On Jan 2, 2005, at 3:44 PM, Michael Cook wrote:
Does anyone know when microphones were first used for singers in musicals? I'd be interested in finding a history of amplification in musical theatre.
Unobtrusive, realistic personal miking became available in the late '70s. Also, there was a very influential and controversial article published at that time--I forget by whom or in what periodical--called "Singin' in the Pain," that denounced the then-current style of broadway singing as hazardous to singers' voices. The basic argument was that Ethel Merman had pioneered a style of brassy, high-volume broadway voice that could be heard easily in a large hall over a pit orchestra playing at top volume; that this type of singing had become standard on B'way, but that unlike similarly loud opera singing, the sound was being produced by sheer blasting, and that vocal careers were being drastically foreshortened as a result. The article strongly endorsed amplification as a solution to this problem, and decried anti-miking arguments (essentially the same ones presented in this thread) as uncaring of singers' health.
The increasing use of amplified instruments in the pit is clearly of great relevance here.
Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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