Rabu, 29 Juli 2009
Voice Production and Support
OK. The next step is the voice production. Good voice production is that the voice came out at the same time with the air from our lungs. Don't let the air come out first, because we will sound like we were hissing. Air is the medium for our voice, imagine a bus; isn't it weird if the bus ran first and the passengers were chasing behind it? :D The longer air came out along with our voice, our belly should be hardened. Again, imagine a bicycle pump. When its handle pushed downwards to pump the air out, the air in its tube are getting compressed. Now, the pump handle is our diaphragm and the pump tube is our belly. So don't let our belly to get loosened. Try practicing humming for 10 seconds then increase to 15 seconds and so on...
Kamis, 12 Februari 2009
Basic Technique - 2
Already mastered the diaphragmatic breathing? The next step is to prepare our other main organ for singing which is our mouth. Our mouth is the way out of our voice.By the way, our voice is a mechanical wave (longitudinal), therefore it need a medium to travel which is the air that we stored in our lungs. Good voice production determined by our mouth attitude. The most important thing is there should not be anything that will obstruct or block the air passage from our lungs. It is important therefore to open our mouth sufficiently large. A simple guide for this is our mouth should be opened large enough so that two of our fingers could be passed in there. Alright, after we are be able to breathe correctly (which should be done in a split-second when the conductor gave the signal to start). Our mouth should be already opened to give way out for our voice along with the air from our lungs. We all know a megaphone is, right? Now, I don't think there's megaphone that shaped conically like ">", all megaphone shaped like "<". That's how our mouth should shaped like, too. Do not worry if our face looked weird :) People came to hear we sing not to look at our faces.
Selasa, 10 Februari 2009
Basic Technique - 1
The first thing when singing in the choir that must be understood is the BREATHING TECHNIQUE
The correct breathing for singing is the diaphragmatic breathing. Many people have not mastered this breathing technique, because by default almost everyone in their everyday lives use chest breathing, inhale the air and store only in the upper part of their lungs. This is understandable because people speak in their everyday life use breathing like this.
Chest breathing is not adequate to sustain / support when singing. Therefore breathing is often referred as the support when singing. With chest breathing we only use about 3/4 lung capacity to store the air. It is not enough especially when we would sing some songs that are quite long, we will soon run out of air and consequently our voice becomes unstable, jittery.
It is therefore important to quickly master the diaphragmatic breathing. To exercise it we can try to get used with the belly breathing first. Here are the steps:
1. Body relax.
2. Inhale the air with our mouth and nose simultaneously.
3. Inflate our belly up to maximum
The easiest way to detect errors in breathing is to pay attention to our shoulder. If we breathe with the abdomen, our shoulder should not move. In contrast with chest breathing, our shoulder will move.
Feel the air fill the belly in front of us. Repeat these steps until you feel the entire belly cavity,the sides and the back tightened because it filled with the air.
If we are able to feel up to the back of our body expanded, then we've succeeded in doing diaphragmatic breathing.
The logic is that our lungs is a 3-dimensional object, it can inflate into the front-back, top-down, left and right. Makes sense if we fill the entire our lungs space, our body cavity will expand to those directions also, not just bulging our belly. It's called as diaphragmatic breathing since our diaphragm (a membrane below the lungs) will move down, in contrast with chest breathing that does not move the diaphragm.
Continue to practice these techniques until we get used to do it when singing
The correct breathing for singing is the diaphragmatic breathing. Many people have not mastered this breathing technique, because by default almost everyone in their everyday lives use chest breathing, inhale the air and store only in the upper part of their lungs. This is understandable because people speak in their everyday life use breathing like this.
Chest breathing is not adequate to sustain / support when singing. Therefore breathing is often referred as the support when singing. With chest breathing we only use about 3/4 lung capacity to store the air. It is not enough especially when we would sing some songs that are quite long, we will soon run out of air and consequently our voice becomes unstable, jittery.
It is therefore important to quickly master the diaphragmatic breathing. To exercise it we can try to get used with the belly breathing first. Here are the steps:
1. Body relax.
2. Inhale the air with our mouth and nose simultaneously.
3. Inflate our belly up to maximum
The easiest way to detect errors in breathing is to pay attention to our shoulder. If we breathe with the abdomen, our shoulder should not move. In contrast with chest breathing, our shoulder will move.
Feel the air fill the belly in front of us. Repeat these steps until you feel the entire belly cavity,the sides and the back tightened because it filled with the air.
If we are able to feel up to the back of our body expanded, then we've succeeded in doing diaphragmatic breathing.
The logic is that our lungs is a 3-dimensional object, it can inflate into the front-back, top-down, left and right. Makes sense if we fill the entire our lungs space, our body cavity will expand to those directions also, not just bulging our belly. It's called as diaphragmatic breathing since our diaphragm (a membrane below the lungs) will move down, in contrast with chest breathing that does not move the diaphragm.
Continue to practice these techniques until we get used to do it when singing
Welcome
Welcome to my new blog. In this blog I will explore the techniques and intricacies how to sing well in a choir or chorus based from the experience I have gained from being active in a number of choirs especially the one that I now actively participate. The Caelicola Choir.
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