Question about singing grades

[2020again]

Quick question for examiners or those who deal with Trinity singing exams (or come to that ABRSM as I suspect it may not be different). To what extent do you have to choose songs exclusively within your range –ie can you mix songs that are denoted as soprano with choices that are for mezzo- soprano? I note that on the higher grades much of the music theatre is delineated with this - can you choose from both ranges or is this frowned upon even if no one says this is the case? Thank you.

Dd had a list of music to choose from, not musical theatre though so only sop or alto

minniemoocher apologies but I cannot follow - was your Dd ABRSM then as Trinity always offers musical theatre section if you want to do it? Was your daughter able to choose songs from both sop and alto?

For Trinity later grades the syllabus is split into sections. I think the issue is that while the opera, operetta and oratorio sections are subdivided into sections for soprano, and mezzo-soprano and alto, etc musical theatre is split into female and male and then for example female section is then pieces from a volume for sopranos or mezzo-sopranos etc. My Dd is a soprano but she wants to do a mezzo-soprano MT piece.

My question is would this be frowned upon as it is her preferred song choice. Is it far more sensible not to do this - if she chooses what she wants to do it will be 3 soprano and 1 mezzo-soprano pieces.

Thanks.

Mine just sang what she wanted through ABRSM is it not the same?
They gave different keys and different publications of music they accepted.
Mine was classical/ opera though, not MT.
I'm sure it doesn't matter as long as it's on the syllabus and within her singing range.
I'm sure it wouldn't matter if they were Sop, Mezzo, or contralto as long as she does a good job with the song.

I would just email Trinity and ask them - always good to be 100% clear on this kind of thing before working on pieces. My DDs do the LCM Music Theatre exams which I know are completely free choice of pieces/keys (as long as the chronological period is covered) but Trinity (and indeed ABRSM) may have different rules.

ABRSM no longer define vocal type and any candidate can sing any song in any key.

I think its considered bad form to change the key of opera and oratorio though.

For musical theatre songs the volumes are arbitrary. (I'm guessing its the Singers Musical Anthology series) They were (pre-internet) originally intended for use in auditions and categorising them meant that someone could just buy one anthology in their voice range rather than lots of individual piano vocal scores.

So it would be absolutely fine to mix.

In musical theatre mixing sop and meso is not a problem, styling in very important. That your enunciation is correct for your legit and contemporary pieces.
From experience having at least one piece that does not use the belt is good to and choosing pieces that hide your break, but also show correct use of head voice is what gets higher marks.