Monday 23rd September 2013
Session Two
Similar to
last week, we started by assuring that our posture and alignment was correct
for singing. Although I
remembered most of the key points to focus on when executing the correct
posture I did need to be reminded on some of the parts. Going through correct
posture each week means I should start executing the correct posture and
alignment correctly.
We began our
vocal warm ups, many of them we had previously done last week.
These vocal warm ups include:
- Sirening (added a development)
- "Happy
Birthday"
- Sounds
- "Mr. Rabbit"
- Number Scale
(added a development)
- Jamaican
Lullaby - "Janine Mama" (added a development)
We also learn new vocal warm ups, such
as:
- "Somewhere
Over The Rainbow"
- "The Month
Song"
- "The Little
Green Frog"
After we had
warmed up we began to work on harmony work with the song "What Shall We Do With
The Drunken Sailor".
Sirening
We added Lip
Trills to the Sirening exercises to develop it further and for the exercise to
become slightly more challenging. A Lip Trill is where you push your breath
forward towards the lips and they vibrate together. You then add tone to the
breath whilst the lips are vibrating.
To complete
the Lip Trills, I had to hold my cheeks so that my lips could trill. I found
pitching easy but breath control needed a lot of focus on to complete the
exercise. Between each
siren I found myself taking huge breaths, this showed me that I have poor
control over my breath and this is something I have to work on to improve.
Developing an exercise is a great way to keep it
fresh and to strengthen singing skills. I know now I have to focus on breath
control so I can execute this exercise stronger and longer.
"Happy Birthday"
We sung
"Happy Birthday" again, which focused on our ability to pitch and to listen to
others. Again we sung each word individually.
I found my pitching had slightly improved because
I was listening with more detail compared to last week’s session.
"Somewhere Over The Rainbow"
We sung:
"Somewhere over the
rainbow, way up high,
There’s a land that
I’ve heard of once in a lullaby."
We sung this
song in the same way as "Happy Birthday". We went through it as a class a few
times and then stood in a circle and each sung a word individually.
I preferred singing this song compared to "Happy
Birthday". I think this is because I was familiar with singing the song in the
correct pitch; therefore, it was easier for me to listen and pitch the next
word. If I wasn’t familiar with the song then I think I would have found it
much more difficult as there’s a higher range of pitches in this version.
I’m starting to feel more confident with singing
and I’m trying to really go for the exercises even when we have to do work
individually and I go wrong in front of everyone. Being able to carefully
listen and then accurately find the correct pitch will be a really useful skill
in the future!
Number Scale
We added the
development onto the Number Scales by adding counting down from eight.
The exercise now was performed like this:
1.
1, 2, 1.
1, 2, 3, 2, 1.
1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
8.
8. 7, 8.
8, 7, 6, 7, 8.
8, 7, 6, 5, 6, 7, 8.
8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
I had been practicing the original number scales
from last week so I was fairly confident with the pitching and this made my
diction more precise.
As we developed the exercise this week I was
really happy that I had managed to practice outside so I could then focus on
the development and not what we had learned previously.
The development to this exercise is a far more
increased pitch, and being a low singer, I slightly struggled with this and had
to use my head voice instead of my chest voice. Again I am going to practice
this development so I can familiarize myself with it.
Jamaican Lullaby – "Janine Mama"
We had sung
"Janine Mama" last week in-a-round and this session we were split into smaller
groups.
It was increasingly hard to keep your own pitch
going when there are so many other different pitches around you. I found myself
slipping in and out of various pitches. Once we had going through this a few
times I found it far easier to isolate myself and sing without slipping into
other people’s pitches.
I found this exercise useful as when it comes to
harmony work, as a singer you have to be confident and maintain your own part
and not slip into other people’s parts to get the distinctive sound.
The words this week was much easier to remember
because I had made sure to go through them outside of class. A lack of
confidence when it comes to the actual words of a song or exercise can
disenable the person to really execute the exercise properly. To ensure I was getting the most out of these
exercises I made sure to practice the words and this really helped me.
"The Month Song"
We learnt a
new exercise where we sung each month of the year as so:
"January, February,
March, April, May, June, July,
August, September,
October, November, December...
January, February,
March, April, May, June, July."
We sung this
again and again but then we had to sing it and act posh. This meant sitting on
the edge of our seats and performing stereotypical characteristics of someone
who is posh would do. We then had to jump
up on the month we were born, so for me that was June.
As an actor in training, I found adding
characteristics to the song was really enjoyable and added energy to the
exercise. I thought it was really useful to know that changing certain parts of
your singing can totally change how the exercise is performed to make it more
interesting.
A simple action like jumping up when the month we
were born in was actually quite difficult. Suddenly, there was a pressure added
and the characteristics dropped because I was concentrating on something else. I’m
hoping by becoming more confident in singing that actions and gestures won’t be
so difficult.
I didn’t have any problems with pitching but I
feel like I lost my diction as the pace of the exercise increased, this is
something I’m going to work on to improve.
"The Little Green Frog"
Next we learnt another little song:
"Mm-m, went the
little green frog one day,
Mm-m, went the
little green frog,
Mm-m, went the
little green frog one day,
And the frog went
mm-m, ahh.
But we know frogs go
sha-lal-ala,
Sha-lal-ala,
Sha-lal-ala,
We know frogs go
sha-lal-ala,
They don’t go mm-m,
ahh
And we know frogs go
PING in the microwave,
PING in the
microwave,
PING in the
microwave,
We know frogs go
PING in the microwave,
They don’t go mm-m,
ahh."
With this
song we added in actions and movements such as poking out our tongue after "mm-m",
clapping before "sha-lal-ala" and opening our hands when singing "PING".
This was the longest song we had learn so far,
most of what we were doing was just a chorus or a line. This already presented
the exercise to be fairly more challenging compared to the others.
Keeping the pace of this song was fairly
challenging as you were doing actions, whilst singing a lengthy song and also
having to stick your tongue out – which is harder than you would think!
This song was quite similar to "Mr. Rabbit" and I
thoroughly enjoyed it because it was fun and slightly silly! The sooner I got
use to the words – which didn’t take too long, showing my memory is improving
slowly – I was really enthusiastic when singing it.
We practiced the song several times as a class
which helped me to familiarise myself with the movements. The exercise was a
slight tongue twister as sticking your tongue out had to be a fast pace movement
or all diction would go. When we sung it a final time I was confident and
really enthusiastic! This type of warm up really suits me because it’s fun but
needs focus.
I am going to go through this outside of class to
really work on adding actions to songs as this will help me when performing
songs as characters.
‘What Shall We Do With The Drunken
Sailor’
We then went onto sing:
"What shall we do
with the drunken sailor,
What shall we do
with the drunken sailor,
What shall we do
with the drunken sailor,
Ear-ly in the morning.
Hooray and up she
rises,
Hooray and up she
rises,
Hooray and up she
rises,
Ear-ly in the morning."
We began by
singing this as a class; most of the class knew this song so it wasn’t hard to
grasp the words. We were then split into three groups to create the harmony.
These groups were:
The boys sung bass whilst the girls
sung were altos and sopranos. The altos were the lower singers and the sopranos
the higher. I was an alto as I have a lower voice.
The boys
were bass as their voices were low with a deep pitch and a loud volume.
The soprano
girls had higher voices and consisted of most of the girls in our class.
The altos
didn’t consist of as many girls as the sopranos and were the girls who have the
lower voices. I have a low voice so I was in this group. The altos weren’t as
deep as the bass.
The bass group had to sing:
Hooray and up she rises,
Hooray and up she rises,
Hooray and up she rises,
Ear-ly in the morning.
Throughout the
song they would only sing hooray in a deep and low pitch. They then joined in
with "Ear-ly in the morning" missing the and up she rises.
The altos
sang the same as the bass but a slightly higher pitch, the sopranos sand the
whole song at an even higher pitch.
As a class this took a long time to really get
used to even though it was just a short part of the song. Our lecturer had to
go through the separate parts for the groups. When we had finally rehearsed it
a few times it sounded really creepy and had a menacing atmosphere to it. I
thought it sounded really different and created something different.
All the other things we had down were very upbeat
and happy so to hear and perform something contrasting was a great experience.
I couldn’t believe how using harmonies can really
create an energetic and atmospheric performance. Harmonies are something I
really would like to work on more and have as a skill to use.
In
conclusion, as a class, all these warm ups were improved from last week. As we
knew what we were doing there were more confidence and with the confidence the
exercises were much stronger. Developing the exercises kept them fresh and
worked and developed other singing skills.
There are
now many singing exercises and warm ups that I think I could really use to help
me before a performance.
I was very happy that I had practised
Number Scales outside of class because I imagine I would have found the
development difficult if I didn’t.
Last session I mentioned working on my
breathing and I think that’s something I really need to work on as it came up
today as something that needs work when performing the Sirening exercise. I
need to be able to control my breath easily and efficiently. Practising the
Sirening and Lip Trill exercise should help me with this.
I have now familiarised myself with the
exercises so my aim is to focus on Sirening and Lip Trills so I can perform
them without taking too many breaths.