What's the difference between classical singing and theatre singing?

[jordan2377]

Hello. I am absolutely new to all of this and there are just some things which I would like clarification on. What I mainly want to know is what is the difference between classical and theatrical voices?

Can a classical singer sing theatre or vice versa? I have seen some people saying they have trained in both - Are the two that far apart from one another? Thanks in advance for any helpful information.

Is this a classical voice or a theatre voice:

[Felipe Carvalho]

Its theatre.

There is a difference on how the centering of the voice is done for classical singing, to allow high projection and dynamic control. And yes, once you center your voice in that way, you will need to reposition it to sing contemporary material.

Although he uses a center that is still higher than what we hear today on more recent pop (thats what you hear on his higher notes that may remind of classical) , this is contemporary.

[Owen Korzec]

While we're on the topic, I'm personally interested in the difference between musical theatre singing and contemporary pop.

I can hear that in theatre, vibrato is usually more common (but still not all the time), and the diction tends to be more precise, anything else?

Another thing I noticed about theatre, it seems like the lower voice types like baritone and bass are called upon to sing with very dark tone, as they would in classical. Although I'm most comfortable in the baritone range, the tone that most theatre baritones produce feels unnaturally dark to me. Which leaves me wondering whether I should just sing them bright anyways, learn to darken the voice, or learn to extend my upper chest voice more and work on low tenor repertoire where singing brighter like in pop is more common.

I also hear an interesting amount of variety in theatre singing...some with almost no vibrato, some nearly classical...it seems like they aren't too many "rules" about the genre as a whole it just depends on what the role calls for?

[Remylebeau]

As I noted on Owen's thread, there's no hard and fast rules about musical theatre. Lots of different styles, lots of repertoire that doesn't demand any particular style and is up to the taste of the director.

This is a contemporary song much in like Frank Sinatra's songs are contemporary songs. They don't sound like today's pop songs, but they're not classical.

People can absolutely do train and sing both. The bottom line is that good fundamentals of singing carry over to any genre.

[ThePowerOfOne]

Its theatre.

There is a difference on how the centering of the voice is done for classical singing, to allow high projection and dynamic control. And yes, once you center your voice in that way, you will need to reposition it to sing contemporary material.

Although he uses a center that is still higher than what we hear today on more recent pop (thats what you hear on his higher notes that may remind of classical) , this is contemporary.

Felipe, when you say "centering the voice" are you referring to what others call "placement" or does this mean something different?

[Felipe Carvalho]

I mean your "standard" position. The thing you do if you dont make an effort to modify your voice (interpretative resources).