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Dear John

Quick-fix vocal coaching

Question:
I am a comedian working on my first one-person show for Edinburgh. As it is a full show rather than my usual 20-minute set, I want to broaden it out from just stand-up. I've got a couple of comic songs which go down quite well, on paper. The only thing that stops them going really well live is my voice. I have always loved music but I'm afraid that if I heard myself on the radio, I'd switch it off.

A friend of mine who is a musician has written me a great song to end the show but having shouted at the audience for an hour, I am finding I'm already hoarse by the time the song should start.

I have been to one or two singing teachers but they all want to take me through a whole teaching programme - they don't seem to understand that I don't want to be a singer. I just need to learn to sing these particular songs so I can get my show on the road and start working it for Edinburgh. The rest of my show is fairly polished, so I don't want the songs to sound like amateur night. I suppose I could always make a joke out of the fact that I'm singing badly but that approach doesn't really work with the rest of my act.

Can you suggest some shortcuts to help me 'fake' a singing voice?

Answer:
Well, one good thing about your query is that, unlike me when I first got involved in festivals, you are putting your show together with a reasonable amount of time left to get it right. Yes, successful shows have been cobbled together a few nights before opening but more usually good performers let themselves down with shows which are little more than their existing 20-minute set stretched well beyond breaking point.

I'm glad you have got a friend in to help with the music. Contrary to what some performers think, a successful one-person show doesn't mean you have to do it all yourself, although you do have to take responsibility for making sure it goes according to plan. It is not just comedians who sometimes discover that having an hour to yourself onstage can be a very long time when you are used to much shorter sets or to being onstage with others. Not only can performing for a longer time be a stretch but having to do so night after night, several weeks in a row, can be a shock to the vocals and other parts of the system if you have been in the habit of doing just one or two gigs a week back home. Since you are a spoken word performer aiming to work singing into your show, I thought I would run your query past Philip Carter, a distinguished singer and teacher who has made the opposite journey developing his exisiting light opera repertoire into both a very popular festival show and an equally entertaining Howard Keel evening.

Here's what Philip had to say: "It seems to me that the main problem here is not with the singing voice but with the speaking. If you don't support the speaking voice like an actor does, by the time you get to sing you are lost - and comics in particular need to be reminded that a microphone won't save you. In fact, it just amplifies existing vocal weaknesses.

Here are a couple of things which will help, though. First, work on your speaking voice. Practice expelling air from your lungs in short sharp puffs, as if you are going to blow out a candle. Keep your head straight and your jaw relaxed and then try putting some vocal sounds on to the breath. Start at normal speaking level and increase the volume till you get to a shout, always supporting the voice with the breath, not on your throat.

For the songs, try just humming them first, keeping the sound as far forward as possible in the mask of the face. Then start singing them and mark exactly where you take your breaths and keep to it. Drink plenty of water during the performance and remember, neither Rome nor Edinburgh were built in a day."

You can find some very good general vocal tips at Philip's site www.philipcarter.org but can I also advise that if you end up going for the deliberately singing badly' option, you will need to practise more, not less. As great comedy performers from Spike Jones to Tommy Cooper have demonstrated, the only way to ensure that doing something 'badly', be it music or magic, is funny and not just embarrassing, is to make sure you can do it properly first.