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Style Conscious continued
Jeremy Fisher
suggests seven
ways to change your singing style (without changing your sound)
[this article first appeared in the March 2006 edition of the
Music Teacher Magazine]
Back to Style Conscious page 1
Vowels
Italian-English vowels simply will not do. The English language has
more than 20 recognised vowel sounds, and contemporary music uses
all of them. These include the vowels in 'hit', 'nurse' and of
course, 'love' (not lav, lawv or lurve). Singers usually find that
some English vowels are more 'difficult' to sing than others. This
is partly muscle memory and partly a diction setup issue. Gillyanne
Kayes in her book
Singing and the Actor introduces the concept of vowel
medialisation. In brief, matching the vowels to an /i:/ (EE)
position makes the more unusual vowels much easier to produce and
helps with clearer and more understandable diction. Tone is more
forward and the tongue works less hard for better results. For
authenticity, learn to sing all the English vowels. And if you want
to sing pop, rock and soul music and American musical theatre,
explore Standard American and 'Motown' vowels.
Diphthongs are useful emotional and textual
devices and deserve a subcategory of their own. Diphthongs can be
managed in several ways:
Late and fast; favoured by conscientious classical
singers, the first vowel is held to almost the end of the note and
the second vowel is popped in at the last moment (so 'why' becomes
something like 'whaaaaaaaaai')
Early and fast; some Pop and Disco singers use this
device, much parodied elsewhere ('whyeeeeeee')
Middle and fast; the diphthong changes in the middle of
the note-length and the arrival on the second vowel is swift ('whaaaiiiii').
Middle and slow; the diphthong changes in the middle of
the note-length but the travel to the second vowel is slow. This can
add colour and emotion to a long note and is a favourite of mine ('whaa-eh-i-ii').
Consonants
Using consonants with accuracy is the quickest way of getting
detailed emotion into your singing. The way to deal with consonants
is to find exactly where the obstruction occurs and to do it there
and nowhere else. All consonants require either partial or full
obstruction of the vocal tract. Partial obstruction means the air
and sound moves through or past a narrowing – such as the first
sound in 'vie'. Full obstructions are caused by a total blocking of
the vocal tract – such as the first sound in 'pie'.
Exercise:
Take a sentence and break it down into vowel and consonant sounds.
Then see, hear, feel, taste where the consonant is made and elongate
it. This includes holding the stop in a stopped consonant (the
completely closed feeling at the beginning of a (t), for example).
Beware of trying to exaggerate the consonant by pressing, squeezing
or pushing. Stopped consonants (t, d, p, b, k, g) require the
airflow and sound to stop momentarily – a problem if your overriding
instruction is to keep the line going at all costs. This topic links
with both 1. line and 2. breath.
A sub-category is consonant timing. In classical
music, consonants are de-emphasized as resonance, projection and
matching vowels are prioritized. But bringing in certain consonants
early, extending their life and pre-empting or delaying word
beginnings and endings can add an enormous amount of audience
intelligibility to your singing. In our book
Successful Singing Auditions, Gillyanne Kayes and I deal
extensively with consonant timing.
Focus your story
Singing is
not just about making noises, it is about telling a story,
portraying a character’s life and emotional journey, embodying a
situation.
Decide whether your song speaks directly to the
audience or whether the audience eavesdrops on the character’s life.
Bear in mind that this could change depending on the performance
situation – I coach performers to move a song from theatre to
cabaret to recital room, all of which have different requirements
and expectations.
Place your characters. Let’s assume that you are
in character on stage, and the character does not know that the
audience exists. Is the song a soliloquy, or a 'duet' with someone
else (silent) on stage? Are any other people mentioned in the song?
It helps to place them or their habitat on stage with you – so the
friend you saw yesterday could be placed downstage right and your
family (last week) could live stage left. This helps you to focus
your thoughts and the audience to understand to whom you are
referring. It also helps with continuity if you refer to someone
throughout a song. In my work as an audition coach I will often
alter songs for each audition, to help the performer find a
completely different rendition.
Landscaping
Landscaping involves understanding and changing the shape of the
song and the performance, and as such can be applied to a number of
song components. Every song has a climax. If you think it has more
than one, there is usually one that is bigger than the others. Where
does the climax of the song come – the very end, the last page, the
middle? Once you have found the climax, sing everything else
smaller! This simple rule helps you to plot the entire shape of the
performance. So if you have a tendency to start too big, or to push
your voice during a song, line up your sights on the biggest climax.
You will know how to change what you do to accommodate it.
Landscaping applies to phrases, to sections, to whole
songs, even to whole roles. Where is the most joyous, painful,
emotional or strong moment? Find it and grade everything else below
it. Once you have found your peaks, find your valleys and grade them
too (they don’t have all have to be 1/10).
All of these topics will help you change the style in
which you perform. You may also find that using these exercises
helps you to access different vocal qualities more easily. Rejoice
in your new flexibility, and above all, enjoy."
©
2006 Jeremy Fisher
Jeremy Fisher is a performance coach, writer, director of Vocal
Process and author of the free ebook
86 things you never hear a singer say
This article appears
by kind permission of
Rhinegold
Publishing Ltd
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Giving the student broader knowledge about the structures of the
larynx can be effective on many levels of their training and
understanding. The 'moveable larynx' has long been the starting
point of Vocal Process courses including Singing and the Actor Training.
Download:
build_your_own_
tilting_larynx.pdf
[2-page PDF, 294kb]
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