In a message dated 02/02/2001 1:30:32 PM Central Standard Time,
Greypins@a... writes:
Greypins@a... writes:
<< instead of just sirening, you may want to add staccato exercises as
well. i like using the syllable 'bip', myself. the benefits of staccato
exercises, from my experience, is that it helps to keep the sound from
spreading. it's hard to spread a staccato 'bip' and when returning to
legato singing, it becomes obvious by contrast how spread one's singing has
been. staccato singing also helps to seperate the 'meat from the motion'.
that is, the exercise really points out how seperate the feeling of
producing
sound is from the sound itself. >>
I remember a few years ago someone said that "beep" would work well but I
think I'll try "bip". It's a little more vertical and since my
midwestern-born-and-bred students tend to spread a LOT on "ee" [i] vowels, it
would be of help.
BTW, I have a serious problem with my students' [u] vowels. I thought they'd
all be too closed, but they aren't. They're this bizarre mix of [I] and [u]
that I can't even begin to describe with a single syllable and it REALLY
affects the resonance. And they don't hear it. When they DO find an [u],
they can hear the difference, but they don't feel it when they do this weird
mixed vowel thing and have no idea they're doing it wrong.
Ingo Titze's column in THE JOURNAL OF SINGING this month discusses staccati
arpeggios (arpeggii?) and how they train the adductor/abductor and tensor
muscles simultaneously. I've been likening it to the hip machines at the gym
to my students and telling them it's like having a little Thighmaster working
in their throats ... :)
Christine Thomas
Wauwatosa, WI
<A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/mezzoid/myhomepage/profile.html">
http://hometown.aol.com/mezzoid/myhomepage/profile.html</A>
"I love to sing-a, about the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a"
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