Here is an example of me singing “Musical Theatre Legit” style:

Words and Music by Geoff Levin & Chris Many

And here’s an example of me singing in more of a pop style:

From Musical Beans: Animal Songs For Children

In both instances, these were three to four hour recording sessions. Actually, for “Follow The Dream,” I really didn’t like my vocal performance from the first session, so I called Geoff and offered to come back to get it right the next day. That took another couple of hours, but we all were much happier about the result.

Bottom line is, recording sessions can take hours, days, weeks, months. Whether you choose to sing in a big belt, legit or pop style is up to you, your instrument (meaning your entire body) and your artistic inclination. However, if the vocal instrument breaks down, the session ends right there. You don’t finish because the vocal sound is different than the sound you started with. In other words, you don’t want to start off with a clean sound only to end up all scratchy-sounding.

In both tracks, I sang with the exact same technique because as singers, we need to make sure we last for the entire session, whether it’s four minutes or four hours. The only thing I changed was the quality of sound I was going for. “Follow The Dream” required a much more Josh Grobin-type approach. With “I Wish We Didn’t Have To Say Goodnight,” I was the voice of a Teddy Bear.