Vocal Exercises: Tuesday 21st October 2014: Conclusion

Tuesday 21st October 2014

Conclusion

During this project we have learnt a lot of information and gained knowledge surrounding vocal exercises and vocal techniques. Which this new gained knowledge and a wider repertoire, awareness of using and protecting your voice is far more easier to do.

If you maybe want to improve your singing further, investing at private lessons may help you but there is a wide range of information online to help you if maybe that's out of your budget.

To maintain your vocal techniques you need to take time and commitment to keep up with learning them and developing your skills further. Even with professional singers there will be room for improvement. The more you work and exercise your vocal chords the more you can challenge yourself as a singer and become the best for your ability. The more you perform exercises an techniques the more your voice will improve and your range increase and the better tonal quality and flexibility you will have with your voice. 

Even fi you practise for a few minutes a day and follow a regime designed for you you can improve, and you can multi task whilst doing this if you’re busy. You don’t want to get into the habit of not doing it and forgetting or make excuses, which is easy to do but needs self-discipline to accomplish as much as possible. If you were a runner in the olympics you would be constantly practising and training and working as hard as you can to be the best.

A lot of singing principles are important for actor’s as well including breath control and projection for the audience to hear the performance. Breath control are also a massive part of dancing too to keep up the stamina. Martha Graham is a dancer practitioner who widely uses breath control to execute performances. All of this relates back to the basic vocal techniques and exercises which can be easily established through practising. 

You don’t want to strain your voice because it may leave you out of work which could have all sorts of impacts on your professional career or if you perform as a hobby. Without the right experience of working with your instrument and your muscles you can strain so keep up the practise and you will make further developments.

I hope you find my blog and video entries a helpful resource to create your own warm up and spark some ideas on what you need to improve and develop.

Thank you for reading, listening and watching...

And...

Good Luck!

Somer x

Vocal Exercises: Tuesday 14th October 2014: Applying Techniques to an Audition Song

Tuesday 14th October 2014

Applying Techniques to an Audition Song

As I have been learning and developing my knowledge of vocal techniques and vocal exercises, I decided on the song "Listen" from the musical "Dreamgirls" sung by Deena Jones who is based upon Motown star, Diana Ross. 

The character of Deena is shy young woman who grows famous after being the lead singer in the band Dreams by a character called Curtis. Through the musical Deena realises she's musical puppet to Curtis who she becomes romantically involved in and then marries. 

"Listen" takes place after Deena and Curtis argue over Deena's desire to make her film debut in an urban film and not the one Curtis is producing. Curtis grows angry and asserts his creative and psychological control over his wife, Curtis doesn't want anyone else handling her because no one knows her the way he does. Curtis tells Deena that she was put as the lead vocals for the Dreams because her voice didn't have personality and he evolved her performance. 

This song reveals the disgust that Deena feels about being considered property of Curtis. After the song she lives him as she finds her own voice and is a newly independent woman. Overall, the song is an emotional song where the character is finding her own independence over her controlling husband. 

Lyrics to "Listen":

"Listen to the song here in my heart

A melody I start but can't complete

Listen to the sound from deep within

It's only beginning

To find release

Oh,

The time has come

For my dreams to be heard

They will not be pushed aside and turned

Into your own

All cause you won't

Listen...

[Chorus:]

Listen,

I am alone at a crossroads

I'm not at home in my own home

And I've tried and tried

To say what's on my mind

You should have known

Oh,

Now I'm done believing you

You don't know what I'm feeling

I'm more than what you made of me

I followed the voice you gave to me

But now I gotta find my own.

You should have listened

There is someone here inside

Someone I thought had died

So long ago

Oh I'm screaming out, and my dreams will be heard

They will not be pushed aside or worked

Into your own

All cause you won't

Listen...

[Chorus]

I don't know where I belong

But I'll be moving on

If you don't...

If you won't...

...listen to the song here in my heart

A melody I've started but I will complete

Oh,

Now I'm done believing you

You don't know what I'm feeling

I'm more than what you've made of me

I followed the voice you think you gave to me

But now I gotta find my own,

My own."

This song needs strong female vocals and strong emotion behind it as well which is why it's great to show off singing and acting ability. 

I've colour coded the parts of the song, here is the key:

• Easy
• Fairly tricky 
• Hard

I'm currently applying all the vocal exercises and technique to help me and aid me to learn this song. I'm hoping that I will develop my singing through this song and setting myself a challenge. 

The vocal techniques which I will be focusing on during this song will be: 

• Engaging the Diaphragm 
• Flexibility, Tone and Range Development 
• Breath Control

By indicating the vocal techniques I have to work on allows me to lead a clear and specific way of practising which should help the development of my vocal technique and be able to sing to a higher skill. 

It's important to put the vocal exercises and techniques to use because then you can see for yourself the benefits from them, perhaps a before and after of learning a song without using the techniques and with the techniques. Challenge yourself because who knows what you may achieve!

Good Luck, 

Somer x

Vocal Exercises: Tuesday 14th September 2014: Projection Development

Tuesday 14th September 2014

Projection Development 

Lastly, we're going to focus on projection. Projection is what makes a singer heard... So it's pretty important.

Soundwaves are amplified in your body inside small cavities, resonance is the result of this which is projection. These open cavities include your mouth, throat, chest and nasal cavities (i.e. resonators) the fulness of the sound is created in these. Vocal resonance will not come in you just push and force you voice to sing louder, it will only damage it. Building projection is a lot to do with breathing correctly.

An exercise which you can use to test your breathing is placing a piece of paper on a wall and blowing on it to keep it there, the more you engage your diaphragm the more it will stay and your muscles are strengthening. You can then develop the exercise by walking slightly further away to see if you can sustain that breath control. This exercise will develop breath control which should help and aid projection.

Another technique to use when projecting is opening your mouth wider so the song is more powerful. When you sing the big note, you're engaging your core, opening your mouth and allowing the sound to be produced and the resonating cavities to open.

Make sure when you open your mouth you don't open it long wards and oval like, it needs to be open and wide. If you don't open your mouth correctly, you could end up straining your voice.

Lip trills are also an excellent way to develop your projection and extend your range.

We've now focused on five techniques to use and exercises to help develop your voice. Every technique we've looked at should be put together to work as a great way of executing a song for an audition or for a performance. This stuff is important and the more you independently work on your voice the more versatile and better you become.

I hope you've learnt about how to develop your projection and you've gained some ideas on what to do!

Good Luck,

Somer x

Vocal Exercises: Tuesday 7th October 2014: Breath Control

Tuesday 7th October 2014

Breath Control

A strong singer will have strong breath control, because all good singers will know how to use their breath to benefit them and their performance. As you increase your control over your breathing you increase your control of the performance.

Actors also will control their breath when speaking, especially in classical theatre with the works from Shakespeare, as they abide by the punctuation so if there isn't a full stop or comma to breath, they can't breath. Therefore, breath control is vital for a great performance.

Breath control is important to use whether it's when warming up or during a performance. Using breath control before a performance helps to relax and get you into character if you're acting in a play of a musical. In musical theatre, an emotional song would need strongly regulated breathing to get the intense emotion portrayed behind it effectively. Breath control is something that can benefit a singer or an actor when it's needed most in a performance of in class.

Breath control can also help: 

• Rhythm
• Reducing/releasing tension
• Increasing air flow
• Increasing vocal stamina
• Freeing and relaxing the voice
• Sustaining vocal quality
• Holding longer notes

One way of regulating your breathing is laying flat on the floor and breathing in for four, holding for four and the releasing for four. This sort of pattern will increase the rhythm of how you breathing works. Counting the amount of breath intakes your doing and controlling them will help you have more power over your breath and improve overall breath control.

Breath control is a very easy thing to get you head round so use it for your advantage and really practise how much control you have over it. Breath control also links to using your diaphragm which is a significant part of singing. Everything we're learning is interlinking with each other and is all important to know about! 

Hope you enjoyed and learned something new! 

Good Luck, 

Somer x 

Vocal Exercises: Tuesday 30th September 2014: Flexibility, Tone and Range Development

Tuesday 30th September 2014

Flexibility, Tone and Range Development

The third vocal techniques are flexibility, tone and range development. Improving flexibility and tone is an extremely useful area to work on when developing and improving your voice. 

Your own flexibility will depend on your vocal range. Your vocal range is the measure of the breadth of pitches that a human voice can phonate - which is then put into categories/ranges. 

You may be familiar with the types of ranges which depend on how low/high pitched you can sing, such as:

• Soprano
• Alto
• Tenor
• Baritone
• Bass

Knowing you range is great because you may be asked when discussing harmony work, etc. 

If you're unsure on your vocal range, take a look at this video which may help you: 

Knowing your vocal range will help you discover areas to improve and develop your voice. 

I personally have a low voice so fit in with the Alto range. I would like to increase my range and be able to sing in a higher pitch as many female songs are sung in soprano or mezzo-soprano. So as a performer would make me more versatile. 

My of my favourite exercises is singing "Bella Señora", travelling up and down the scale as your sing the words. 

I use "Bella Señora" to focus on my tone. As you go down the scale you decrease your pitch and as you go up the scale you increase your pitch. You need to hit every note rather than just do a vocal slide. Accuracy in pitch is also important to stop the temptation to force notes and instead have a smooth transition from head to chest voice. 

When singing in head voice, you may think that it sounds quieter or lighter - this is perfectly fine, you want to refrain from singing too harshly when your voice isn't prepared/developed enough, straining your voice could lead to damage in the vocal chords, leaving you unable to sing. 

Exploring the flexibility in "Bella Señora" is easy as you can stretch vocally how high or low you want to sing it. The more you practise the stronger your development will be. Expanding your vocal range and extending your flexibility and ability can help your confidence and your skills as a singer. Slowly and gradually make your way up to avoid strain and really focus on developing your skills as much as you can. 

Exercising, practising and developing your voice is all down to you! Unfortunately, you can't take a pill where suddenly you have an incredible vocal range. By making yourself achievable goals with exercises that can be developed further you may be able to sing a song you never thought you could have! 

Good Luck, 

Somer x