Singing Showcase: Monday 4th November 2013: Session One

Monday 4th November 2013

Session One 

This is our first session for our second project "Singing Showcase" in the unit "Singing Skills for Actors and Dancers". We started our first session back by going through the project brief. 

I have written in detail what this project will consist of here: 

http://singingskillssomer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/singing-showcase-monday-4th-november.html

We started the session by warming up our voice. We had learnt from the previous project the important or warming up the voice and how that can help to develop singing skills. 

We did the following warm ups: 

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

As this project isn't focussed on the warm ups we do, this time the warm up was shorter than usual but is still an important part of singing. 

We then started doing work on the song "You Raise Me Up" by Westlife. 

Here are the lyrics to "You Raise Me Up": 

"When I am down, and oh my soul, so weary, 

When troubles come and my heart burdened be, 

Then, I am still and wait here in the silence, 

Until you come come and sit awhile with me. 

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.

There is no life - no life without its hunger, 

Each restless heart beats so imperfectly,

But when you come and I am filled with wonder, 

Sometimes, I think I glimpse eternity. 

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

You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas, 

And I am strong, when I am on your shoulders, 

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

We focused on the first verse to start with: 

"When I am down, and oh my soul, so weary, 
When troubles come and my heart burdened be, 
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence, 
Until you come come and sit awhile with me."

The girls started by singing the first line, then the boys sang the next line. We all sang the last two lines in two separate harmonies. 

This was a fairly easy start to the project, the girls had no problem in pitching their first line. The boys had sight more trouble in pitching and had to listen really carefully to Alison, due to the work we did with Singing and Responding I think they found it easier than they would have if we hadn't worked on that singing skill. 

I had heard the song before but I was completely familiar with it so I had to pay a lot of attention to what Alison was playing and singing. Also I had word-learning trouble at first, especially as we added more lines in. 

I thought I would find the harmony work hard but it was pretty simple once I had got the right pitch. I really think that the exercises we did last project has given me the confidence to succeed in this project. 

I was really happy that I could warm up my voice efficiently to prepare for the singing ahead. Without performing the warm up correctly then the voice won't be able to be used to its full ability. 

Although this is the first session, I think I need to start working on being able to remember lyrics quickly so I don't have to concentrate on the words as much as I currently do. 

For next week I am going to go over the part we have learnt to ensure that I can perform it to the best of my ability and have the power to develop the song further. As it's only a verse it shouldn't be hard to learn in a week.