How Emily Kristen Morris Built Her Legit Voice. Cross Training, Style, and Genre Bending
One thing about us musical theatre performers: we love to accidentally train ourselves into a vocal corner and then panic about it later 😂
This week on the podcast, I sat down with my friend, the wonderful Emily Kristen Morris to talk all about vocal cross-training, rebuilding legit technique after years of contemporary singing, and the very humbling experience of revisiting parts of your voice that used to feel easier.
Because here’s the thing: your voice adapts to what you ask it to do repeatedly.
If you’ve spent years belting, mixing, singing pop/rock rep, living in contemporary MT land, your voice is going to become really efficient at doing exactly that!
Which is great… until suddenly you’re asked to sing Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls and your soprano voice is sitting in the corner like, “Oh, NOW you need me??”
Honestly, I think so many singers experience this and immediately spiral into:
“I’ve lost my legit voice.”
“I’m not a soprano anymore.”
“I guess I can only sing contemporary rep now.”
No! Your voice is not a Hogwarts sorting hat. You are not permanently assigned to one vocal identity forever 😂
One of my favorite things Emily said in the episode is that revisiting legit singing again felt like “retraining parts of the voice that hadn’t been front-and-center in years.” I think that framing is SO important because it removes the negative emotion from it. It’s not failure. It’s just conditioning.
And honestly, if you’re expecting to immediately pull out performance-ready legit soprano sounds you haven’t used since your college auditions… Friend… that is simply not how bodies work!
The encouraging news is this: voices are adaptable.
Coordinations can come back. Flexibility can be rebuilt. But usually not through panic, over-singing, or aggressively forcing yourself through “Glitter and Be Gay” at 11:30pm because you suddenly remembered you used to be able to hit that note in college (me, I’m talking about me). 😌
The other thing I loved about this conversation was how honest Emily was about the mental side of all this too. Working on a vocal style you haven’t used much (or in a long time) can feel vulnerable! Especially if your voice feels different now than it did at 21. But different does not equal worse. Often it just means your instrument has evolved and now needs a slightly different approach than it once did.
And truly, this is why I care so much about singers developing versatility instead of locking themselves into one sound or one style forever. Today’s musical theatre industry asks performers to do SO much stylistically. The singers who tend to sustain their voices long-term are usually the ones who stay curious, flexible, and willing to keep training different parts of the instrument over time.
If you’ve ever wondered, “Wait… can I still sing legit?” this episode is for you.
