Singing

3rd October

(Note form- write in full later)

We bad the lesson by discussing our musical experience e.g. performing in musicals/instruments/ ability to read music. This gave our teacher an idea of our current level/ability. I have been in a lot f musicals before, however I am not a confident singer and can't play any instruments. I can vaguely read music but I am quite slow at doing it. I believe I am experienced in acting through song which is the most important factor, however it might help if I was able to sing in tune.


 We practiced singing a few scales in order to help us warm up. We sang an 'Ah' sound up and down the scales. We then added our harmonies to it. I think this was useful as it helped us to work as an ensemble and see how well our voices work together. After this, we all sang 'Happy Birthday' together. We then repeated this individually. This gave us and our teacher an idea of our vocal groups. I was told I was a baritone, even though previously I've been told I'm a a bass. I'll soon see which of these vocal groups suits me more comfortably. This helped us become more confident singing around each other too s everyone was in the same boat. She could test our confidence in singing/support of our voices and our pitch. I was told that I have good support/pitch in my voice. However, I need to open up my voice more in order to sustain notes.

The next song we sang was 'Everybody say my name.' This helped with ensemble work/choral singing. We sang this a few times together, then everyone had to sing their name in unique/jazzy way by themselves, the class would then repeat this. This helped us unwind and feel more comfortable/ confident in singing around each other. It allowed us to open up and experiment with our voices. Finally, we were asked to bring sheet music in for next lesson. This was for potential audition songs, either contemporary or musical theatre.

10th October

During our warm up, we worked on our breathing. We would breath in, and on the outbreath, we'd make a 'V' sound and hold this for as long as possible. We did this 5 times and then switched positions between stretching our right/left arm up, stretching both arms up, reaching downwards and reaching outwards.It was interesting to see how our physicality and the positioning of our bodies affected our breath. Some positions made you feel enclosed which made it difficult to sustain a note. Also, it became more difficult as we progressed as we were running out of breath. This exercises helped us focus on our breathing and sustaining notes. After this, we repeated the scales exercises from the previous week. This became much easier as we weren't as breathy and could open up our bodies to producer clearer, sharper notes.

We performed an exercises in which we repeated the phrase 'Ta, Te. Tee, Toe Ta.' We then used double/triple speed. For example, 'Ta Ta, Te Te, Tee, Tee, Toe, Toe, Ta.' This became very difficult as it was very quick which meant we had to really wrap our tongues around each sound in order to make the sound clear and precise.This helped improve our articulation, diction and breath. Finally, we sang the alphabet in different tune in order to see how this affects our brains. It became very confusing as we are so used to singing it to the theme of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.' Therefore, our brains couldn't comprehend the change in tune. This meant we had to really focus on what came next and think about the lyrics on the song even though they were simple, This helps us as we can transfer looking at the details in lyrics in order to make us think about the story and message behind a song.

The song choices I considered were:

- 'It's hard to speak my heart'- Parade

- 'Anything worth holding on to'- Scot Alan

- 'Only you'- Jeffery Austin
- 'Creep' - Radiohead

We discussed our song choices and thought about what would be most suitable for an audition. Some factors to consider were:

- How famous/popular is it?- Not too overdone- can get boring/compared easily/ expected to be performed in a certain way

- Lyrics- how much do they mean to you?

-Story/dialogue- like a monologue- journey/emotion behind song

- Vocal range- can you hit the notes?

Our teacher decided that 'Only you' was the most suitable as it was most in my vocal range and had a clear, powerful narrative behind the lyrics. I agreed that this song was effective because I felt an emotional connection to it when I listened to it.

17th October

Our warm up included various exercises from last week such as the breathing exercises, scales, alphabet and 'ta te tee to' exercises.We were told we would be singing 'Silent Night' in a street performance at the end of term. This sounds exciting, yet quite challenging as the people of Southend may not like this. We sang through the song after getting split into our vocal group. This went quite well and sounded nice. The song isn't too difficult and we already knew most of the words. However, it was occasionally hard to hit the right notes as we weren't given a demonstration of the note we had to hit, this is how I usually learn which notes to sing. I think it sounds nice, however it needs more work in order to make it sound softer and more powerful. We had a brief summary of sight reading and how sheet music works. She spoke to us about vocal groups/bars/notation/length of notes, this was a recap of what I already knew. I'd like to go over this in more detail as I am still very slow at sight reading and it takes me a while to work out what the note we need to sing is.