Quote Originally Posted by sup_fan View Post
I think part of the reason for Lynda singing lead is that all of the orchestra charts are for a soprano lead singer which Mary isn’t. If Mary did the leads then Lynda would have to have learned the alto BG part. Given their time crunch it would be easier for her to sing the melodies rather than a complex harmonizing line.
You are probably correct, sup fan. Musically, an arrangement has to be in the right key [[and there are 12 possible keys for a song). That's why an artist can not go into the studio and lay his/her lead vocal on any backing instrumental tracks lying around and expect the results to be stellar. Back in the day, transposing the key of a song to another key for a band/orchestra could be a tedious task. Today, it's not quite as difficult being that music scores are often digitally entered and all one has to do is take the digital score and move it up or down as needed. Of course, there may have to be some tweaking that goes on after doing this process.

Also having two artists to come together to perform a duet can be challenging for the same reasons. The producers, before deciding on a song for the pair to record, must determine if it's doable based on each artist's vocal range OR if the arrangement will need to have transitions within the song where the key modulates within the arrangement to accommodate the two artist's voices. You can see this quandary in a live performance where a guest singer [[or someone from the audience) is asked to sing impromptu with the artist on stage. Oftentimes, that guest singer may have to sing out of his/her comfort zone in order to sing the song in the same key that the band is playing.