also funny about revisiting this old review is that when I wrote I had no idea that one day Adam Lambert would join the cast of Glee. And yet here he is, popping up in this review.  wub
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Post  Glorfindel 4/19/2014, 11:04 pm

REVIEW: As If We Never Said Goodbye (AIWNSG).

In the episode 'Born This Way' the long anticipated return of Kurt to McKinley High has finally arrived. Kurt's return is celebrated by him singing 'As If We Never Said Goodbye', the perfect song for the occasion. We know that Chris chose this song himself and he could not have picked a better one. But before I continu gushing I have to confess this: I had been very much looking forward to Kurt singing this song (more than e.g. ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’), but when I finally heard it (granted: it was a bad mp3 on youtube) I was slightly disappointed. Don't worry, I was very wrong.  fanny2 

I know AIWNSG inside out. I studied it in my final year at the conservatory as part of my end exam, and unlike in Glee, where the actors work on songs varying from 1 to maybe 10 days and the characters seem to know songs perfectly on the spot, normally in the real world singers would study a difficult song like that for months. So I studied every verse, every line, and every word of AIWNSG untill my teacher deemed it perfect.
AIWNSG is a female power ballad, with the emphasis on 'power'. Traditionally it's therefore sung in a very powerful way, with the female singer singing soft and vulnerable at the start, but also strong, belting very high and using some classical vocal techniques in the last part. This is a triumphant, emotional, empowering, and in some ways even bitter song and everyone listening should be aware of that.
That's the way it was drilled into my head by my teacher back then anyway. And (for a woman) it's very hard to master this song, because of the hidden pitfalls in it, e.g. when needing to switch back and forth between the chest and head voice, and the needed powerbelt combined with the softer notes to show the conflicted vulnerability and toughness of the character. Needless to say that this song brought me a lot of frustration but I also learned a lot from it.

Here's a version of a renowned Dutch musical singer. That's how this song is usually sung on stage and how I learned it:



Kurt doesn't sing AIWNSG like this…..like at all. He sings more timid, more introvert and contemplative, especially in the beginning and at the very end. He puts a lot of vulnerability and tenderness in it, more than most singers, but also more joy and confidence than the musical version requires, and music technically he switches on different notes than most women would do. So Kurt’s version is beautiful, but it's not the way it's supposed to be (in the musical)…..or so I was taught. And that threw me off at first. But imo one of Chris’ strengths in his singing is how he makes songs his own instead of blindly copying the common interpretation.

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Storylines and context:

The original story of AIWNSG is featured in the musical 'Sunset Boulevard'. It's about an old and forgotten black-and-white movie star (back when the movies still had no sound), Norma Desmond . She returns to the film sets because she thinks they want her to act in a movie again, but in reality they just want to use her oldtimer car and not her. But she doesn't know that yet when she sings ‘As If We Never Said Goodbye’ when she wanders on the set and studio backlots believing she is back in showbusiness again.
Norma’s story is not the same as Kurt's, but the lyrics fit Kurt's storyline too, as he also comes back to an old familiar, beloved place after being absent for a while against his will. But what made the song absolutely perfect for Kurt was the way Chris sang it, and even more the way he acted during that song: he was storytelling and you could literally feel the happiness and joy of Kurt (and of Chris too: being back with his cast mates). Chris didn't even try to fill the high heels of many famous (Broadway) singers like Patti Lupone, Elaine Page, Barbra Streisand, Betty Buckley, Glenn Close, etc. (look on youtube: the list goes on and on).
Instead he made AIWNSG into his own story, and like he did with 'Defying Gravity' he changed a power ballad into a spiritual lovesong.

When the episode aired and I saw Kurt's storyline and the settings it took place in (including those moving painted seas and cardboard trees), it all came together and Chris’ acting/voice choices, which had thrown me off before when all I had to go on was the audio (so before I saw the scene in the show) started making perfect sense.
Kurt’s vulnerability is him bursting for joy he’s back, and not the vulnerability of an old actress not knowing for sure how people will treat her on her return after they discarded her so many years ago. The genuine, simple joy in Kurt’s belted notes was Kurt not having any hard feelings when returning to McKinley, as his problems were mostly solved (or so he thought, as this was before ‘Prom Queen’), whereas Norma Desmond has felt that she was rejected by her former peers for a long, long time and so her return to the movie studio is very bittersweet. Kurt has more confidence than Norma Desmond as Kurt knows his friends are at McKinley, whereas Norma basically tries to boost her own confidence up because she’s a bit scared of returning after so many years.
 
I don’t know how many of these acting/voice choices of Chris were specifically planned by him this way, or how many of them sort of emanated because Chris is not a female power belter and therefore he simply had to make different choices in voice and volume.
Whatever the reason (and it’s probably a combination of the 2 options) Chris owned that song, and it was worth every second of those 5 minutes (!) on Glee. I don't think that there ever was a song that was that long and uncut on Glee (well, there was 'One Less Bell To Answer', but it's 10 seconds shorter).  I know parts of the fandom were grumbling that AIWNSG seemed to go on forever on the show, but I was so glad they let Kurt sing it in its entirity, as it displays the feelings of his return to McKinley so beautiful and powerful: if they made 'Born This Way' extra long just for this song alone it would already have been worth it imo.

Here's a very beautiful video with Kurt/Chris' version:




Vocal techniques:


One of the first things I do when preparing a review is dissecting the lyrics of the song into the low register, high register, middle register. AIWNSG is a quite steady and even repetitive song, and by now I know Chris' voice enough that I can hear what he's doing most of the time, so I thought that dividing the lyrics into registers would be an easy task.
But look at the result and you'll see it's definitely not:

"I don't know why I'm frightened, I know my way around here,
The cardboard trees, the painted seas, the sound here.
Yes, a world to rediscover, but I 'm not in any hurry,
And I need a moment.

The whispered conversations in overcrowded hallways,
The atmosphere is thrilling here as always.
Feel the early morning madness, feel the magic in the making,
Why, everything's as if we never said goodbye.

I've spent so many mornings just trying to resist you,
I'm trembling now, you can't know how I've missed you.
Missed the fairy tale adventure, in this ever spinning playground,
We were young together

I'm coming out of make-up, the lights already burning,
Not long until the cameras will start turning.
And the early morning madness, and the magic in the making,
Yes, everything's as if we never said goodbye.


I don't want to be alone, that's all in the past,
This world's waited long enough, I've come home at last!

And this time will be bigger, and brighter than we knew it,
So watch me fly, we all know I can do it.
Could I stop my hands from shaking? Has there ever been a moment,
With so much to live for?

The whispered conversations in overcrowded hallways,
So much to say not just today but always.
We'll have early morning madness, we'll have magic in the making.
Yes, everything's as if we never said goodbye.
Yes, everything's as if we never said goodbye.

We taught the world new ways to dream!"


Wut? ...  blinkk  ... My thoughts exactly.

When I want to write down the registers of a voice in a song I usually use these typing tricks to differentiate between the several voice registers and timbres:
- 'normal' letter-style for high register, the 'female' style,
- 'italic' style for high register, countertenor style,
- 'bolded' style for low register,
- 'underscored and normal' for voix mixte using the high register,
- 'underscored and bolded' for voix mixte using the low register.

Before AIWNSG a Kurt song had 2, maybe 3 of those registers, neatly divided into distinctive lines and on logical places in the song. But this song is nothing like that. There are so many vocal techniques mixed up that my attempt to point out the different registers/timbres Chris used look like the doodling of a toddler.
In AIWNSG Chris uses all his acquired vocal techniques combined and fused together. And the great and unusual thing about that is the fact that it still sounds as a uniform/homogeneous voice. His voice is still a unity.

That's what makes it so special. And it's a style I never really heard before in my life, not in a man’s voice anyway.

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The colfertenor: 

We know that Chris' vocal training was unusual because he taught himself female vocal techniques as a teenager (by singing along with e.g. the Wicked soundtrack). So when he started on Glee I'm sure the music people there had a hard time figuring out what to do with this boy and his voice. These were the challenges they faced:
- He had an unusual high voice for a male.
- He was not a girl: but female vocal techniques were definitely rudimentary developed and that was a nice perk, but what to do with that?
- He was not an 'ordinary' tenor: he didn't (like to) belt that high.
- He was not a pure countertenor: he was too accostumed to switching registers frequently, while countertenors try to avoid switching back to low register as much as possible.

So over the years in Glee Chris (and the music producers) had to learn to deal with the voice he already developed, plus he also had to learn lots of new vocal techniques to fit the more common moulds. But Chris didn't restrict himself to 1 or 2 new singing voices types:
- He didn't limit himself to a male tenor with an also fairly developed and easy accessible high register.
- He didn't limit himself to a countertenor, using only his high register with some voix mixte when absolutely necessary.
- He also kept stubbornly cultivating his female vocal techniques: he kept training to smoothen his breakpoints and ‘coloring’ the timbres of his low and high register towards each other (casually creating 2 voix mixtes in the process), like a female singer would.

As a vocal coach I know that this strategy is a road to disaster most of the time.  unsure 
Muscle memory can't switch styles that easily and if you train all these different techniques you will ultimately confuse your voice/body and your muscle memory. And as a result of that a lot of tones/notes in the middle area of your vocal range (around the breaking point) can be permanently damaged. You muscles won't know what to do anymore, your voice and body get confused and the tones that come out will not be perfect and clear: they become diffused and less bright. Like a rubber band that is pulled too often and has lost it's elasticity, or a stream that has no clear (river)bed to run through. In the worst case scenario you could start yodelling involuntary all the time: changing registers at random, so your voice will be out of your control (like boys do when their voices drop in puberty).
That's why I told you in my review of ‘Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina’ that in the nearby future (-ETA-, remember that this review was originally written in 2011) Chris might have to choose between being a tenor or being a countertenor, because most voices can't handle 2 different voice types.
But apparently Mr. Colfer can handle 3.  Shocked 

Chris can manage singing as 1) a female singer/alto, 2) a tenor and 3) a countertenor, and all at the same time
I think somewhere during that process of getting to know his voice and trying to improve it, at first without any real professional guidance and later under immense time and other pressures (on Glee) Chris created a completely new singing voice type: so I decided to call it the colfertenor.  wub


It's masculine, it's feminine. It's soft and loving, it's powerful and strong. It’s in 1 solid register, it switches smoothly between registers. It's clear, it's hazy. And most of all it’s stunningly beautiful.

The only singer I know that comes near to this unique 'sound' of especially the smooth register switching (beside maybe the late Freddie Mercury) is Adam Lambert, although there are of course (other) differences between Chris and Adam’s voice. Adam Lambert: I Just Love You

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The colfertenor voice used as an acting tool:

If you look back to my attempt to point out Kurt's registers in the lyrics of AIWNSG you can see that some of the same melodies are sung with different techniques. Some verses are mostly in high register, countertenor or 'female'. But some of the verses are mostly in low register, even belted, even when the melody of the verses are the same. And it sometimes seems as if he changes almost every line.
That's Chris acting, but doing so while singing. It's a perfect blend of both talents, and I think it’s his strongest suit.

AIWNSG in itself has very little variation, it could even be called boring in melody. It has 6 (!) almost identical verses, with only 2 lines as bridge, and 1 closing line (stolen from another song). That's it. But Chris makes each verse different in style, in sound, in feeling:
- When Kurt is reflective and internal he mostly sings in high register.
- When Kurt is joyful and determined he mostly sings in low register.
Chris adjusts his voice to Kurt’s inner feelings, going back and forth all the time. He's thrilled that he's back, he can't believe he's back, he missed it so much, he doesn't want to be alone anymore, he's a little frightened, he's determined to stay, and this time it will be bigger.It's impressive acting, even more so if you realize that all of these emotions were acted out in an empty and uninspiring music studio before the scene was even shot.


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High Bflats again:

Some of the highest tones in AIWNSG are belted, to empasize Kurt's coming-back-to-stay feeling:
"I don't want to be alone, that's all in the past,
This world's waited long enough: I've come home at last."

That's a lot of high B4flats in 2 lines, and all belted except for the first one (the "I don’t").
That's why AIWNSG is so very difficult for a woman to sing: she either has to belt those Bflats (and not every female singer can do that) or use a very powerful voix mixte in high register. Granted, for a male high voice that Bflat is better accessible in chest voice (low register), but only when he is a high baritone or a tenor.

The high C:

You may have noticed it already: I don't use the dual vocal term ‘baritenor/tenor’ anymore when I'm talking about Chris' 'male' low register voice (as before I wasn’t sure if he was a baritone or a tenor).
In AIWNSG Chris belts an amazing high C5…..yes, the tenor high C5.  panik
It's on the word "home" in the line "I've come home at last". It's very short and he cheats a little by immediately jumping back from that high C5 to a lower note, but it's there. So I can safely write down now that Chris is indeed a tenor, as I suspected before but never could ‘prove’.
And consequently Kurt is officially a tenor now too, so congratulations to the both of you. hapitgh 

To celebrate I made a nice new vocal range music scale:
- The underscored blue notes are low register only.
- The italic black notes are notes that can both be sung in low and high register.
- The ‘normal’ red notes are high register only.

A2-B2-C3-D3-E3-F3-G3-A3-B3-C4-D4-E4-F4-G4-A4-(B4flat)-B4-C5-D5-E5-F5-G5-A5-B5flat
 

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Last remark:

Usually when I write a review I begin my research (logically) by watching the song I'm about to review as it is shown on Glee.
So I watched AIWNSG in 'Born this Way'…..and I started crying.  crycry 
I was crying because that same day (-ETA-, this was September 2011) on the KHAT (the Kurt Hummel/Chris Colfer Appreciation Thread on Glee Forum) we had a little discussion about how they often made Kurt sing female songs on Glee and that some of us wished he'd be able to do more male musical numbers. And it’s true that I have been campaigning on Glee Forum’s KSV-thread for a more male approach to Chris's singing voice too, I've even already prepared a passionate advocacy to emphasize my opinion on that matter for my next review of 'Some People'.

And as a vocal coach I still do believe singing male songs would be good for him (for Kurt and Chris), vocal technically and aesthetically.

But while listening and watching AIWNSG on the same day we discussed this on thar forum I suddenly realized how absolutely perfect Kurt's rendition of AIWNSG is, and how Chris was able to create a completely new and unique way of singing that I never heard before.
And we never would have had that great and beautiful gift if Chris didn't like singing girl songs in the first place and, despite nay-sayers, stubbornly/persistently developed his voice that way in his adolescence, and if Glee hadn't given him the opportunity to explore and develop that unusual skill to the max.

Hence the crying. Because who am I to tell him "No, you can't" because it’s not the usual way? I think he dealt with comments like that enough already.  dryy 
So I was a bit torn. I love his voice for the promise it holds if Chris wants to school himself ultimately as a tenor with high register benefits, or as a countertenor, and if so I can see a bright singing future ahead of him. But I never ever want to lose this unique and beautiful, beautiful singing voice style Chris has created by and for himself and then refined to sheer perfection. 

I'm selfish, but sometimes I want Kurt to be on Glee for the rest of his life and give us more of this every week, so we can get songs from him on a regular basis. If not, then I hope he will someday record an album of his own, including some female Broadway songs.
Or maybe Chris can eventually create and produce his own musicals, perfectly fitted for his own voice, and act and sing in them and make movies of them, so we can keep on listening to this divine ambrosia for our ears whenever we want or need to.  fanny2 





-ETA-
 This is a post from Amy Powers (posted on October 1st, 2013), who cowrote ‘As If We Never Said Goodbye’ with Andrew Lloyd Webber. She says:

I’m so grateful when a song of mine can resurface unexpectedly and resonate with a whole new generation of listeners. 

Case in point: Chris Colfer’s brilliant performance of a song I cowrote for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard, originally popularized by Barbara Streisand.


Last edited by Glorfindel on 4/20/2014, 9:06 am; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : added a link)
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Post  ColferInspired 4/20/2014, 2:30 am

I have always loved AIWNSG, and I still do 'til this day.

That was one the best performances Glee has ever done.

Chris was amazing.

Thanks again for another beautiful review.  neutre

This performance will always be a classic Glee to me.
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Post  Kurt addict 4/20/2014, 4:55 am

Thank you Marie always love your reviews, sky is showing series 4 over here at the moment ( still no word on series5) and I've just been watching "Diva" Bring him home just gives me goosebumps it's so moving  ooppss 
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Post  MoviesAreLife 9/9/2014, 4:31 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3uK41UrtyI

Does anyone think that the high harmony singer in this song sounds like Chris??

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Post  Ranwing 9/9/2014, 5:10 pm

There are times when I wish that they had Kurt go into opera training because a countertenor would be so highly regarded. I've grown more appreciative of opera over the years and there are a lot of roles that were written specifically for countertenors. Handel especially was known for his countertenor roles.

This is a lovely example.

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Post  Glorfindel 11/7/2014, 1:48 pm

Sorry, no new review yet, but I just made a post for tumblr in which I list 20 musical roles for Chris, and I thought I'd post it here as well:


Next To Normal – Gabe
The New Starlight Express – Electra  or Rusty
Cabaret – the emcee
Les Miserables – Marius or Enjolras
West Side Story – Tony  (oh yes, Glee was very wrong in choosing Blaine over Kurt)
Pippin – Pippin
Sunset Boulevard – Joe
City of Angels - Stine
Into the Woods – one of the princes
Phantom of the Opera – Raoul, and (when older) the Phantom
Wicked – Fiyero
How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying – Finch
Miss Saigon – John (or even ‘Chris’)
Company - Robert
Evita - Che
Rent - Roger
Aïda - Radames
Jekyll & Hyde – Jekyll & Hyde
Cats – Rum Tum Tugger
Book of Mormon – Elder Price


Notice:
- Some of the choices I will present to you as possible Broadway roles for Chris are really meant for when he’s older (30 and up), and with possibly (hopefully) more experience under his belt of singing live on stage, because singing lead in a musical night after night is no small thing to accomplish. To partially quote Boromir:- “One does not simply walk unto a Broadway stage.”  ;P

- This is just a selection of musicals I’m at least a bit familiar with. I’m sure there’s some great roles for him I won’t mention (and please, feel free to add them to this post in you comments), but that’s mainly because I don’t want to ‘cast’ Chris in roles I personally know not enough of (e.g.: the show ‘the Sopranos’ sound like something Chris could be part of, but I don’t know the songs, characters and other challenges of the individual roles).

- I kinda stuck to the more well-known musicals (e.g there’s a lot of Andrew Lloyd Webber) as I think those are the musicals most people who might read this post but who are not die-hard Broadway nerds know and/or care for.

- I think Chris (voice and looks) would be excellent for the old Hollywood musicals, so any revival of any of those old classics on Broadway would suit him just fine too.


Last edited by Glorfindel on 11/7/2014, 7:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Post  Buenos 11/7/2014, 1:51 pm


Roger in "Company" is a role I would love to see him in.

Also in " Once".
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Post  Glorfindel 11/7/2014, 3:52 pm

My daughter was the one who suggested 'Robert' in Company.

And my husband came up with the most obvious role I somehow missed: Peter Pan. Smile


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Post  Ranwing 11/7/2014, 4:00 pm

Marie, I agree with every one of your selections with the sole exception of casting Chris as Roger in RENT. He would be ideal for Mark (the quirky film director).
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Post  Buenos 11/7/2014, 4:15 pm

The other role I would find for  Chris  intriguing is the young lead in "Catch me if you can".  

Aaron Vdeit !  wub 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K1hJYWQNAo
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Post  Glorfindel 11/7/2014, 5:36 pm

Ranwing wrote:Marie, I agree with every one of your selections with the sole exception of casting Chris as Roger in RENT. He would be ideal for Mark (the quirky film director).
That would be a good role for Chris too, granted: maybe better than Roger.

But Mark doesn't get to sing 'One Song Glory', and I would really like to see Chris perform that song some day. fanny2
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Post  Jellyrolls 11/7/2014, 5:45 pm

Ranwing wrote:Marie, I agree with every one of your selections with the sole exception of casting Chris as Roger in RENT. He would be ideal for Mark (the quirky film director).

I would love to see Chris as Mark in Rent (I have an affection for that role because I know two actors who have played that role on Broadway and on tour).

I saw Raul Esperaza as Robert in Company, and just completely fell in love with him, and have said that I don't think anyone can be so present onstage as he was in that role, but Chris may be able to (with a bit of experience under his belt). If you haven't seen the recording of Company that came out when Raul was in the show, definitely check it out. It was such a fantastic staging (with the actors also being the musicians).

I love Sunset Blvd. (it was the first show I actually saw on Broadway--though I had seen many shows in Boston before that). Joe Gillis was the role I had Kurt win a Tony for in my Kadam fan fiction Wink
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Post  quietbelle 11/15/2014, 8:41 pm

Have you done a song analysis for the song "For good" or could you send me a link to one. I love the song very much and i am interested in how it was arranged in relation to Chris and Lea's voices. Not an expert so excuse the lack of the right vernacular.
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