Singing in a Foreign Language for UIL Solos

Perhaps the most difficult task for high school singers is to sing in a foreign language, memorized.  There are several steps to sing in a foreign tongue and be entertaining:

1) Translate the text word-for-word.  Preferably by dictionary, though there are excellent websites that have song translations already made.  Do not go by the translation in your song because it is often a 'poetic' translation intended for use in singing, as opposed to a literal translation.

2) Speak the text before you sing it.  You should be able to speak through your whole song without any pauses.

3) When memory fails, try associating certain phrases with an emotion, picture, or scene.  This will speed up the memorization process.

4) Plan out your acting.  It is very difficult to improvise acting in a foreign language until you become proficient in that language.  The acting will also help memorization as you learn to associate words with certain movements.

5) Be entertaining.  Nothing is more boring and makes judges focus on your command of the language if you simply sing a song without emotion.  It tells us that either you do not know the meaning of your song or did not care for the piece.

6) If you miss a word in performance, don't worry.  In all likelihood, the judges won't catch the mistake unless you do physically react to your mistake (sigh, panic, stop, roll your eyes etc...!).

DWS