The Band You Can't Hear and the Voice Nobody Trained

The casting conversation nobody wants to have is usually the acoustic one. Interesting actor. Small voice. Hidden mic. Full orchestra. Life is full of choices.

When I was running a Broadway show as Music Director for the first time, I was prepared for a lot of things. The sound from the podium was not one of them. The band sounded rich, warm, all-encompassing. So did the vocals. You felt it in your bones. Not intellectual. Not from the neck up out of a system. Your whole body. Then I heard it from the house.

I could barely hear the band or much of anything except one small voice. Sort of. Our star was a replacement. Pop music world. Genuinely musical person. Not the worst I had seen at the time. One small issue.

Acoustically, his voice was small, safe and pleasant. Not small as in awful. Just small as in — not trained in what my teacher called "the ring." Forward placement. Throw in some "space in the back" and we have sound, beauty, elegance, some overtones and options. Engage that and you get over the room. I still use it today. Not just for singing. To speak over a room. To yell at my kids.

Our pop star didn't need it for his career. Until now.

So the mixer had to bury the band. To make our star audible, the orchestra — the (semi, wasn't that long ago) full Broadway orchestra — had to be pulled back so his open mic could pick him up enough to be heard. Just the physics. I don't make this up.

This goes deeper. Old school orchestrators carved room in the charts for vocals when there were no mics. Wrote around the voice. Built space for it. That happens less now. More competition for the middle frequencies. Keyboards. Guitars. Everyone fighting for the same real estate. You can get away with a lot of this in a recording with a decent mixer. In a live room? LOL. That's so sweet.

So now you're back in that casting room. "Oh...so real and authentic. I mean...when he gets whispery on those high notes. I love how you can see his neck so well and his chin in the air too. So cute." "Can we like also get the music to be like really HUGE there as well? I mean like, you know, it should sound iconic and epic." Me: "Oh when he gets super breathy in high range?" Them: "Like, yes. Like, it has to be like that way. Like, ok?" Me: Perfect. I love this. Nodding with my relaxed dead face.

To be fair, if I were to use my "Pacific Northwest training" and "always get to a yes" — I have a perfect solution. Let's give him a handheld mic for the entire show and then we can make that work really well.

They want a hidden mic? Life is full of choices. Breathy authenticity. Or a more ringing voice. Or a band we can't hear or feel. Or different mics. At least get them to use the head mic that is closer to their mouth. More visible but more gain.

I advocate for different weights and types of voice all the time. I LOVE voices that aren't always heavy. People who can do that floaty high thing? I'll fight like a hungry beagle for them. We can play softer. The ensemble can self-mix and stop acting like twelve soloists all trying to hit the back wall. Gentle reminder other people exist. There are tricks. Many of them. But they only work if everyone knows the physics going in.

Most people listen to pop records where the band/production is fairly prominent and embraces around the vocal. I always want the best of both worlds. So live theater can be sonically disappointing. For a lot of us. Frequently. The idea that one can fix a small voice by just "turning up the mic?" It's a fantasy and only goes so far if you want the whole sonic experience. The more trained the voice, the easier it is to hear and understand in a room.

Or grab a handheld and then let's turn that shit up.