Singing strategy courseworkk
- 1. Singing Strategy Coursework One thing I would like to improve in my singing technique would be widening my range. I find it quite hard to leave my comfort range when I am singing and always look for songs that I know are in my range as I am not as confident with higher notes. When we did our first technical assessment at the start of our unit my lowest note was F3 and my highest was G5 and I would really like to push myself higher. To do this and to widen my range there are many exercises I can do, both in and out of class. The main thing I have to do is strengthen my larynx and vocal chords. I need to do this because air is pushed through the larynx and the air vibrates against the vocal chords and sound waves and created, these are manipulated by how tight the vocal chords are because the tighter the vocal chords the higher the pitch is that you are able to sing. An exercise where I can use this to widen my range is “macaroni ravioli” this strengthens my vocal chords as they are worked hard as the notes goes up higher in semitones each time “macaroni ravioli” is sang. The “O” vowel sound in “ravioli” is also sang higher than the rest of the phrase and the “O” vowel sound works your diaphragm because that is where the sound should be projected from, not your teeth or lips. Doing this exercise I could push myself even further to improve my range by continuing to increase the semitones going up in “macaroni ravioli” because that would test my range even further. I could even start the exercise on a lower note on the outside of my normal range capacity so I am not only widening my range higher, but lower as well. When I am more confident with higher notes I could continue to build up the time I hold the notes on for to further strengthen my vocal chords. Another thing I would like to improve in my singing technique would be my diction while I am singing. As I am quite a “pop” singer, I tend to lose the start of the end of my words sometimes and I need to learn to spit my words out more so the audience know what I am actually singing because it can become quite slurred. To do this I need to aim for keeping a better mouth shape while I am singing as it should preferably be open and round this allows for more crisp sounding words rather than my normal mouth shape which gives me poor diction. To do this I can do the exercise “AEIOU” in both staccato and longatto. This will improve diction because the exercise is based around vowels which you naturally have to spit out of your mouth anyway so you don’t have a choice. And physically, the exercise is eliminating a nasally tone from your voice, making it clearer, due to the fact that saying the vowels gives you an open, round mouth so any nasally tone is eliminated. Another thing this exercise does that helps with diction is lowers your jaw whilst you are doing it. This helps your diction because lowering your jaw helps to lower your soft palate and when that is lowered you can spit words out clearer.