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| Re: Singing [message #48646 is a reply to message #48640 ] |
Fri, 02 March 2012 08:18   |
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 Julia
Messages: 531
Registered: October 2008
Location: Library School |
Senior Member |
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The day has been a success. I hit the frelling A. Repeatedly. YAAAY! Good for you!
Just as a thought (and the proper voice teachers on here can correct this if I'm way off):
In my lessons, I was always told to think of it as placement of the voice, rather than reaching for or hitting the note. It's funny, but using different words actually can change my ability to make the right sound. I know that I have the note, but often when I try to hit it, everything gets tight again, and I can't do it... or when I do, it sounds *wrong* anyway.
But if I don't set myself up with the mindset of "I can hit this note and I'm not getting it and I'm so stupid, I can't do this aaaugh", and instead just breathe properly, find the space and let the note happen without stressing about it, the result is a much prettier sound.
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| Re: Singing [message #48651 is a reply to message #48640 ] |
Fri, 02 March 2012 14:36 |
Annagail
Messages: 68
Registered: August 2009
Location: PA |
Member |
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Just as a thought (and the proper voice teachers on here can correct this if I'm way off):
In my lessons, I was always told to think of it as placement of the voice, rather than reaching for or hitting the note. It's funny, but using different words actually can change my ability to make the right sound.
Different words have different subconsious connotations. New students frequently use the language of "reaching" or "hitting" a note, but voice teachers try to change this way of thinking about singing as quickly as possible, as "reaching" tends to make a note flat (reach up and barely touch the note) and "hitting" tends to make it harsh or come off the body (adding extra unnecessary effort when what is needed is greater release). What the teacher will train the student to think of instead of "reaching" or "hitting" depends strongly on the student (and the teacher's personal methods, of course). There's no one right way to teach any particular bit of voice- there are some ways that tend to be wrong for most people, some ways that work for some people, but nothing that works for everyone.
For me, thinking of placement was always a disaster, because "placing" a note gets translated in my overcontrolling little brain as "doing it manually", i.e. forcing a note to go exactly where I want it to go, never mind its own proclivities. This way (for me) lies shrillness, offkeyness, and lack of resonance. However, thinking about "placement" for someone who is perhaps a bit more laid back than I am and without the overcontrolling issue can be a helpful way to get a note (or line, or voice) to focus. For me, I had much better results when I thought of a high note as having directionality- I didn't just arrive at it and stop, I arrived at the note and it *kept moving*. It depends on what problem the teacher is trying to fix and where the student is coming from.
But if I don't set myself up with the mindset of "I can hit this note and I'm not getting it and I'm so stupid, I can't do this aaaugh", and instead just breathe properly, find the space and let the note happen without stressing about it, the result is a much prettier sound.
Learning how to get out of the mindset of "omg why can I not do this I was doing this yesterday in my lesson I am so stupid arrgh" is TOUGH. A lot of advanced singers struggle with it- I also think this is why a lot of advanced singers take yoga, so that when the OMG THIS HAS TO BE FIXED YESTERDAY WHY GOD WHY strikes, you have some way of calming yourself down so you don't completely blow a practice session. Absolutely, allowing yourself to let something happen is by far the best way to do it- the trouble comes (obviously) after you start being hard on yourself. And then you start being hard on yourself for not relaxing. And it just goes downhill from there...
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| Re: Singing [message #48657 is a reply to message #48644 ] |
Sat, 03 March 2012 00:36 |
EMoon
Messages: 665
Registered: March 2009 |
Senior Member |
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I think Svengali thinks I need more expressiveness, and listening to and watching better singers on YouTube gives me some idea of what can be done with a piece. There's so much of my whole past life in the way of being expressive musically, except when I'm alone (and then the technique falls apart.)
A raging feminist at fifteen? No, at fifteen I wasn't even fifteen, exactly. Moment of possible TMI: when I was thirteen, I was told my mother would likely be dead in six months (chronic renal failure. Dialysis unavailable and later rationed by perceived social importance: divorced women were way down the list. Not that she could have afforded it.) I wasn't an overly socially advanced kid even then, and I did what kids in a panic do--regressed. Bargained with God. Maybe if I was really-really good, she wouldn't die. (Um--single parent family.) Tried to be really-really good in pre-teen definitions and kept that up through high school. Make great grades. Cause no trouble. Ask for nothing, because it was obvious she was at the limit of her own strength and endurance, and she had to support us.
Well, tried very hard to keep it up--I wasn't perfect, as her friends frequently pointed out. ("Don't you realize how sick she is? You need to make things easier for her, not harder! The least you could do..." Etc.) Went through the teen years in developmental stasis because I could not cope with one more thing. The melt-down in freshman year of college was, in hindsight, inevitable. What I know now would have been useful knowledge then, but the psychological theories of the time had nothing to do with my reality.
So...at fifteen I was functionally maybe eleven, except a very, very smart eleven. A truncated feminist (my mother, despite having been smacked down repeatedly on gender basis, disliked feminists--they hated men, she thought. So my own resentment of gender bias had to be covert, hidden even from her.) Before that, yeah--the girl who could outrun, out=climb, and (if pushed to it) lay a boy out flat with a sucker punch or the one judo move my mother taught me. (Yeah, we all already know, I'm weird.)
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| Re: Singing [message #48662 is a reply to message #48651 ] |
Sat, 03 March 2012 05:40 |
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Julia
Messages: 531
Registered: October 2008
Location: Library School |
Senior Member |
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| Annagail wrote on Fri, 02 March 2012 14:36 |
For me, I had much better results when I thought of a high note as having directionality- I didn't just arrive at it and stop, I arrived at the note and it *kept moving*.
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Yes. I do still struggle with keeping the note/sound moving when I concentrate too much on where the note is or should be. This is the second half of it for me, and I totally failed to articulate it in my first post, probably because I so often forget to do it! But yes, thinking "placement" on its own will stop the sound for me too.
Singing (properly) is hard work. And talking about it is even more difficult. I have so much respect for voice teachers and their magical abilities to make the rest of us understand what we are (or aren't) doing!
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the trouble comes (obviously) after you start being hard on yourself. And then you start being hard on yourself for not relaxing. And it just goes downhill from there...
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Don't I know it! It's very easy for me to write about "just letting the sound happen" here, but when I'm standing in front of a mirror, hyper-managing every muscle in an attempt to make the right sound, while fully aware that the hyper-focusing/managing is the reason why the sounds I am making AREN'T correct...
And yet, when everything WORKS, it's the best feeling in the world. 
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