CAMBA, Meeko Angela R.

105
2014-09379
Output

AS
Final

Telling Stories through Music

Upon hearing about our assignment, I was beyond excited. Though I had no
plans of what to do until about a week before the performance, I was sure I wanted
to sing something musical theater (since I knew I wasnt much of a composer
anyway). Luckily I had a pianist and a violinist who could help me out.
I chose Defying Gravity from Wicked by Stephen Schwartz because I knew it
was piece that most of my classmates were familiar with (which I think was
necessary to make my presentation somewhat more effective), but also one that I
happen to like personally. Since the original arrangement (the one from the musical
itself) was intended for two voices, a medium-sized orchestra and a band, I knew I
had to strip it way down. I found a popularized version of the piece online, the Glee
version which had three voices, a piano and percussion, from which I based the
song structure. I transposed it a half-key lower (from Db to C) for convenience more
than anything else. With the kind of range the song had (plus my intention to use a
belt voice rather than a head tone), making it a key lower was crucial.
Since the chord progression was pretty much set (I only changed a few
chords and some rhythmic values), I focused more on the instrumentation and the
actual interpretation of the piece including proper phrasing and dynamics. I
personally think that music (or at least songs) always or should always be able to
tell a narrative of whatever kind, and the musicians job is to convey it not only
through the words (for the singer) but musically as well. With the pieces theatrical
background, I had to base the creative choices I took from the characterization of
Elphaba who sang the piece.
Wicked is a prequel to the more popular tale Wizard of Oz. If one is familiar
of the story, Elphaba was the green woman in a black dress whom people called the
Wicked Witch of the West. Being different, both internally and externally, she was
bullied and often discriminated by the people around her. She possessed unique

qualities which others often made fun of, but after quite a lot of struggling, she
finally learns to break free from her insecurities. Here she sings Defying Gravity.
Basing from her character profile and the trajectory of her story, I saw her as
a young woman who was quite sensitive and rough-around-the-edges. Surely, she
wasnt the polished lady-like sweet type of person typically adored by society.
Because of this, I knew it would be better to use my chest tone to give a sense of
tension, roughness and even aggression as opposed to using a purely classical/head
tone, which is somewhat more refined, that would contradict her image altogether.
The phrasing for a singer is typically to follow the train-of-thought as well as the
breaks in between that the character uses. I cant just cut and breathe in the
middle of phrases because the thoughts would sound incomplete or even senseless.
I had to bear in mind that my character did not memorize what I was saying and
was spontaneously thinking them as she went. In order to do that, I had to be
careful in choosing my pauses; of where to put the breath marks, when to
crescendo or when to cut my phrases short. Each word should sound unfamiliar
not from a lyric sheet.
As for the dynamics, I looked at the development of her emotions. When the
piece started (Something has changed within me, something is not the same), she
was saying she noticed something strange about herself that she hadnt before. It
was an internal dialogue going on inside her head; something she was trying to
figure out on her own, hence the piano in a mixed voice (chest + head). It was a
whisper, then as the song went on, became a concrete thought that eventually
became (forte on the last chorus) as a declaration to the world and herself that she
will indeed defy gravity.
One of the main things I realized in our performance was the difference of an
interpreted/performed piece to the one simply on the sheet. The sheet only tells you
which note to play or maybe even how soft or loud you had to do it, but the
manipulation of how you sing the note for example (which vocal technique or
whether to say it without tune) is solely dependent on the interpreter. The piece
gives the performer the freedom to interpret it however she wishes (of course
without sacrificing the core elements of the song, which is also subject to the
singers evaluation). Thats the beauty of the relationship between a composer and

a performer: the composer draws the structure of the music and the latter gives it
color. It proves that even in music, the whole is so much bigger than the sum of its
parts.
I truly enjoyed myself performing for the class.
#