Singing Showcase: Monday 11th November 2013: Session Two

Monday 11th November 

Session Two

We started with a warm up which included: 

• Sirening (with Lip Trills)
• Arpeggios
• Number Scales

I find that performing different warm ups each weeks allows me to identify parts of my singing I need to work on and practise to develop further. 

We went onto continuing singing "You Raise Me Up". We started by growing through what we did last week and were reminded on the tune. Then we went on to the chorus which we focused on for the rest of the session.

This session we focused on the chorus: 

"You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains,

You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas,

I am strong, when I am on your shoulders, 

You raise me up to more than I can be."

The first three lines of the chorus are performed in a four part harmony in four groups (Tenners, Altos, Sopranos and Bass). These four groups allowed the harmony to suit our voice. We all sing in unison together in the last line. I was in the Alto group as this group suited me when we sung "What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor" in the last project.

We then sung what we learn last week and added the chorus to what we had already learnt. 

Learning harmonies isn't ever really easy but with the more practise and rehearsal it starts to come to you naturally. I find isolating myself from everyone else enables me to perform a more accurate harmony. When being taught the harmonies, you have to have a lot of patience and respect because our lecturer can only teach one group at a time. I loved how the harmonies impacted the song and gave it a sincere emotion to it.

Singing the last line in unison was much simpler because we then could sing together and listen to each other. 

I didn't find remembering the chorus as hard as the verse last week as it's more repetitive compared to the verse. I am really glad I practised the harmonies outside of lesson last week as it allowed me to perform this week to the best of my ability without worrying about the words or getting the harmonies right because it came naturally from practise. 

I was happy that I could perform the song with confidence in the harmonies and words this week as I could think about how you could then perform it to an audience. 

I think my pitching was slightly off in parts of the chorus and it's slightly higher than I am comfortable with. 

I am going to practise the Arpeggios exercise to familiarise myself with higher notes by next week. By practising my Arpeggios I should be able to strengthen the higher notes so they are performed with more confidence for when we next do the song.