I'm going to rush in where the angelic vocally wise may fear to tread:
What you read here will probably only make sense if your teacher has
already worked with you on some of these things, or if you have thought and
experimented a great deal. Experiment with your voice, explore it!
Breathing: don't take a big breath before a phrase, just breathe
naturally, and thus you'll avoid the kind of upper chest/neck tension that
wastes your energy, and your breath. I've found that getting used to a
piece of music makes it easier to sing, especially if you plan where your
going to take little breaths and make a point of doing so. If you decide to
actually write rests in your part and breathe for their duration you may
find it easier.
More mechanically, don't let your shoulders hunch, which restricts the
freedom and space of your breathing mechanism; experiment with breathing
from the belly, sticking it out while breathing in, and pulling it in
gently, firmly and without exaggeration while breathing out - this will
give you a better idea of how you breathe, and may help you find more power
in you voice. Don't breathe with your chest, which should mostly be in a
*moderately* high position while singing. Think of an in-breath as an
expansion all around, rather than a front-to-back thing, and don't force
the out breath, which is where control, subtle and gentle, comes in.
Size of voice: this may be related to breathing, since forcing the voice
in order to try and sound bigger tends to waste the breath, as well as not
actually working generally. To get the most out of your voice you must
maximize its resonance, which may mean resonating some vowels in ways you
normally wouldn't in speech (this is a big subject not easily explainable).
Also, if something sounds big to you (loud in your head) that may be
because you are resonating in such a way as to make it sound big *in your
head*. It may have little relation to what others hear. Even a naturally
small voice can make itself heard with the right resonance. A natural (not
manufactured!) vibrato may give the impression of a larger, more resonant
voice, so your vocal mechanism needs to be free to move so this may occur,
which means you have to trust it to do its job.
About resonance and breathing: you only need as much breath as it takes to
get the resonance going. There is a trick of singing at a candle flame
where the flame shouldn't be disturbed (at least for vowels!). This seems
counter-intuitive to a lot of singers - but true resonance will get you
further than brute force.
Recital preparation: learn your music thoroughly, and decide what you are
going to do with each moment. Stick to your decisions - when you have a bit
more experience you can be more spontaneous, but for now you need to
prepare habits of discipline and thoroughness. Expect things to go wrong
and try to anticpate them: know that the hall will sound duller with even
only a few people in it; that your voice will sound different to you
because of the excitement of performing; if you seem happy and confident
the audience will be happier and more able to enjoy the performance; if you
make mistakes carry on anyway - the moment is soon past and you will be
forgiven. Remember how much fun performing can be when you're well-prepared!
Small voices are rarely as small as their owners think, and proper vocal
training and practice may reveal that a voice was only small because of
habit, and mental limits. john
At 08:51 PM 7/4/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Hello everyone,
>
> I'm going to introduce myself first (since I mainly lurk). My name is
>Becca and I'm going to be a senior in college next year (my second senior
>year...I'm a Music Ed major with a minor in theatre so it takes more than
>four years). I have a few questions. I've been in voice lessons for four
>years now and I am still having problems with breathing. I can't normally
>make it all the way through my phrases without sounding like I'm dying at
>the end of each phrase. If I pull the phrase out of context it is fine, but
>when I sing it with in the song I can't do it. How can I improve this? I
>also have a small voice. I've been told that my voice is too small to sing
>anything more than early music. How can I get a fuller sounding voice or is
>this something I shouldn't worry about? I also have my first recital ever
>coming up sometime this fall semester. I am extremely nervous and don't
>know what I should be focusing on right now to make sure I'm prepared
>properly.
>
>Thank you,
>Becca
>_________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
John Blyth
Baritono robusto e lirico
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
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