Have you thought about taking voice lessons this fall?

The fall semester is about to begin, and I still have space for both new and returning students! However, the most popular scheduled times go quickly, so get in touch with me to reserve your spot! Call me at 267-973-9756, email me at ryan@ryanbunch.com, or find me on Facebook to get started.

Have you "liked" the Facebook page yet?

Please consider going on Facebook and “liking” my new page, Ryan Bunch Vocal Studio. I’m starting to post updates and random fun things there, and it’s a convenient way for you to know what’s going on. You can search for it by name or click here.

Stuff That’s Coming Up
Whether you’re currently taking lessons or not, stay alert for upcoming events. There will be another Holiday Party (date and time TBD around early December) which will once again feature vocal performances and conversation with a working musical theater professional. I’m also thinking about organizing a field trip or two to see some shows!

That all for now. Stay tuned!

Carol Burnett and Julie Andrews Do the History of Musical Theater

This whole thing is wonderful, but things really get cooking around 5:25 when they go into Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady (Carol does a good impression of Julie as Eliza Doolittle!), and West Side Story. Too bad this survey of the musical only goes down through the 50s. I want to hear these two do Elphaba and Glinda!

Advice for Singers: Slow and Steady

Slow and steady wins the race.


You know what that’s from, don’t you? Here’s a clue.

Now you remember.


Here’s some advice for singers: what works for the tortoise also works for you.


Singing is a lifelong process. Be patient with yourself and your progress. Experimentation is slow and discovery even slower. Don’t be in a hurry.


We all want to be the best singers we can be, as quickly as possible. Forget about it! Some aspects of your vocal technique will take years to develop. Accept this and learn to enjoy the journey. Savor the sounds you produce when they are sweet, and also learn to love the sour ones as they are. They are just more of the sounds your voice can make. They will sweeten as you nurture them over time.


Hurrying will lead to tension, frustration, sloppiness, and even damage to your voice. So relax. Stay focused, but relax. Slow and steady wins the race. Your progress will be incremental as you explore your own vocal instrument under the guidance of your teacher. You have your whole life to sing. This is especially true for those who have the most difficulty accepting it—the young! So approach your singing as though you have a lifetime, and you’ll have a healthy, beautiful voice your whole life long!

Theater Report: West Side Story at Upper Darby Summer Stage

Upper Darby Summer Stage has chosen West Side Story as its Mainstage production for this year, its 35th season. It is a fittingly monumental project for the occasion.


With music by Leonard Bernstein and choreography by Jerome Robbins, who directed the original production, West Side Story is one of those works that stands astride other examples of its genre. Many consider it to be the best musical ever created (though other candidates for that distinction certainly have their advocates) because of its treatment of serious themes and successful integration of song and dance in it storytelling. Its venerated status makes it a good choice for this celebratory season for Upper Darby Summer Stage.

It’s also not the easiest show to put on, but it’s in good hands at Upper Darby. All of the qualities you’ve come to expect from the region’s most famous summer theater program are there—beautiful set and costume designs, high production values, and solid performances by some the region’s most capable young theater artists.

The songs, which are handled beautifully by soloists and chorus alike, are the emotional core of the show, revealing the character’s feelings and commenting on the themes of the story, but it’s really the dancing that propels the plot. Many of the critical turning points—like Tony and Maria’s meeting and the rumble—are told through dance and movement. On this count, too, the performers are more than up to the task, finding individual expression in their own characters while also maintaining cohesion as a unified ensemble.

This production of one of the great musicals is a fine tribute to Upper Darby Summer Stage’s long history of producing good theater while training up-and-coming talents. Congratulations to all on a terrific show!

There are still two performances of this show on Friday, August 13, and Saturday, August 14, at 7:30. It's a great show for the low price of $12 for adults. Go to Upper Darby Summer Stage for tickets and more information.

Theater Report: Les Miserables at YPTC

Last weekend two of my voice students were in the Young Performers Theater Camp (YPTC) production of Les Miserables. YPTC is a program of Philadelphia Parks and Recreation in which campers rehearse and perform a full-length musical in three weeks every summer. Both of my students had principle roles with big singing parts, but they appeared on separate nights because the show was double-cast. So I went twice.

Attending back-to-back performances of one of the longest, most ambitious shows in all of musical theater (even in the high school edition presented here) performed by a group of youngsters with only three weeks’ preparation might sound like a test of endurance, but with this talented group of kids under the leadership of the creative staff at YPTC it was a pleasure!

The emphasis at YPTC is on performance. The set elements—which themselves are admirably created by campers, as I understand—are minimal. This attention to performance is what makes YPTC such a good program, and it shows in the results. My own students did terrific work in their roles as Fantine and Young Cosette, and they were in good company with the rest of the cast. In conversation with the parents of one of my students afterwards, we agreed that the kids’ performances were universally impressive beyond many of our expectations. We couldn’t stop talking about how good they were, and it might be added that we are all professional musicians and music teachers.

I must also say that, having seen both casts perform on separate nights, I could really see the fruits of the individualized attention campers get from the instructors. It was clear that they were encouraged to create their own interpretations of their characters—something that showed in the differences from one cast to the next. As the parent of my other student noted, our Fantine emoted a great deal of pathos while the next night Fantine possessed more of a steely inner strength. Two wonderful but very different interpretations.

After the shows, each of my students was swarmed by adoring friends and family members who showered them with flowers, hugs, kisses, and tears of joy. The show of support was of a piece with YPTC’s philosophy of nurturing the young performer.

You can go here to watch a video of campers and staff talking about YPTC in their own words.

Elephants Teach You Painting, Numbers and French

Recently, under the delusion that I was finally going to get busy and “finish” learning French after all these years, I spent a couple of nights listening to French children’s songs on YouTube. This one really stuck with me. I’ve been singing it spontaneously for weeks now.



Translated, the nonsensical words mean something like this:

One elephant
Is deceptive, is deceptive
One elephant
Is enormously deceptive.
Oil painting is rather hard,
But it’s more beautiful than watercolors.

Two elephants . . .

Then you repeat it obsessively, going to however many elephants you like.

There’s a pun in here, because the word for deceive, trompe, is also the word for an elephant’s trunk.

The part about painting is my favorite because it’s so random. It also reminds me of this video of an elephant painting.



I was a little astounded when I first saw this, but after all, elephants are among the most intelligent of animals. This one has been taught to paint a picture by tracing an existing image. Apparently when left to their own devices elephants will create colorful abstract paintings. Now if an elephant can make art, surely I can learn a second language!

The Music Man: The Perfect Musical?

Friday I attended Mainstage Center for the Arts’ production of The Music Man. These young people gave some really terrific performances in a production that was musically polished to an impressive degree, from the soloists and chorus to the very fine orchestra in the pit. Kudos goes especially to the young men of the school board who negotiated their difficult barbershop harmonies not only accurately, but also with a great deal of style, individuality, and sense of comic vocal acting.

I am becoming more and more convinced that The Music Man is the perfect musical. And I don’t even believe in perfection, but every time I see the show I’m a little bit more impressed by its brilliance. The whole thing—book, music and lyrics all by Meredith Willson—is exceptionally well written.

It ought to be. It was in development for the better part of a decade, with several people helping Willson to doctor the script and get it just right. Willson wrote over forty songs, the majority of which were discarded at one point or another in the process to be replaced by something that worked better.

After the performance Micah, who also loves the show, went a little Music-Man-crazy, and I was happy enough to go along for the ride. First it was YouTube clips of the 2003 made-for-TV version with Kristin Chenoweth and Matthew Broderick. Then we watched the classic film adaptation of 1962 with Robert Preston, who of course originated the role of Harold Hill on Broadway as well.

I was struck by the realization that the Chenoweth-Broderick version is more exactly faithful to the stage show, though I don’t care much for the style of direction, the re-orchestrations, or the way Marian’s songs are transposed down so that Chenoweth can American-Idolize them instead of singing them properly as the prim Miss Marian Paroo undoubtedly would in real life (if people in real life sang their words as they do in musicals—would that they did!).

The aforementioned classic film with Robert Preston and Shirley Jones was directed by Morton DaCosta, who also directed the original Broadway production. It was and is unusual for a theater director to have the opportunity to direct in Holly wood the same show he made successful on the stage (just one of the many reasons film versions of great Broadway show are almost always terrible, in my opinion). The result with The Music Man is that the film is considered to be unusually faithful to the stage production. And of course in style and spirit it is, and the judicious minor changes and additional dialogue actually make the story stronger. We are thus fortunate to have Robert Preston’s historic performance luminously preserved on Hollywood-quality Technicolor film.

Many of Professor Harold Hill’s lyrics are actually written in Willson’s score as rhythmic speech rather than singing. There’s a whole technique the composer uses in this show in which a continuum of utterances from speech to song dramatizes the character arcs of Harold and Marian as they fall in love, with implications for gender, sexuality and our very notions of music. Someday I’m going to write a whole essay on that, but for now just enjoy the clip. It’s a little bit of genius.