The Fundamentals
VOCAL NERDS
Learning from other disciplines!
We will look at Olympic hurdlers to help
explain this. These guys undertake a gradual
muscle warm up to begin with, just to
encourage more blood flow and make things
a little more supple. Sound familiar? Then
you’ll see them ‘practicing’ the skill of jumping
over hurdles time and time again. This isn’t
because they keep forgetting how to do it.
Rather it is to develop muscle memory so
they can execute this skill as optimally as
possible in competition.!
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How does this work in singing?!
The way we singers know when we have
control of our ‘singing race’, that is the
‘performance’, is when we have control over: !
intonation (pitch)!
dynamic crescendos and decrescendos!
sustained vowel changes!
vibrato!
a smooth transition between the lower
and upper range!
breath management!
Essentially all of the attributes that songs will
require as we perform them. !
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You can also supplement vowels with
consonants in order to achieve a different
result. !
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As a guide:!
‘g’ (e.g. ‘guhg’) would be a good start to
add some intensity !
‘w’ (e.g. ‘wuhn’ or ‘won’) for those looking
for freedom from tension !
‘m’ (as in ‘muhm’ or ‘mum’) for a middle of
the road balanced production.!
The octave repeat-sustain scale (see
EXERCISE 11) is an excellent scale as you
can sit on a certain pitch whilst playing around
with these variables as you search for the
most comfortable result.
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EXERCISE 11 Getting Stage Ready Pt 1:
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On to the exercises!
As a continuation we can use similar sounds
to the ones suggested in the last section. We
can also use contrasting vowels to experiment
on held notes whilst varying levels of intensity
and volume. Remember the sounds you use
will depend on you, your voice and your
current vocal circumstances.!
GETTING STAGE READY 1
EXERCISE 12 Getting Stage Ready Pt 2:!
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It’s tricky to give you definitive sounds to use
for this section of the warm up, but as a
general rule, sounds such as UH (as in
‘mother’) or OH (as in ‘no’) are pretty safe
choices to find your groove.
GETTING STAGE READY 2
iSing | issue 1
isingmag.com