Warm Ups and Workouts: Monday 23rd September 2013: Session Two

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:

• Bass
• Alto (me)
• Sopranos

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.