Building Blocks

Some of you have been asking me to include some music theory lessons on the blog; I have hesitated thus far as it is a massive subject that I was unsure how to present in this digital format.

I have however recently discovered an American website by Ricci Adams called Musictheory.net.

Whilst this site is American it has a British English translator . The fundamentals are superb however and presented in a very clear way.

I would suggest you work through the sections as far as "Key Signatures" Then have a go at the "Trainers"all except for guitar and brass trainer.

The link to site is here http://www.musictheory.net/. The British English page is http://www.musictheory.net/translations.html#en_uk

Any questions or if you get stuck and need additional help - just email me.

You hum it son - I'll play it!

The point of this blog entry is to focus the sound on the front of your mouth in order to create greater resonance.

Strangely, If you can't hum the note you will not be able to sing it effectively, Now hum gently on the outward breath.

With your teeth slightly apart (imagine you are holding a match between your teeth) and your lips just touching (not pressed hard together) lets hummmmmmmmmm!. Try to aim for a buzzing, tickling sensation on the lips. If you don’t get the “tickle”, try bringing your head slightly forward. Experiment with your head position until you find the point where you get the “tickle”. This is also a good way of confirming that your head is in the right position.

Now take another breath as before and hum down from the very top of your vocal range to the very bottom. Make sure the hum descends slowly and steadily in a controlled manner.

Then try the same thing, beginning at the bottom of your range and sliding up to the top.

Now try the “siren”. Take a breath as before and hum smoothly up and down your range. If you should hit a point where the voice “breaks”, start humming just above that point and slide down and up, down and up over it until it is smoothed out. It’s just like ironing your trousers!

Take in another good breath. Start humming and turn up the volume, then open the mouth and allow the sound to carry forward on a “mmmmmmaaaaaah” sound. Always ensure the shoulders, throat and jaw are kept as relaxed as possible, providing a clear passage for the flow of air.
Practise this until you can confidently reproduce the forward resonant tone throughout your range at will.

Control freak!

We talked about controlling your breathing on long phrases in order to achieve a really good legato; this control is not just as the air leaves your body but also controlling it as it enters your body. So think of it in this way

1. As the air comes in let it enter deeply but gently; fill your lower abdomen as slowly as the music allows, feeling the rhythm of the music (the beats) as you breathe in.


2. Before you sing hold the breath firmly in your tummy, ready to use in those lovely long phrases


3. As you begin to sing there should be no sudden burst of air, just a steady stream of sumptuous sound.


4. Release all the air by the end of each phrase.

There is one big big big no-no! It is so important that I will write it in red, bold and capitals.

KEEP YOUR SHOULDERS RELAXED AND DOWN WHEN YOU BREATHE IN!

I would love you all to have a go at this exercise every day for the next week - just spend five minutes on it each day until you perfect it.

• Breathe in as above
• Gently blow the air out onto your index finger held in front of your mouth
• Practice until you can feel the air hitting your finger smoothly and evenly through the duration of the blow out.
• Listen to sound of the air and make it smooth and even through the duration of the blow out.

Smooooooth!

Walk right in, sit right down...........

We didn't do much new technical work last evening since we were getting ready for this weekend's concert at St Aldhelms's Church - however we did think about the lessons from previous weeks and thought a little bit about posture and worked on how to "relax our apparatus" (Ooerr Missus!) - unlike our friend to the left. This chap doesn't look very relaxed does he, such a tight mouth, head tilted back, trying to swallow a football, never mind a orange or small grapefruit!

Humming is a good way to warm up, as it puts very few stresses on your voice but how to hum effectively in a relaxed and stress free way.

• Make sure your lips are barely touching - if you squeeze them together it sounds like you need more fibre in your diet!
• Keep your teeth slightly apart - imagine you are holding a matchstick between them.
• Imagine the sound starting about 1 inch (2.5cms) in front of your lips

We spoke about the dry air around at the moment - I am taking tablets for hay fever and find them very drying - we should be drinking a lot of water.

Your vocal chords (or folds to be precise) are very delicate and need to be protected. If you cough, the chords rub against each other instead of vibrating smoothly together, so if you feel you need to cough to clear your throat - DON'T! Try swallowing instead, creating saliva to help clear your throat.

As a singer there should never be tension in the neck.

Finally - we talked about sitting during rehearsals - for some this is a no-no "You can only sing properly whilst standing" - this is untrue! Sure, if you slouch you can't sing well but if you follow the snappily named "Bournemouth Male Voice Choir Five Top Tips To Better Singing Whilst Sitting" all will be well!

1. Sit up tall - imagine a perpendicular line running through your ear down to your hip, If you slouch you will be fighting against your rib cage.
2. Don't cross your legs
3. Rest your weight on the balls of your feet and take up some of the weight with your thigh muscles. Sit as if you are just about to stand up.
4. Keep your shoulders relaxed.
5. Whilst we sing in performance without music - rehearsing without the scores is useless. When sitting with your score, your shoulders should be relaxed and down. Your shoulder supporting your elbow which supports your wrist and your arm is slightly extended from the body. Keep your head level and your line of sight so your eyes can move easily between the score and the conductor without having to move your body.

Up, up (and down, down) and away!

We spent some time this talking about range and making the best of our voices by extending the range.

The top tips we talked about for extending our ranges upwards were

1. Keep your throat very relaxed - no tension!
2. Relax your jaw and let your mouth open in a North/South direction.
3. Expand your throat - (imagine trying to swallow an orange or a small grapefruit!
4. Make sure you breathe well, low down in your abdomen (front and back) and then concentrate your efforts on supporting the sound from your tummy - focus on breathing better rather than the notes and you will be amazed at the improvement!
5. Check your posture! It should be relaxed - shoulders down - hands relaxed too! Pleasant facial expression (Baritones too!) and make sure your whole body is relaxed.

Please, please remember that if you are thinking about this at home.

Always start your exercises in the middle of your range and move up in semi-tones - this will allow your voice to warm up gradually

• Move quickly through the higher notes - this is much easier on the voice and prevents stresses
• Do not sing high phrases for too long
• Don't sing too loudly - a "taste" of higher pitches stretches the range much better than long durations

We also looked at the bottom of our voices

The highlights of this part of our work were-

1. Practice gliding down - make a Mmm sound buzz at the front of your mouth on a comfortable pitch in the middle of your range and then slide down by a fifth, gradually opening your mouth as you do so. A helpful way to recognize a fifth is to hum the second and third notes of Twinkle twinkle little star, which is a familiar 5th. The third note then the second note sung in that order is the interval we are looking for.
2. Keep your throat relaxed and open!
3. Make sure you breathe well, low down in your abdomen (front and back) and then concentrate your efforts on supporting the sound from your tummy - focus on breathing better rather than the notes and you will be amazed at the improvement

Gliding down like this helps to even out the sound quality in the lower part of your voice.

• The poorer pitches start to sound more like the better pitches
• Lower pitches no longer have a completely different character from higher pitches
• You will learn how to sing more lyrically without jumping from timbre to timbre as the pitches move about.

These exercises are for everyone because as you work on the lower part of your range you will notice that the middle parts start to sound richer too!

Do try this at home!

I didn't expect to be posting again so soon but I have had half a dozen emails asking for examples of exercises that you can do at home to improve the breathing without singing out loud, frightening the cats and having your better half looking at you as if you are nuts!

The following exercise may make you feel tired at first, but do keep at it as you will begin to notice that it takes less effort to breath, less energy is used when breathing plus it helps you learn to co-ordinate all your singing apparatus when breathing.

First up though, to find out if you are breathing correctly, place a hand on your belly button. This area should expand first when you breathe in and then spread upwards until your chest is expanded (don't lift your shoulders).

If you feel you are not breathing properly, practice the following exercise. Lay flat on your back. Place your hands on your waist, fingers pointing towards your belly button. Focus on filling up your stomach from the bottom to the top taking a slow deep breath. (The aim is not to fill yourself to bursting but to inhale enough air so that you can feel the difference between the shallow breath taken when breathing from the chest).

You should feel your stomach rise and your hands being raised gently up and outward until you feel your chest expanding. The expansion is not only at the front of the body but also to the sides and back as well.

Breath out slowly to a count of 5 Repeat the exercise 10 times Practice daily before you get up in the morning and before you go to sleep at night for 5 - 10 minutes gradually increasing this to 3 or 4 times a day. Once you get it right, practice as often as possible, sitting, standing and whilst at work until you are breathing naturally from your abdomen.

As easy as breathing in and out?

Is this always the case in singing? As we have discovered the two items that we want to work on are breathing and diction. But what do I mean by this?

This week we worked on these items in some detail. I don't intend these weekly blogs to be very long but just to recap on the principle and give one simple reminder of the weeks points. And of course feel free to post comments on this blog!

Good diction is about much more than "spitting out those consonants", the things we were working on this week are all about uniformity. This means that in order to get really accurate tuning the vowel sounds we produce need to match each other very closely.

Tuning is the process of producing a pitch in relation to one produced by another singer , both matched at the unison inside your section but also with the other sections in the choir who will be singing different notes. So when I say that a chord is "Out of tune" I am referring to a pitch that is too high or too low, or sharp or flat respectively.

But, I hear you ask, what has this got to do with diction? If our vowel sounds do not match there are very small differences in the sound, in essence this means that it will be impossible to create a true unison. This is a particular challenge in our choir as we all come from such diverse backgrounds, Ulstermen, Brummies, Welsh, Cockneys, Yorkshiremen et al, all with their wonderfully rich accents when speaking, I love hearing regional accents in speech but we need uniformity in singing.

So have a look at the picture above - this is the basic principle we started with on Tuesday in order to start thinking about open vowel sounds. I'll start looking at the vowels next time.

Breathing was the other item we worked on on Tuesday evening, I'll just recap the basic principles that we worked on here. A good air supply is fundamental to producing a good choral tone, good musical phrasing, good tuning and it makes it much easier and more enjoyable for you too!

So here are the headlines from Tuesday

• Breathe quietly through your mouth. A deep breath will relax your body
• Prepare your mouth for the vowel your are about to sing, for example if you are about to sing the word "Holy" breathe in to an "oh" vowel
• Make sure you don't suck the sound through your teeth
• Keep your shoulders relaxed and down
• Breathe in slowly until the air fills up your tummy very low down. Feel the air fill up the front and then the back of your abdomen!

If you could think about just these two ideas when practicing during the week it will make such a difference!

As you know I have given you midi files of the music with your part accentuated to help you learn the notes, if you are feeling brave here are some links to this weeks music with the parts and accompaniment all at equal strength, see if you can sing your part without extra help! If this doesn't work for you yet go back to your original file and try and master your own part - then try again!

for Sailing - click on this one

http://media.putfile.com/Sailing-all-parts

for Close thine eyes - click on this one

http://media.putfile.com/Close-thine-eyes---all-parts

See you all on Tuesday

Hello

I thought it might be a good idea to create this little blog to recap on our Tuesday evening sessions, go over the technical points we have discussed and act both as an aide memoir to those who were present and fill in the gaps for those people who were unavoidably absent.

I hope you find this useful.