Name: Tyler Folkedahl Date: 4/24/15

Song Title: I Met A Girl

Key: Eb Range: B3 – E5

Show Title: Bells Are Ringing

Composer(s): Jule Styne

Born: December 31, 1905 Died: September 20, 1994

Lyricist(s): Betty Comden

Born: May 3, 1917 Died: November 23, 2006

Librettist: Adolph Green

Born: December 2, 1914 Died: October 23, 2002

Year Written: 1956 Year Debuted: 1956

How long did the show run? 2 & ½ years, 924 Performances

Song Category (i.e. Moderate Ballad, Contemporary Up-tempo, Style, etc.)

1950’s Up-Tempo

Who originally performed this role, and what other roles have they played? If not from a show, what other songs/shows have this composer/lyricist written? Any connections to songs or roles you could potentially sing/play?

Sydney Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin’s son! He also played Nick Arnstein in Funny Girl, Tom Bailey in Subways are for Sleeping, and some various other roles in straight plays and movies. It seems like he has mostly played leading men, which I don’t really think is my type right now, but hopefully will be some day. Given his limited engagements in musical theatre,

Name: Tyler Folkedahl Date: 4/24/15

I don’t really think adding anything else from his repertoire into my own would be particularly valuable.

Find a professional recording of this song. This is where your critical listening comes in. What are you listening FOR? What are you hearing? I’m interested in hearing about vocal qualities you pick up on, how those qualities relate to the text, the moment, and the character. Does the tempo shift or give and take? Talk about dynamics. No wrong answers here – just listen critically with intent.

I listened to the original broadway recording, and a couple of things jumped out at me right away. The first was that his singing did sound a bit more in his throat, and I wasn’t sure if that was due to the nature of his voice and it’s tone, or if he was actually singing more in his throat. I also noticed that he seemed to be really stretching on the higher notes. I even noticed him “nthis”, starting in the throat rather than trying to come down on top of the note getting into the higher section. There was also the fact of an entire chorus being added to parts of the song, but y’know. The tempo and dynamics stayed pretty consistent, which I thought was fine. I think that for my own personal use of the song it will be nice to have at least a dynamic shift, given that the song is just a two-time repeat of itself, and staying stagnant would be boring and would make for a poor story arc. With the addition of chorus and different structure of the song on this recording, I thought the dynamic use was fine.

Brief synopsis of the plot, and where the song fits into the show. If not from a show, brief synopsis of what is going on in the song:

Brief Character Analysis: