I was notified of a local theater production hosting a staged reading and I wanted to audition. The auditions aren’t for another few weeks, but as part of the audition, I need to sing 32 bars of a modern musical song and then give a conflicting one minute monologue. I can handle the monologue, but what the hell is a bar?
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Bar is short for bar line, which in written music divides the notation into measures. Each measure is a complete section of the time signature of the notation. For example, in 4/4 time signature, there are four quarter notes per measure, or groupings and subdivisions of quarter notes that equal the same amount of time as four quarter notes. Songs generally follow some kind of form, which is a series of chords that are grouped into a certain number of measures that is repeated. A 32 bar, or more properly, 32 measure song form usually has 4 sets of 8 measures (4 * 8 = 32) that follows a repeating pattern. There are all kinds of variations on this. A study of musical structures is fascinating and leads to a deeper understanding and enjoyment of music. If you can, enroll in some music theory classes. I studied music in junior high school all the way through college and this has been a source of incredible stimulation and enjoyment my entire life.
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