Rant

Smule Singing Groups

Now there's so much I could say about Smule, good and bad, but lets save that for another entry. My main focus today is Smule singing groups, more importantly those of the more recent Broadway/Off-Broadway musical variety. (More recent dating from 1996-2019, basically from Rent to Mean Girls and anything in between)

If you're not familiar with the app, let me catch you up to speed. Smule is a app you can download to your phone where you can sing karaoke with others or by yourself. You're recordings are posted to your channel (account) and you can listen to them at any point in the future. There's many effects that you can put on your recording or features you can use in general and the feature we'll be discussing is musical theater audition groupchats.

Now it's no secret that I despise problematic people and I have a distaste for a tone deaf singer, however, the extreme level that these "professional singers" will go to call out someone in their group is quite astonishing. 

Lets create a scenario where you perhaps wanted to join one of these groups. You see that a Next To Normal musical groupchat is having auditions. So you audition for, lets say, Henry. You wait a hell of a long time to hear back from the director, who then posts about callbacks and you happen to have one. Lets pretend you make it through call backs and congrats you got the part, yay... but that's when all hell breaks loose. 

At first its friendly and quite a fun time meeting new people. You get to hear their vocal talent and learn more about the person behind the voice. Then the director posts the first song, usually they go in order from the first song in the musical to the last, so everyone goes in and records their part of the song. You think it's going great and the song doesn't sound exactly professional, but it's pretty good for amateur singers. Then you check the chat and notice some people, usually the leads, don't really like the recording. Some comments made could be- 

"Someone is off key and off tempo, they need to re-record or I legit won't be able to join because they're so bad."

"Someones  volume is too loud and they're drowning out the leads, they'll need to re-record."

"The lower vocals need to step it up, I can't hear them over the sopranos." (FYI: Even if people get a lower vocal character they'll still sing higher for no good reason.) 

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Now some comments are helpful and valid, but others not so much. The amount of balls it takes to call out another singer for being off key, damn. The directors usually tell you to contact them INDIVIDUALLY if you think someone is off key so that they can listen and assess for themselves. However, people don't do that. In the past three days I've heard from 4 different people in my groupchat that someone is off key, but none of them decided to contact the director. Whatever I guess. The fact that you call someone out publicly is shitty in itself, but especially on a song that everyone can access and listen to over and over and over again. It's distasteful and disgusting. However, if you can't join the song because of someone else then maybe you should just leave the groupchat because you're clearly not vocally ready, or actually mature, enough to handle a small situation. I'm going off on a tangent now, lets just get back to the scenario.  

So you see this, yet no one is saying who's off-key. The director is searching through the recordings to figure it out and no one else is joining because they "simply can't sing" when one out of the majority of people are off-key. Now I'm not saying it's invalid, but what I am saying is that it's stupid. You have your own vocal part and notes yet someone with a completely different part is throwing you off, okay? Suddenly this becomes the main focus of the groupchat, instead of singing the next song and having fun. Alright... Then a few days later the director finds out who it is and they delete their recording and redo it. It sounds great, not like there was much of a difference to you ear though. So you think it's all over, but ha no it can't be that simple.  The leads have another problem, ugh what a shock am I right? They're mad that we're behind schedule, I wonder fucking why. They and others throw fits about not being able to sing their song yet and that we're still stuck on Everything Else. At this point you see the chat start to crumple, people are leaving and understudies are taking former places. You start contemplating if you should leave because you just don't want to see the bullshit anymore, but you stay because you're not a complete whinny bitch (This is not sent out to those who have to leave because of actual personal situations and problems, just sent out to assholes). 

I'm going to end the scenario early because if we're being completely honest a groupchat rarely ever goes farther, let alone finishes. My main problem of groupchats aren't the songs, schedule or even the musical choice. It's the people they choose to be their front runners (no I'm not jealous because of their parts, I've gotten a lead before and I've seen this with smaller roles as well, I just like to make fun of leads). Just because you get a main part does not make you better then anyone in that chat. You got the part because your voice fit it the best (or no one else auditioned) and the director liked your vocal tone. You aren't a celebrity and you do not get the privileges as if you were one. You are an arrogant, self-absorbed cunt. If anyone deserves a main part, it would not be you. Stop complaining, the only one who even has the option to complain is the director. Just let the song take its course and stop interfering in matters you have no say in. Every member, small roles and large ones, stop antagonizing the director until you get your way. It's their show! Their project! You have no right to harass them and force your opinions on them. They get final say and they can very easily kick you out and replace you in a snap of a finger, don't get cocky cause you aren't the only tenor in the world.

I'm going to stop it here before I get to heated. This is clearly towards certain people and if someone from one of my groupchats read this, then I hope you can see what I'm saying. If you can't then I'd love to discuss this with you either publicly or in DMs, you choose. 

As always, Sam.