When the singing voice is also the regular voice

When the singing voice is also the regular voice - Grayscale Photo of a Man with a Beanie Singing on a Microphone

In animated musicals (or animated films with some singing but not to the point of being a musical eg Wreck-It Ralph 2: Ralph Breaks The Internet), sometimes the singing voice of a character is going to be done by a different actor/actress from the regular voice.

I'm going to give some examples from Disney.

1990's Disney: In Mulan and Aladdin, Lea Salonga does the singing voices of, respectively, Mulan and Jasmine. However, she doesn't do the regular voice for either. In The Lion King, Simba and Nala have different regular voices from singing voices.

2010's Disney: In Frozen, most of the singing voices are regular voices and vice-versa. Similar for Tangled.

Question: What are factors contributing to the decision whether to use 2 voices (1 regular, 1 singing) or just 1 voice (for both regular and singing)?

Edit: To clarify, i really have no clue. i'm not from the acting world. i don't have experience auditioning for acting jobs or anything. i have no idea actually which one is more seamful/less seamful/more seamless/less seamless or why. i just notice aladdin and mulan have different reg & singing voice while for frozen it's the same. no idea why this is the case and so i'm asking why are some are different and some are the same. i really have no clue about the economics, ethics or filmmaking decisions involved in this. I just observe something. I notice there's a difference. I'm just asking the cause for the difference.

2 competing models based on comments: it seems like they prioritise regular voice over singing voice. makes sense. but which of these 2 models exactly?

1 - if we could somehow quantify regular voice acting by ratings like with elo or glicko or something, then my thought goes like this: one guess is like if their regular voice acting rating is like 2600 but their singing rating is like 1500, one might ask like why not get someone instead, if possible, like voice acting rating of 2550 but singing rating is 2300. like my thought is that (2550,2300) is preferable to (2600,1500), but if there's none really available after a lot time of searching already, then let's get another person to do the singing. or if the next best is (2300,2300), then this is 200 points down already for voice acting rating, so perhaps let's get a separate actor for singing voice.

  • quantitatively: it's like we have a utility function of, example, U(x,y)=9999x+y, with x as acting and y as singing. In this case, (2550,2300) gives more utility than (2600,1500). But of course it's easy to come up with utility functions where (2600,1500) is preferable to (2550,2300).

2 - based on comments, it appears that it's something like 'singing-blind' in re the 'need-blind' in university admissions: Basically, for live or animated (note that my question is for animated), the filmmakers or whatchamacallit don't care about the singing voice at 1st, then if the actor happens to sing then great and then otherwise they find someone else.

  • quantitatively: not sure how to explain this. something like 1st maximise V(x), utility from acting and then 2nd maximise W(y), utility from singing. Or perhaps 'W(y)' should be like 'W(y|x)', maximise utility from singing conditioned on acting. or something.

Note 1: Of course it's impossible to quantify acting or singing ability. What I'm trying to ask specifically now based on comments below is if people may consider going with their 2nd best choice of acting for better singing or if people will necessarily go with the best choice for acting regardless of singing.

Note 2: There's utility U(x,y), V(x), W(y) and then there's money. What I notice is missing from answers and comments is the money involved. So the models might need to be changed from just maximising utility (which I guess is equivalent to maximising revenue) to maximising profit: so like P(x,y)=U(x,y)-C(x,y). How much more is the cost to get 2 actors instead of 1? Is it going to be worth the increase in utility/revenue? I don't believe these were addressed in comments or answers.



Best Answer

The major factor will be whether the director is happy with the voice actor's singing voice.

Speaking lines of dialogue and singing songs are two different skill sets and people who are good at one are not always so good at the other. Two examples from Disney would be the characters Jasmine and Mulan. Linda Larkin voiced Jasmine and in most critics' opinion, she did an excellent job of it. Same goes for Ming-Na Wen who voiced Mulan, and she also had the advantage of being a Chinese actress voicing a Chinese character--Disney had taken some flak for casting white actors for non-white characters. However, both actresses could not sing sufficiently well to belt out the songs to the director's satisfaction and a professional singer (and broadway star) named Lea Salonga was brought in to sing both characters' parts in those movies (source). It's a simple matter of having the best actor for the part do the dialogue and the best singer for the part sing the songs.

Sometimes professional singers can act well enough to do the speaking lines (Idina Menzel in Frozen comes to mind), and professional actresses can sing well enough to do the songs (Kristen Bell in the same movie). This is ideal since the voices will match better. But when the perfect voice for the part can't sing well enough (or when the big star who you cast in your movie to draw in their fans can't sing well enough) they bring in a professional singer.




Pictures about "When the singing voice is also the regular voice"

When the singing voice is also the regular voice - Close-Up Photograph of a Man Singing
When the singing voice is also the regular voice - A Woman Teaching a Girl How to Sing
When the singing voice is also the regular voice - A Teacher Teaching a Student How to Sing



When you sing Do you use your normal voice?

Both of which, in fact, are equally your real voice. The 'real' voice is normally the one we associate as the voice closer to our speaking voice, in pitch and in resonance. For most people, they speak from their chest register, which resonates in the chest area.

When all voices are singing the same thing it is called?

The term "harmony" itself is what you are looking for. Being able to sing in harmony (2 or more different voices) with someone however doesn't require any more skills or theory than singing alone or in unison (same notes, only one voice) because everyone learns "his notes" as he would do singing alone.

How do you know if your singing voice is real?

How to Find Your Singing Voice
  • Eat the right foods. Consume foods and liquids one to two hours before you plan to warm up your vocal cords. ...
  • Do a vocal warm-up. ...
  • Determine your chest voice. ...
  • Find your head voice. ...
  • Work on your mixed voice. ...
  • Try a vocal range test. ...
  • Work with a vocal coach. ...
  • Choose songs within your range.


  • What are the 4 types of voice?

    There are four basic types of voice: soprano, alto, tenor and bass.



    Superstars PRANK The Voice coaches with unexpected Audition




    More answers regarding when the singing voice is also the regular voice

    Answer 2

    Sometimes the reverse can happen to where the director is happy with the singing performance but not with the acting performance.

    Nightmare Before Christmas comes to mind. Danny Elfman the composer wanted to play Jack and Tim Burton was very happy with his singing but didn't feel the dialogue was flowing well so he kept Elfman as the singing voice, but brought in actor Chris Sarandon for the speaking parts.

    An episode of The Holiday Movies That Made Us on Netflix covers voice casting on that movie.

    Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

    Images: Artem Podrez, Artem Podrez, Pavel Danilyuk, Pavel Danilyuk