|
Just like a marathon runner has to conserve their energy, a singer performing a lead role has to 'pace' their performance in order to have enough energy to make it through a major role.
During last Sunday's performance of Elijah, I was well reminded of this fact when at the rehearsal the morning before, I was only halfway through the first act and I realized I had given too much energy and needed to start conserving if I wanted to sing my last aria well. What does this have to do with voice teaching? Well, a good voice teacher should improve your technique, which should give you more stamina. Being able to sing with little to no physical tension in your tongue, jaw, and body throughout your range will prevent you from tightening up and reducing your singing stamina. Likewise, learning how to breathe, support your voice, and not push your voice will enable you to sing well for long periods of time. DWS Today is Saturday, April 16th, and I am up at 6:15 AM. That seems a bit odd, so let me explain myself: I need to time to warmup my vocal folds before the orchestral run through of Elijah.
Your vocal folds are like every part of your body. They need time to 'stretch' and 'warmup,' like your own muscles, before a big workout. As a young singer, you can get away with only a few minutes of warmup. As you get older, however, the voice needs more time before you are physically ready for a hard sing lest you risk injury. For voice lessons, I warmup all my students so they are ready to do the hard work of singing a musical, classical, or pop song. I also give them the exercises in sheet music form or can do recordings for my students if they do not yet read sheet music. Which explains why I am up at 6:15 AM. While I am a morning person, I need to be up early to sing my fullest at 9 AM in the morning. To do so requires several warmup exercises, but also just time after sleep for the body to wakeup. DWS As many of you know, I am performing the title role in the oratorio "Elijah" at Clear Lake United Methodist Church on April 17th, 7 PM.
Many of you are probably wondering - what is an oratorio, and will I like it? An oratorio, in its simplest form, is an unstaged musical drama that uses religious texts to create the subject matter. For instance, "Elijah" uses the story of the prophet Elijah but also uses texts from other parts of the Old and New Testaments to create its 'script'. The oratorio originally was invented in the early 1600s as a way for the Catholic Church to use a new form of entertainment, opera, to educate people about Christianity. Believe it or not, opera was the pop music of the 1600s in Italy, and Catholic composers thought using a popular artform to promote religion was a great idea. The oratorio's conception isn't that different from the modern idea of contemporary worship in churches. And yes, you will like it. Mendelssohn, the composer of Elijah, has a great talent for making catchy tunes and creating terrific moments of drama. We actually owe Mendelssohn a huge debt; the oratorio was dying out in the mid-1800s, and with his oratorios "Elijah" and "St. Paul," Mendelssohn reinvigorated a genre. So come on out! DWS The vocal onset is simply a short way of saying - "the noise, if any, you make before you start producing a musical pitch.'
A good voice teacher can listen to a singer and instantly tell if the singer is producing a vocal onset that has extra noise in their sound. Now, it is VERY important to understand that an 'inefficient' vocal onset is not necessarily undesirable. Certain genres of music want extra noise in a person's voice. For instance, we have all heard a breathy voice in pop or a rocker's growl before they start to sing. For those genres, noise in the pitch is ok and, with proper technique, can be done in a healthy and sustainable manner. However, if you are studying musical theater or opera, a 'clean' vocal onset in which you produce no extra noise before producing musical pitches is necessary. There are several teaching tools that I use to help my students produce a clean onset. While it takes practice, producing a clean onset is an achievable goal for all students. DWS |
Archives
March 2024
Categories |
RSS Feed