Dan Maitland. Singing tips. 2016. Eazypeazymusic.com.
The key to a good rehearsal is to ensure that you achieve the following before starting:
Abdominal breathing
Good posture
Breath during natural pauses / Keep your chin level / An open yawny throat/ Keep your knees loose /Keep your head up
Keep your shoulders sloping and relaxed / Keep the front of your neck loose – don’t stretch it / Keep abdominal muscles relaxed/ Avoid holding your shoulders lifted and chest puffed out..
Basically don ‘t slouch, but dont be stiff either.
Relax and SMILE.
NB – do not try and checklist all these things while you are performing – just bear them in mind at the beginning and for trouble shooting.
Facial expression is also part of “posture”. Ensuring that there is good lift in the cheeks and eyes, that the mouth has an “inside smile” (not a wide grin, however), will help to maintain good lift and energy in the phrases being sung.
Breathing:
Frank Sinatra advised to Keep a soft chest, not lifted, let the breath naturally fill up your lungs from the bottom up. Until the chest naturally expands last. The chest should not be lifted at the beginning
exercise:
Stand with your shoulders relaxed, but bring your hands to your mouth and huff into them as if its a cold day. Notice that your breath feels warm, breathe in with the same open throat that warms your hand – try for a Darth Vader sound, rich and round.
Count out loud, slowly, sofly and continuously to 15. Then sing the counting on one highish note – like a monk in his chamber.. try and do one number more each time you practice.
warming up
Poke your tongue out and stretch it around so you loosen the root of it. stretch and move your mouth around and make silly noises as you do – like a bavarian nose singer! Add a wobble of the tongue on the lips or rolling the tongue inside your mouth.
Go up and down a lowish major scale using mmms, then oohs, then aahs, then Ais’s, then Ees, then Ors. Move the scale to a higher starting point as your voice warms up.. (nb: do re me fah so la te doh, is a major scale). Or find one on youtube. If you find you are going flat move your arms in counter motion at the same time.
Sing up and down the scale using numbers ie 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. try to sing the vowels not the consonants.
now taking numbers 1 3 and 5 of the scale sing notes making rasberries like a baby. 1 3 5 3 1; you may find it easier to hold your cheeks out at the same time. You can also do the same with your Bavarian stretchy mouth nose singer noises and tongue rolling. This is called an arpeggio. It sounds like a rock and roll bass guitar.
Sing phrases to improve diction: (going up the scale and arpeggio, 1 note for whole phrase)Examples:-
‘I really love to sing’
‘La, Lo, Le, Lo’
‘Ma, Mo, Me, Mo’
‘Ta, To, Te, To’
‘Hi, He, Ha, Ho, Hu’
‘Qua, Quo, Que, Quo’
‘Fluffy Floppy Puppy’
‘Lolli, lolli, lolli, lolli pop’
‘Bring back the boys big brown blue baseball bats’
‘Sally saw silvester stacking silver saucers side by side’
132435465768798, up the scale then down the opposite way. This is singing in 3rd intervals.
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