Adam Clark 3019 MAPA 7543162

Professional Practice - 3019MAPA

In this essay I will outline my processes for planning and assembling my professional practice portfolio.
My portfolio was originally split into three main components, each showcasing my skills as an arranger,
musical director and performer. All these skills would have been showcased in a recital style
performance of musical theater songs with a live band and other singers. With myself singing a mixture
of solo songs and solos in songs with more people. This method of showing my skills was later changed
due to the Covid-19 health crisis, however, this will be discussed later in this essay.

My though process behind the presentation of my chosen skills is as follows. We were asked to make a
portfolio to a professional standard that could function, post university. The area of musical theatre is
one where I have passion, knowledge and experience. I have performed, arranged and been a musical
director for many shows at an amateur and semiprofessional level. I thought that the best way to create
a portfolio showcasing these skills was to perform a set of musical theatre songs with a live band and
ensemble singers. I also decided to make this a live, recital style, concert. The addition of an audience
adds to the atmosphere of the songs. Musical theatre songs inherently center around telling a story, an
audience would help my own performance. I consulted my vocal coach about choosing a set list. The full
list can be found on my online blog (05/02/20).

The full setlist was:

1. Love You I Do – Dreamgirls

Music by Henry Krieger, Lyrics by Siedah Garrett

2. (Not) Getting Married Today – Company

Music and Lyrics by Steven Sondheim

3. Out There – Hunchback of Notre Dame

Music by Alan Menkin, Lyrics by Steven Schwartz

4. For Forever – Dear Even Hansen

Music and Lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul

5. Tonight (Quintet) - West Side Story

Music by Leonard Bernstein, Lyrics by Steven Sondheim

6. Seasons of Love – RENT

Music and Lyrics by Jonothan Larson

Adam Clark 3019 MAPA 7543162

These songs were chosen to showcase different styles of singing, different characters, vocal talents
and vocal range. They also reflect the roles and styles I would be best suited to if I were employed as
a musical theatre performer.

After the set list was finalized, the number of performers, both band and singers, had to be selected.

3 pieces required solo and ensemble singers, these were: (Not) Getting Married Today, Tonight
(Quintet) and Seasons of Love. The musicals these are from each have different numbers of
ensemble members, this being the case I decided 12 singers would be an appropriate number. This
number of singers also provided different options in terms of arranging parts. For example, these
singers could be split into 4 groups of 3 (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass), 6 groups of 2 (Soprano, Mezzo
Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Baritone, Bass) or any combination therein. My original list of singers was
made up of 25 singer and contained 8 possible sopranos, 8 possible altos, 6 Tenors and 5 Basses. I
selected the final 12 based in my previous experience working with them. When choosing I
considered, vocal range, versatility, dedication, confidence and music theory knowledge. This led to
me excluding many of my friends from this list however this would lead to a more professional
standard of performance.

Of the qualities I choose to asses my potential singers, confidence was important, as when one is
singing in a choir the parts are less exposed where in a smaller group any errors are more
identifiable. I believe a knowledge of music theory was an important factor as there would not be a
large amount of time to teach everyone their parts in detail. A knowledge of music theory would
allow them to learn the intricacies of their parts in rehearsals and the tune or harmony by reading
the music.

One of my skills chosen to showcase was my skills as an arranger. Before this portfolio I had
arranged 30 stand alone musical theatre songs and rearranged 2 full musicals, all of which I have
heard performed live. This gave me experience of the limitations of my performers and how an
arrangement translates from the score to the performance.

My first piece, Love You I Do, was arranged from a piano vocal score, which I expanded to 11
instruments. Listening to the original track I figured out where the horns were playing in unison and
used general sax soli writing rules as basis and expanded this ‘rule’ to all the horns. My 1st trumpet
took the melody, 2nd trumpet and alto sax switched between voice 2 and 3 throughout, trombone
and tenor sax switched between voices 4 and 5 throughout and the bari. sax mostly doubled the
bass line. This piece ended up similar to the original with a few additions, the best of which, I
believe, is the addition of another repetitions of the horn riff, at bar 58, as I was singing much higher
than originally written and the addition of the horns gave that section more importance in the
context of the piece as a whole.
Adam Clark 3019 MAPA 7543162

I decided Love You I Do was an appropriate piece to showcase my upper range as the style of the
piece is inducive to ad. libs. and intense belting. In bar 56 of the original piece, the singer is required
to belt an F5 (F4 when singing down the octave), knowing my voice, I knew that I could take that up
to a Bb4 which would be a more impressive note for my voice. While practicing this passage I was
able to add two C5s and a D5. These notes are at the extreme of my belting range but very few
songs are written that high, so I elected to add this change to my own performance.

Like Love You I Do I added and changed notes in (Not) Getting Married Today, For Forever and
Seasons of Love. For Forever, has the largest written range of any of my set list (G2-B4). Like most
musical theatre songs, For Forever showcases a singers upper belting register. I added a D2 in bar 90
to show the lower extremities of my voice.

Seasons of Love presented some challenges when I tried to create my own interpretation on the solo
originally sung by the character Joanne. At the end of the original solo the singer is required to sing
up to a C6. I chose to sing this solo the octave down as to remain in my chest voice. However, I could
not sustainably or safely belt the C5 at the end of the solo and in my head voice this note doesn’t
have an appropriate amount of impact. I saw this as an opportunity to showcase my ability to use
the whistle register and a C7 at the end of the solo. While practicing this I had the idea to add a key
change, from F to G major, at the end of this solo and required me to sing a D7 as well as a C7.

As I had the original scores for Out There and Tonight (Quintet), much of the arrangement work for
these was re-arranging the original scores to suit the instruments I had at my disposal. This led to
many instrumental substitutions, such as having a French horn part to a flugelhorn or in the
chalumeau register of the clarinet. Another substitution I made was to have oboe part of Out There
played by the 2nd flute and changed the octave depending on the original register to give the part
more, or less presence as appropriate.
Adam Clark 3019 MAPA 7543162

Due to the Covid-19 outbreak I canceled my recital and, at the time of cancellation, my remaining
rehearsals. Because of this I decided to have my performers fil them selves playing their parts and
edit the audio and the video clips together to give an impression of what the concert would have
been. During this process I needed to improve my DAW skills to accurately showcase my
arrangements and performance. This led to a large amount of online research into different types of
plug-ins, how they work and what settings work best on each instrument in different contexts.

Some of my performers’ videos were not of an acceptable standard and some performers were
either unable to send me a video or neglected too. For example, I did not receive a video from my
reed I player, to work around this I used a midi sound to replace their flute part and asked my reed
III player to play their alto sax parts. Because some of the parts contained many errors, I decided to
record myself playing these parts. Some of performers also sent me their videos close to the
submission date when I had asked to have the videos at least a week before. This led me to cut their
performance from these pieces as I did not have time to edit the audio and video files.