Singing Skills and Techniques Progress Log:

13th September- today we were given some exercises to do when we are at home. So today I practiced diaphragmatic breathing in bed- I did 3 diaphragmatic breaths.

14th September- today I did diaphragmatic breathing in bed again. Today I did 6 diaphragmatic breaths in bed and I'm finding it easier!

17th September- today I practiced diaphragmatic breathing again and also practiced the 'vee ayy arr oo' routine after doing the breathing exercise. Next time I want to be able to hit higher notes!

19th September- today I again practiced the diaphragmatic breathing! I also went over the vee ayy arr oo exercise but couldn't hit any higher notes....next time!

20th September- today I went over diaphragmatic breathing but also did some of the warm up exercises that we learnt in class today. We learnt lots of exercises today but my favoite one is the one where you simply turn your head side to side and then round in a circle- as this is easy and puts your body in the right position to sing! (shoulders back chest out)

22nd September- Carried on practising diaphragmatic breathing at night- set target that by the end of the term i want to be able to sing a whole song effectively by breathing diaphragmatic only.

24th September- Today I did some more diaphragmatic breathing at night.

27th September- More diaphragmatic breathing.

28th September- More diaphragmatic breathing exercises in the morning and at night.

2nd October- today i found this video showing how to prepare your voice before singing:

10th October- i keep practicing diaphragmatic breathing and searching for new techniques on the internet!

15th october- i feel like my voice is improving now that i'm practising diaphragmatic breathing every time I sing....although I still don't feel 100% comfortable with it!

18th October- practised diaphragmatic breathing in bed again today.

22nd October- Watched this video and did the technique: 'shhhhh technique'  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5CWsFaVnWM

25th October- 'shhhhh technique'

28th October- Practising Diaphragmatic breathing as usual.

1st November- ''

5th November- ''

12th November- Today I tried the 'shhh' technique again.

15th November- I found this video very interesting as it shows you the importance of warming up your voice before singing.

20th November- Downloading a piano app on my iPhone to help hum back in key by myself (without a real life piano!)

28th November- Shhhh Technique and I'm now getting an idea of exactly what I think is the perfect warm up routine.....

2nd December-

11th December- Today was our first singing milestone and a lot of things were brought up that i need to improve. The main thing was the length of my practice routine. It needs to be longer. I need to include diction routines into my practice routine and when it comes to the duet, we need to harmonise. The reason we hadn't harmonised in our duet was because we didn't think we needed. What also came clear in the milestone is that I also need to test myself- for example whenever i practice arpeggios, each time I should try and reach a higher key each time. However I got P's which I am happy with. However, by the end of the year, I hope those P's will become M's or D's.

Lena- 27th September 2012

Today we had 3 main things for the lesson- to go through the assignment brief, to go over singing skills and warm ups and to have our first initial skills audit.

 First of all, Lena gave us our assignment brief. This brief contained grading criteria, milestone dates, explanation of the 3 tasks that we have to do and a scenario. The unit has been split into 3 tasks- Task 1 contains P1 and P2, Task 2 contains P3 and Task 3 contains P4 and P5. It's useful knowing what the unit involves and what we need to do to achieve each grade. It also informed us of the 3 milestones for each task- 10/12/12, 11/03/13 and 20/05/13.  For example in Task 1, in order to get an overall distinction you need to perform technical singing exercises with confidence and attention to detail AND show considerable improvement in vocal technique. To get an overall pass for this task you simply need to perform technical singing exercises and show some improvement in your vocal technique. Knowing the grading criteria and the milestones is important as it gives us time to prepare ourselves for assessments and gives us the time to improve and get to the standard needed. There is also individual pages for each task within the booklet which talk through each task in more detail.

 For example, in task 1 we will be involved in workshops which will develop our vocal abilities through warm ups, exercises and singing games! We need to focus on intonation- how well we hit notes, our tone, our projection and breath control. As time goes on we will lead warm ups and technique sessions for the rest of the class. Task 1 recognises the improvement we make. We need to make a progress log to set ourselves targets and review our progress. To achieve a distinction in task 1 we need to show consistent improvement.

 Task 2 focuses on our musical memory. We should be able to tell whether a musical phrase rises and falls, be able to sing back pitches, intervals and rhythms. We also need to be able to speed up or slow down the tempo as well as increasing the dynamics from soft to loud and understand the effective musical shaping. Through musical games we should then be able to repeat phrases up to four bars in major and minor keys with a variety of rhythmic features such as syncopation and in simple or compound time.

 Task 3 is about rehearsals and performance. Task 3 is all about our 3 performances and the rehearsal stage. We need to show that we can apply all the vocal techniques we have learnt and show self discipline, commitment to working hard and a cooperative attitude and approach which will help us work with others. We can use any sort of music in our performances so long as we use characterisation. To get a distinction in this task, we need to work with confidence and pay attention to detail and be able to exploit fully the creative and artistic possibilities of the music and be fully engaged.

 We then went over singing skills and warm ups which included note bashing to food glorious food!!

 Finally, we had our initial skills audit. Lena took us off individually to a room where we were assessed on our singing skills. During this we were assessed on how long we could hold a note whilst using diaphragmatic breathing. We also did the 'vee ay arr oo' exercise which we have been practising in class (and i've also practised this at home!). We also got assessed on our musical memory- Lena played some rising arpeggios and we'd have to hum back in the same key. Overall, in the audit i was assessed on intonation ( how well i hit the notes), voice placement, tone, projection, breath control and my flexibility/ range.

 We also spoke about what songs we would like to do for our assessment- Lena told us that maybe, at first, we should choose songs from our past which we know really well. I think this is a good idea as these would be easier to characterise as we will be emotionally attached to them.

Rachel- 25th September 2012 (History of Storytelling research)

 Today's lesson involved  our first assessment- on Storytelling.

 We were given a story in pairs and we each had to learn the story and think of an interesting way to tell it. Our story was called Freya and the Brising Necklace. It told the story of a goddess called Freya who was married to a god called Odour. They had 2 daughters and lived in the heavenly realm of Asgard. One day Freya felt restless so she summoned her two cats and they pulled her (in a chariot) across other lands. First she travelled through Misgard, land of the humans. She then travelled through the land of Alfheim, home to elves- and her brother! She then found herself at the rocky borders of Svartalfheim, land of the evil black dwarfs! 4 dwarfs set a trap and get the Goddess to marry each of them for one day and one night in return for the brising necklace they had charmed and tricked her into doing anything for! She rushes back to her palace as she realises what a bad thing she had done! She hides in her room and puts a spell on the door so no one can get in and find the necklace! However, Loka has been watching her every move and tells her husband, Odour! When he doesn't believe her, Loka turns into a fly to fit through a tiny gap and get into Freya's room to get the necklace! He gets it and shows Odour- Odour is devastated. He runs away. When Freya wakes up, she realises Odour has found the necklace and tries looking for him. But she can't find him! So she goes to Odin; the god of all gods! Odin tells her that she must wear that necklace ALL the time to remind herself of what a bad thing she has done! He also tells her that she must roam the universe until she finds him!

 We decided to 'tell' the story very classically- me and Lindsay stood next to each other throughout the piece and only had one piece of movement but we used voice to portray character and we varied our pace and tone to show the mood throughout the story. We tiptoed to each side of the stage blocks when Loko tiptoed to get the necklace off of Freya's neck and when he tiptoed from Freya to the door! We also used different voice for each character.

 The first thing we did was discuss the history of storytelling and we were told to do some research. Here is my research:

 In this day and age, storytelling is no longer popular- or so we think. In fact, we seem to forget that everytime we send a text message or post a Facebook status or send a tweet on Twitter, we are effectively telling stories- even if they are incredible short. Movies, books, music, news, media, religions, architecture and painting all tell stories. The big question is, how DOES social networking and the media effect storytelling?

 Social networking and the media, in particular, have the power to change our opinions about people. Whether it be through articles, tv or Facebook, modern storytelling really is effective- just look at the way it changed our perception of Jade Goody. When Jade Goody first came into the public spotlight when she entered the Big Brother house in 2002, the newspapers slated her. She was known as 'Miss Piggy' and was shown in an incredibly bad light. The nation was turned against her. Producers of the show soon realised that when their 'Miss piggy' left the house, her life would be turned upside down. Just a couple of months before, no one knew who she was and suddenly she was public enemy number one! Producers decided that they had to now show Jade in a good light- the public needed to like her or her life would be completely destroyed when she came out! In the following years, the social media picked up on several drug scandals surrounding Jade and she was once again shown in a bad light. In 2005, Jade Goody entered the CELEBRITY big brother house. Once again, she was slated by the press for her 'racist' behaviour which was aimed towards Bollywood Star Shilpa Shetty. Jade had to leave the house privately due to the public outrage surrounding the racism. In India, there was a huge public outrage. Whether Jade's comment towards Shilpa was racist or not, the press had made it out to be and it spiralled out of control. Then, 2 years later she was diagnosed with cervical cancer- whilst in the Indian big brother house, trying to build bridges with the Indian country. Suddenly, she was thought of as inspirational, a great parent and a brilliant person. Storytelling these days may not be traditional but it's still INCREDIBLY powerful- if not MORE powerful. Stories used to be passed down from generation to generation but nowadays newspapers and social media allow millions of people to read the same stories- it's no wonder that these stories are incredibly influential. Jade Goody's story in particular shows the fickle nature of social networking and media and how ruthless it is. If Jade Goody had never gone on big brother, she wouldn't have become famous but she wouldn't have had to put up with the unfair hatred that modern storytelling had burdened her with.

Rachel- 18th September 2012

Today, our focus was on Storytelling.

 In groups of 3 or 4 we discussed We discussed different ways in which you can story tell, what is important when it comes to storytelling and what ideas we would like to put into our performance. First of all we discussed the different ways in which we can tell stories. We agreed that if you were going to each a storyteller you would expect someone sitting in a chair with a book- this isn't always as boring as it sounds. Rachel spoke about how she saw one of bob marley's wailers telling a story simply by talking normally but his use of language, pauses and description meant that he managed to captivated the whole audience. This was an eye opener to me as it made me realise just how important voice is- you don't need movement to put on a However, we learnt that storytelling doesn't always just consist of one person. Although when you're storytelling you can't 'act' as such, you can use voice to show characters.

 We then got up and sat by the mirrors and Rachel got us to stand up one by one and stand up, position ourselves in the middle of the drama studio. We had to get into a character (in a freeze frame) which would fit in with the setting Rachel had said. For example, when Rachel said train station, we had to pretend we were at a train station and we each got into a character which you would find at a train station. The different settings included a labour ward, a market and at the races. After going through different settings we put movement into it and acting and went through all the settings. This activity was effective as it made us realise you didn't necessarily need to move to show characters but it does make things a lot easier.

  We then got into groups of 3 or 4 and chose a fairytale- we chose little red riding hood. We pretended we were child pshycologists and analyse the effect these tales have on children and how they are influenced. After this we stayed in our groups and out together a storytelling piece. We simply stood in a line and decided to split our story into sections- we'd all tell a section of the story. Sarah told the first part of the story, I told the 2nd part, Beth told the 3rd part of story and Emily told the ending. We simply stood in a line and made sure that when we were speaking we used exaggeration and emphasis to make sure we kept the audience interested- storytelling is aimed at young children and you need to exaggerate words to keep them interested. We also changed our voices when showing dialogue of the characters. Each group showed their piece to the rest of the class and we peer assessed each other. We had to assess each others narrative, characters, detail and delivery.

 For example, the class thought our narrative was clear and flowed well. They also thought that we described our characters very effectively although we should have used stronger voices to show how a character spoke- in other words, use voice more effectively. Our detail was also effective as we went into A LOT of detail to describe goldilocks' route to the cottage. However to improve we need more detail at the end of the story (although Emily had to improvise at the end of our piece because we forgot about the ending whilst creating the piece!). Out delivery was good as well as we spoke confidentially and clearly. Next time though, we need to use movement instead of standing in a line to make the piece more interesting.
  We also assessed other groups- for example I believed group ones narrative was good as it was broken down into sections and the moral message was clear. Their character portrayal was also good as they were very descriptive. However, they didn't use different voices to show characters dialogue and didn't refer back to the descriptive character detail. Their detail was good though! They used the sense of smell which was particularly effective- 'the village smelt of apple crumble'. After this we made a list of all our favourite films and books from our childhood and we thought about why we liked them so much. For example my favourite book was Percy the park keeper, I liked this because of the pictures! The visual content is something that we need to incorporate into our performance of the snow queen to interest the young audience. My favourite film was After peer assessing Rachel showed us Pinterest and how useful it is when coming up with ideas for our performances.

Lena- Singing Skills- 20th September 2012

 Today we went over diaphragmatic breathing, warm up routines, the geography of a keyboard piano and musical memory.

 To start with we did some warm up routines. These warm up routines were important as it put our bodies in the right position to start singing. There were two main focuses- posture and head/body. We did several 'posture warm ups' which included walking on the spot. Another one was to walk round feeling very small and then very proud to show us that the right posture to start singing with is upright and confident looking. Another routine which we went through was inspired by 'Elvis Prestley'. This involved doing pelvic thrusting. All of these techniques made us drop our shoulders and push our breast bones out. This was important as it gave us the perfect posture to sing as it opens up our lungs. The head and face excercises included rubbing our cheekbones and dropping our jaw to make ourselves yawn. This may sound silly but its very effective as it opens our throat to capacity which means more sound can come out. For head and face we also did neck and throat excercises which involved turning our heads side to side and up and down to release tension. We had to make sure that we did this slowly to ensure that we wouldn't hurt our necks or pull any muscles.

 We then went over the importance of diaphragmatic breathing and used this in our musical memory activity which we did after. Lena told us to make sure that we keep practicing it. Eventually, even if I am struggling with diaphragmatic breathing, it will pay off and i will be able to do it effectively and properly.

 We also focused on our musical memory. We did several different excercises all involving the sounds 'Vee Arr Oo'. For example, we had to hum these words to several different melodies. We hummed to rising and falling arpeggios (chord notes) on rising semi tones. Although i couldn't reach the high notes as Lena played in higher keys, I tried to hit them as one day I hope I'll be able to reach them!

 We also learnt where to find C,F and G on the piano. C is located left of the 2 black notes. F is located on the left of 3 black notes and G is right next to F on the right! If you were to start right at the end of the left side of a piano, each 'white' key goes up in the alphabet as it goes to the right. It goes A, then B, then C, then D, then E, then F, then G and then back to A again and so on.

 All in all, a very interesting and enjoyable lesson!

Lena- Singing Skills for Actors and Dancers (13th September 2012)

 Today was our first Singing lesson with Lena. We learnt what we would be doing in our singing lessons, what vocabulary we need to use and how to breathe and use certain muscles that will help improve our singing (Diaphragmatic Breathing).

 We learnt that we are doing Unit 30- Singing skills for actors and dancers. This unit will involve us develiping and improving our voices- how well we sing in TUNE and reach the high and low notes, how we understand what our tone is and how we need to improve it and also how to project our voices with control. We'll also need to develop our Musical Memory. After this we will go through the rehearsal process of which songs we are going to sing. We also need to learn to characterise these songs as this is Musical Theatre- singing, dancing AND acting. At the end of the course, we will have to do 3 songs- solo and ensemble.

 We learnt about how it's our muscles which enable us to sing. Our vocal chords are muscles and like other muscles, they have memory. For example, your arm muscles have learnt how to contract as you've trained them to do so. Once you've trained your vocal chords, they'll remember how to sing properly too. Diaphragmatic Breathing is another thing that we learnt during the lesson today. It enables us to control the strength and length of our notes. Diaphragmatic breathing works by breathing into your abdomen and relaxing your upper body (shoulders, neck ect.).

 

 We also learnt lots of vocabulary. Our throat has Larynx which is otherwise known as the voice box. The Larynx manipulates pitch and volume.

 We also did the 'Vee Ay Ah Oo' excercise. Lena was playing the piano and was going up in steps of semi tones which meant the pitch was getting higher and higher. I couldn't reach the last few notes but if I keep doing the diamaphragmatic breathing exercises Lena taught us in bed, I should be able to hit them eventually!

Rachel- Tuesday 11th September 2012

Today was our first lesson together and we got to know each other.

First of all, we moved round in a circle, sharing information with each other. Information that we shared with each other included our future plans, what we like to wear, our favourite musical/film/TV programme and about our siblings. We did this as it gave us the opportunity to get to know each other.

 We then went off in pairs to discuss our earliest childhood memories. After discussing, we then thought about how we could use the 6 senses to tell these stories. The 6 senses we used were sight, taste, hearing, smell, touch and feeling/moods. Incorporating the 6 senses into drama is effective as it enables us to understand our senses more in depth and it's especially effective when used in storytelling. I was paired with Lindsay, and we shared our earliest memories. Our memories included being sick at first school, being shouted at after 'staring at the boy who played Joseph in the nativity play and then getting shouted at' and also getting into an argument at school. We thought we'd think outside the box so we spoke about the metaphorical 'bitter taste' involved with getting into an argument. However, we also spoke about the feeling of embarassment after being shouted at infront of an audience. We also picked up on the fact that senses were exxagerated as a child as your still young and small things feel like a huge thing.

 We then got into different pairs and analysed each other's movement and speech. We picked up on certain habits which we do without realising- for example, I was told that I have a variable tone and I also talk with my hands to express myself. My partner, Emily, spoke very smoothly and her tone didn't vary very much. She also had good posture and was well spoken. Analysing each other's traits was important as it made us realise that voice and movement are very important when it comes to creating a character.

 We then sat round in a circle as a whole group and discussed the main features and of children's theatre and their purpose. For example, Children's Theatre includes exaggeration, direct address and 'fairytale story lines and characters' to keep the young audience interested. Exaggeration is important in Children's Theatre as the audience is young and the need to make things more obvious and easier to pick up on is far greater than in 'normal' theatre. We also discussed that direct address is equally important to get the kids involved in the performance. The more involved they are, the more interested and excited they will be! We also decided that the Storyline of the piece is also extremely important- kids love fairytale characters and plots as they're still at that age of playing gams with each other and dreaming about being fairytale characters like a Princess with magic powers. Children are also very impressionable.

 Finally, we also learnt the 'Drama Formula': Voice + Movement= Characterisation. So, after analysing each others movement and voice and discussing the results, we developed our own characters. We decided to use speech and movement to ensure that our characters were believable and well acted. We then used these characters in groups of 3 and 4 to create a 'mini' children's theatre story. My group chose to base our fairytale in a land called 'Castle World' and we had 3 contrasting characters- a little boy, a witch and a castle manager! We decided to focus on voice and we went about this by experimented with different voices. We decided that the castle manager should be well spoken and talk loud and squeakily to make her come across pompous and annoying. We did this as we felt that this would be a great way to portray her. We decided that the little boy should have a 'young' voice to show that he is young. Of course, we decided that the Witch should have a typical Witch's voice- creaky and creepy. We decided to make the witch talk slow as this added to her creepiness. Making a Witch speak like a stereotypical Witch allows the audience to recognise her. This also links in with our theme of Children's Theatre/Storytelling as the children will find it easier to identify the character as a Witch.  Our fairytale was based around problems with litter and showed that littering is wrong!

 Overall, todays work on voice definitely helped me. It made me realise that voice is just as important as movement and I used a lot of methods of voice that I could use in future performances.