The musical theatre/ siniging course is subdivided into 7 categories:

1. Technical Singing Classes

HTS teaches all students the classical technique of singing, as we believe this to be the safest technique. Whilst we do not endorse the traditional ‘belt' style of singing, we realise that the ‘belt' sound is needed in today's musical theatre. There are safe ways to reproduce the required sound for those students who don't have a natural ‘belt'. If we consider your progress satisfactory and it is safe to do so we will teach you a technique that gives your sound the required edge, without forcing a naturally low chest voice too high. The classical technique subscribes to a low breaking point between your head and chest voice, eventually making the break negligible to the listener.

On starting your course you will be allocated a technical singing teacher. Your technical singing classes are undertaken on a one to one basis. We believe that this is the most productive way for you to progress quickly. The length of your technical class varies from term to term, but it can range from anything from 10 – 30 minutes. Within your first few days at HTS you will be taught to safely warm up your voice, and you will be expected to warm yourself up before any singing class. This ensures that you're allocated time is really used to your best advantage.

These classes are purely technical so you can expect to do many scales and exercises designed to strengthen your voice as quickly and safely as possible. When you have a performance singing assessment or a college audition to prepare for your singing teacher will of course rehearse your material with you, but solely approach the piece from a technical viewpoint.

You will quickly find that there are many natural cross-over points between your technical singing classes and your technical voice classes. All staff at HTS teach with the same basic technique – so what you learn about breathing in one class, is not contradicted in another class.

At all times your progress is monitored by both your allocated teacher and the Head of Musical Theatre. More importantly all staff concerned with your voice will discuss with you at every stage what areas they think that you need to work on next. Finding your voice can sometimes be a process of negotiation, compromises have to be made. At HTS you will have a say in how you wish to proceed.

 

When you become technically proficient you will start to transfer your technical knowledge into songs. Most of us know that a scale can be easily learnt, yet adding words and changing the sequence of notes can be quite tricky. Using show songs that will no doubt be familiar to you, your technical singing tutor will help and guide you as you transfer your technical knowledge to the real life song!

Singing in a modern musical is the vocal equivalent of running a marathon – it is essential that you get the technique right to remain vocally safe at all times. You need to understand your voice; it is after all the most basic and essential tool that any actor uses. To put it bluntly, you only have the one voice, once it's gone – so has your career! We understand that, and take our responsibilities seriously.

2. Song Performance and Analysis

Whilst being a technically safe singer is important for your learn term career, it is usually the performance and understanding of a song that will actually get you that first job.

Starting with very basic ideas, using songs that you will no doubt be familiar to you, you will start to explore how a song is performed successfully. At its most basic level why do we sing in shows? It can't simply be because we like the sound of our own voices. Song performance classes start simply and slowly, looking at what makes a good vocal performer. We explore why some songs are easier to perform than others. It is a recognised fact that some experts believe that singing is 90% psychology and just 10% technique. It is certainly true that our emotional well being at any given time can affect the timbre of the sound that we are able to produce. At HTS all performance classes adhere to this belief. You won't be required to simply ‘sing emotionally', you will be required, just like in your acting classes, to explore the emotion and then emit it, in this instance via music.

You might not in the early days of training have the ability to read music, however you will be able to analyse musical ideas. Think on a very basic level at what a minor sounding song tells you, or how an unusual rhythmic pattern makes you feel uncomfortable. Starting with simple, every day language, eventually progressing to a much more legitimate musical language all HTS students learn to understand music – more than simply listen.

You will have classes that only involve listening and talking. The best performers are the ones that understand their craft inside out – they don't simply ‘perform'. Since 1970's musical theatre actors have been required to really think. For example you couldn't just suddenly sing a Sondheim number without understanding at least some of the multitude of nuances that he includes in every song. How will you cope on your first job when a director asks you to explore the emotion in a song? By the time you have finished your 3 years, you're more likely to struggle if they don't ask you.

Understanding how to sing words as opposed to music, looking at how a scene can turn into a song, learning how, as a performer, to make the song as emotionally raw as possible, whilst not making your audience feel uncomfortable. Every song has an emotional line, every good performer knows it, every competent performer strives to find it, every HTS student strides up to it, initially crossing it, eventually standing right on it and learn how to perform the song from the truth of that line.

As the course progresses so does the material that you are encouraged to explore. By your 3 rd year you will know where your weaknesses in performance lies, and combined with the barrier breaking that you do in your acting classes, you will soon challenge yourself to face the more difficult repertoire that exists in the modern musical theatre.

Combined with this individual personal work, which you undertake in group situations, you also look at the dynamics of group performance. As a year group you will study and analyse many songs throughout the course, and explore the various options that you have as an ensemble performer. How much is enough, and how do you know when you're pulling focus within the groups (in a bad way)? By pushing limits and deliberately holding back you will soon learn how much you personally have to project emotionally to perform in a professional manner, befitting today's industry.

 

3. Choral Rehearsal Practise

HTS has developed quite a reputation for its choral singing. During most weeks of the term you will take part in a 3 hour choral session with the entire college. This is an opportunity to put into practise the skills that you have learnt in your other classes. In choral you will be expected to conduct yourself as though you were in a professional rehearsal. You will sing from a varied repertoire of material ranging from current West End and Broadway scores right back to Gilbert & Sullivan. During the run up to Musical Moments and the annual musical, the choral classes will concentrate on rehearsing the group/ensemble numbers for the show.

For every show that you are required to sing in, you will be placed in a different harmony group, ensuring that by the time you enter the profession you are confident and proficient listening and performing in any vocal range that is required of you. You will obviously know which vocal range suits your voice better, however you will not be afraid to use all facets of your voice should the company require you to. With large ensemble shows on the decrease the actor that works the most is the versatile one.

Choral class is an invaluable component of your training, teaching you from the outset the demands that will be put upon you as a professional working in musical theatre today. The classes are led by a working MD, who whilst understanding that you are in training will demand a professional sound and attitude from you at all times.

4. History of Musical Theatre

To understand any art form you must look at the history that surrounds it. At HTS the history of Musical Theatre is studied as an integral part of the course. The term is divided into equal parts, enabling you to focus on specific key people. By the end of your 3 years you would have studied in varying degrees of depth most of the key players in this history of this art form. You will be set work which will enable you to research these people, wherever possible, classes will include them during the relevant periods eg if studying Gilbert & Sullivan, your voice classes may well focus on their unique patter songs, enabling you to bring all facets of your training together. In performance class you are likely to study one of their songs, getting a clearer understanding of the of the demands made on the performers who undertook the key roles. Listening to the works of these people will give you a very real sense of period, and also how their work influenced the musicals that are being written today. You will learn which style of singing would be preferable to use in different eras eg singing a Sondheim song needs a very different sound and performance skill to an Irving Berlin classic.

By extending your musical theatre vocabulary you will be better placed to know the perfect musical theatre song for any audition.

5. Theory & Basic Keyboard Skills

At HTS we like to give our students the best possible head start for a career in musical theatre. Nowadays it is not imperative that musical theatre performers can read music, however we believe that it can help. Music a language, and understanding that language will obviously enable you to work much quicker. In the first year you will be taught basic music notation. In the 2 nd year you will be encouraged to nurture that knowledge, progressing up to the standard that would enable you to transpose a piece of music, thus saving you money (at the current time it is approximately £5/page to get a piece of music professionally transposed). In the 3 rd year now used to music notation, you will be taught at a very basic level how to translate the notes and rhythms that you've previously been taught onto a keyboard. We do not profess to teach you how to play the piano, but by the time that you leave HTS after 3 years you should know enough to be able to ‘knock out a basic melody line', or find your harmony notes on a keyboard. How many times have you heard an actor bemoaning the fact that they have an audition the next day but were unable to get a pianist to help them, or couldn't afford to hire a pianist? You will at least have the skills to help yourself in such a situation.

6. Audition Technique

From the moment that you embark on your training at HTS you will be made aware of how the audition process works in today's theatre. We believe that it takes time to create the perfect portfolio of songs that will show you off in the best possible light. Therefore audition technique and portfolio classes run through the entire three years. Starting in your 1 st year where you learn the type of songs that will work best for you, moving into the 2 nd year where your portfolio is developing nicely, right up to the 3 rd year where the majority of your classes are spent working on those very songs in depth. By the time you leave the course you should have sung the majority of your portfolio in a mock audition set up situation. In addition to the performance of audition material you will also be advised on your ‘image' as very often it is the simple things that can let you down.

Through mock auditions you will be given constant feedback and appraisals from industry professionals on where you are currently going wrong (or right). You are constantly put under pressure to deliver the best possible performance at all times.

In addition to classes both musical theatre shows are cast from auditions only.

Auditioning is most definitely a skill that can be learn, and at HTS we pride ourselves in getting regular feedback from the industry on how well prepared our students always are.

7. Masterclasses & Workshops

An occasional component of the course are the masterclasses and workshops that happen approximately once a term. These vary from year to year, but always consist of working professionals passing on their first hand knowledge. Past masterclasses have featured West End leads working with our students giving them advice on their repertoire, or redirecting them, forcing them to think outside the ‘bubble' of college life. Past workshops have featured West End choreographers putting the students through a real life audition dance (despite the face that our students do not major in dance, and would not go for those auditions), through to award winning composers teaching the students brand new material prior to going into rehearsals of their latest show. All masterclasses and workshops end with an informal question and answer session where the students have the floor to ask whatever is ‘niggling' them. These classes are an invaluable resource, as who are better placed to help and advise you, than the people who are doing it themselves?

In addition to your regular lessons HTS has two regular musical theatre events per academic year.

Musical Moments

This show happens in early February every year, and has proved to be a highlight of student life. The show involves the entire college and is in essence a compilation musical theatre show. Students start ‘grouping' themselves and rehearsing for this from the moment that they start back in September as competition to get into the show is stiff, from over 70 pieces that are auditioned only 15 will make the show. In addition to this all 2 nd and 3 rd years must audition a solo piece (it is optional for 1 st years). In addition to the selected pieces the show will contain two large choral numbers (these are the only items that all students are guaranteed to be selected for) – one of which will be choreographed; a traditional show dance, a jazz piece, an apiece chosen by a guest choreographer.

The show runs for four public performances at the Queen Mother Theatre in Hitchin. This is the first show in the academic year that industry professionals are invited to attend.

 

The Annual Musical

As it is an Acting and Musical Theatre Course we only perform one musical a year. This happens around June time and involves the entire college. The musical is chosen by the invited director in collaboration with the Head of Musical Theatre. All students audition for the principal roles, thereby giving them the chance to put into practice skills developed throughout the course. The show is rehearsed over 2 and a half weeks, again giving you a realistic insight to the speed that you would be required to work in the professional theatre. The rehearsal period is regulated by the same rules that apply in the industry, and as such, unprofessional behaviour will be severely punished. In extreme cases you can be fired form the show. If you were to be fired during your 3 year you will automatically lose the right to take part in the West End Showcase.

Past shows have included:

Godspell - Stephen Shwartz

Chicago - Kander & Ebb

Anyone Can Whistle - Sondheim

Lust - The Heather Brothers

Pippin - Stephen Shwartz

Man of La Mancha - Mitch Leigh

Annie Get Your Gun - Irving Berlin

Fiddler on the Roof - Bock & Harnick

Zombie Prom - Rowe & Dempsey (this was the UK premiere of the work performed with the co-operation of the writers)