AboutSean Martinfield Expertise I am a professional vocal coach in San Francisco. In addition to answers from a previous web site (Askme.com - where my "tag" was "VocalCoach") I have published over 2000 responses related to vocal training - particularly as it relates to Musical Theatre and Opera. I have 24 years of experience as Personal Trainer to singers and actors in the San Francisco Bay Area. I sang professionally for 20 years and know what it means to live the life of a musician. I can determine your voice category, i.e., Tenor, Baritone, Bass, Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Alto, Alto Belter, etc., and how to broaden and strengthen your range. Need an audition song for a Broadway Musical? I will give you suggestions that are appropriate to your vocal category and to requirements specified in the audition notice. I have also created a vocal methodology, "The Belter`s Method". It will enable those in Musical Theatre to practice more efficiently because it focuses on the demands of professional performers as well as to those auditioning for school and community productions, and as University and Conservatory performing arts majors. If what you want is a better voice and more control over your career moves and choices, contact me. Also, as the Fine Arts Critic for SanFranciscoSentinel.com, it is my privilege to review productions at the San Francisco Opera, Ballet and Symphony, as well as Broadway National Tours booked into San Francisco's Orpheum, Golden Gate and Curran Theatres. I also review works by A.C.T (the American Conservatory Theatre) and Magic Theatre. I cover select films, tributes and retrospects, and various international film festivals particulary those booked into The City's opulent Castro Theatre including both the San Francisco International and Silent Film Festivals. For private vocal instruction, I can be contacted through craigslist.com. Look under Musicians, then keyword: Martinfield.
Experience Distinctive celebrity voices and how they are used and promoted by the Entertainment Industry have always fascinated me. Drawing from all eras of film and animation, television, radio, Broadway plays and musicals, opera and a few politicians ? a huge bounty of actors and singers have had a profound effect upon my life, influencing all the choices I made with respect to my education and my dual careers as a professional singer and vocal coach. I am curious about what is promoted and, consequently, the competitive aspects of the Performing Arts.
I am a Theatre Arts Graduate from San Francisco State University. During the years of my attendance, the school enjoyed the reputation for having the best Theatre Department on the West Coast. My academic training equipped me as an actor, enabling me to prepare for professional auditions and to compete successfully. I learned how to take direction and to apply my skills during the rehearsal process. Along the way I learned to identify my assets as a performer, to market my particular abilities and to find the audiences interested in my particular product.
During my freshman year, I also began studying opera. For the next eight years, I trained as a baritone, learning the classical vocal methodology known as "Bel Canto" with well-respected coaches including Mr. James Schwabacher, then head of the San Francisco Opera's Marla Training Program. Because mastering the technique of Bel Canto is absolutely dependent upon its application to Italian opera and, consequently, perfect pronunciation of the language, I studied Italian as well as French and German with private coaches. I have performed the roles of ?Guglielmo" (COSI FAN TUTTE), "Marcello" (LA BOHEME), "Valentin" (FAUST), "Enrico" (LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR), "Dr. Miracle", (THE TALES OF HOFFMANN), "Top" (THE TENDER LAND), " Mr. Gedge, the Vicar" (ALBERT HERRING) and "Dr. Caius" (THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR). During these ten years, I also appeared in many classical recitals singing the standard classical Baritone repertoire. It was Mr. Schwabacher's training that expanded my upper range, turning me into a working tenor. My last appearances as a classical tenor were with conductor and pianist Robin Kay, performing Schubert's DIE SCHΦNE MULLERIN.
I then re-trained my voice, dropped the Bel Canto methodology, and went on to sustain another 10 years doing standard American repertoire including Broadway, Jazz, Blues and Standards. Throughout this period I appeared regularly on the San Francisco cabaret circuit and was a featured soloist with Bay Area bands, orchestras and choruses. I continued producing my own solo concerts, the last being at the New Conservatory Theatre.
As a vocal coach, I work primarily with singers and actors throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. My clientele ranges from absolute beginners to working professionals, from pre-schoolers to retired Senior Citizens. The vast majority of them come to me through recommendation. I know how to identify any singer's vocal category, i.e., soprano, tenor, alto, baritone, etc. I know how to muscle-up every singer's vocal range and to expand it beyond conventional definitions. I have developed a vocal methodology for those who want to know how to belt, THE BELTER'S METHOD. As a singer who spent half of his career doing Bel Canto, I know for certain that classical or Italian methodologies do not work in Standard American music. Bel Canto cannot be "adapted" to meet the needs of contemporary American music, including the demands of the Musical Theatre.
There are two major components to my job. The first is to teach basic musical skills such as reading music, counting, breathing techniques, development and expansion of the vocal range, phonetics and diction ? specifically as it applies to Standard American English. The second is about presentation ? that is, everything involved with the client's audition and/or actual performance. In short, for any person relying upon their vocal endurance and performance skills to earn a living, my job is to enable them to compete for a job and, when hired, to maintain that job.
Over the years my clients have appeared in all of the available Broadway musicals produced in virtually every theater throughout the Bay Area. Some have worked in New York and gone on National Tours. Most recently, my clients have been praised for their work in AIDA and WICKED.
So, if you want to prepare for "American Idol" or the Broadway stage, contact me through http://www.geocities.com/broadwaybelters
I am new to acting and have a question regarding cold reading for auditions. When going on an audition I always do very well with the improv stuff, but I never seem to do well on the cold reads. I see the other actors can actually emote, play with blocking, and act pretty well while reading the script. This seems impossible to me. I am sitting there squinting at the lines, trying to read, and act them. I always sound flat. How do the others do all this while reading?
I do feel that I have some talent at acting, but this is not apparent during cold reads. It is apparent when I have had some time to get familiar with the lines, and I am spending all my energy on acting ,and not reading.
Any tips you might have for me on how to be a good cold reader.
Thanks for being an available expert,
Don Foley
Answer Don asks about cold readings
Great question!
The answer is simple. It comes with practice.
Your job as an actor as an independent agent representing himself to a potential employer whose theater needs to make money is to go prepared. Until you find yourself registered at a university with a fantastic Theatre Arts Department or, if you've already done that, are looking for a professional coach who will work with you on an individual basis, here are a few basic tips that will vastly improve your private practice session.
Let's start with the obvious. Get your eyes checked!
It sounds like you might very well need to get a prescription (for contact lenses) that's intended for reading (or work station) purposes and not necessarily for the drive back home. As a vocal coach who accompanies his clients on the piano, I promise you the optometrist understands my need to read lyrics and hundreds of tiny little notes on two or more staves of sheet music all day long and not some freeway sign a half-mile away. If it turns out that this is part of the problem, then you'll be amazed at the differences the next time you pick up a compactly-printed or poorly-typed script, i.e., being able to read ahead and to quickly absorb larger chunks of text.
Next get into the habit of reading aloud every day.
Pick up anything and read it aloud loud enough to be heard from one end of the house to the other and over into the neighbors' yards. Then you'll start learning about what and where you need to channel more physical energy and emotional revelation come the next audition. And for everybody, it's a different balance of elements.
You don't have to confine yourself to reading from scripts. Read from the newspaper. Understand the differences between reading something objective from the Associated Press, i.e., the voting conditions in Florida, to something subjective, i.e., a "letter to the Editor" from a disgruntled subscriber. Clearly, you cannot sound the same even though it takes as much energy to reach all of us in the back row.
How many plays did you read this week?
How many within the last month?
The more plays you read after all, this is where it starts the more you will understand there are only so many stories to tell and a given round-up of characters to flesh them out. The rest is only about who, what, where and why and sometimes if you fit the costume. Again, this requires that you set aside a given number of hours everyday for both reading and practicing your vocal skills.
Most auditions require one or two monologues for the first go-by. Most actors are in a call-back situation when they are reading from the script. Unless it is a premiere of a new work and nobody but the producers have the script, more than likely you are auditioning for works that are currently in print or can be obtained at the library. If nothing else, search the Internet for reviews and commentaries of previous productions and the actors' performances. What else has the author written? How does the melody of his speech carry over into this other work? How is it different from or similar to that of another author?
Don't arrive uninformed. Your more-studied competition will smell you out and dominate your space.
Don't be overly-impressed by the actor who flails around during a scene or seems to have a finished product in the character and could open next week. For every director who relies upon such commodities to take over their show, there is another director who is either not impressed by such display or is viewing a typical pain-in-the-neck who begins arguing the moment the contract is dry. Unless advised to incorporate as much animation as possible, your primary goals are: to be heard, to be understood, and to demonstrate an unmistakable sense of Self through the words at hand. We need YOU to play this role, not some contrived version of You that even your best friend wouldn't recognize.
Bottom line, the dilemmas you are experiencing are easily solved. If you're around, make an appointment and I'll prove it to you. In the meantime, get yourself into centerfold condition, read aloud and do a variety of vocal warm-ups no less than an hour every day, and read at least two or three plays every week choosing from those authors whose plays have been produced both On and Off-Broadway for at least the past ten years.
