Recent rehearsals for Gem's recital have mainly been held on Sunday nights and during her ensemble class on Tuesday afternoons. What I've focused on in vocal workshop recently has mainly been on switching into my chest voice more often and more clearly for more of the "gospel / pop ballad" vocal style so that I can blend better with the other harmonies. Sophie, my Vocal Workshop lecturer, has mentioned that even when I've thought I've been in my chest voice, I've actually been in a mixed voice / head voice. This was very strange to hear since I was fairly certain I was singing in my chest voice, however, by doing some tailored vocal exercises, I've realised that my upper chest voice feels a bit different to what I've been used to.
For starters, I've realised that I've been using a lot more air than I actually need to when switching into my more powerful upper register. I can help to curb this by doing my normal vocal exercises and using a straw to help keep me in my chest voice. This, plus moving my resonance to a more nasal tone will help to keep me in my true chest voice. Luckily, these exercises are quite familiar to me so I was able to pick them up and make the most of them fairly quickly. This has helped me blend better with the five other vocalists I'm singing with, especially when matching their tone and pronunciation. Pronunciation is an interesting aspect of vocals but when you want to attack a certain note in a certain way, e.g. a high note in chest voice, sometimes you'll need to change the vowel of the word so that it's easier to sing. E.g. "heard" has a very closed sound so instead of singing "her-d" you'd sing "ha-er-d" and switch from an "a" sound to an "er" sound to make the most of the open note. So listening to the other vocalists and noting where vocal breaks and pronunciations are and how they change is really important in an ensemble setting. This is a skill I'm developing and getting my head around in these rehearsals and in vocal workshop. I've recorded some of the rehearsals and my assignment that I will update later.
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Artist SummaryI'm a WA Fremantle based singer-songwriter / composer. Here, you can have a gawk at my studies, compositions and performances. Archives
August 2022
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