Musical Theatre: "Improve your vocal technique"

The purpose of this assignment is to enable learners to research, experiment with, and implement new vocal exercises that may not be in their practise regime. This assignment also allows learners to gain a more in-depth knowledge of the practicality of exercises performed in class and in general, relating each back to their own experience and practise.
  
Hand in deadline: 25/01/2016

Task 1: Research and analysis

In task 1 we have to gather a selection of vocal exercises and document them on our blog. Also we have to discuss, explain, and analyse how each exercise can contribute to the development and maintenance of vocal technique with detailed references to our own practise regime.

P1/M1:
      Vocal exercises are an essential part of developing your vocal technique, through continuous exercises we develop our vocal chords. Also, vocal exercises allow us to maintain a good vocal technique, this is because constant practise keeps our vocal chords stronger, more effective and therefore allow us to not only get better but also to maintain our level of vocal technique. Some of the best exercises that I personally use are repeating vowel as this allows me to improve my pronunciation. It is important as a performer to pronounce words correctly especially vowels in order for the audience to understand the lyrics better.

A very effective vocal exercise is called anchoring, this technique involve singing with increased support, by practising this technique, it allows the performer to both sing and talk with more power. Anchoring involves the body, for example bending your legs and tensing parts of the body will you as a performer to reach higher notes with more ease. This technique also allows to keep a healthy voice, by allowing the true vocal folds to work at a high level without strain. An exercise that will allow to practise anchoring is called 'The Phantom Chair' which involves sitting straight on a chair which will involve the real folds to be working.

Another technique is ascending and descending, this involves changing from higher to lower tones/ notes whilst singing. This will improve your vocal technique because the vocal chords will learn how to change tones more swiftly. Ascending is reaching up to the higher notes whereas descending is getting lower with your voice. By practising this technique continuously, your vocal technique will develop as well as maintain a high level. By practising different scale types will allow you as a musician  to develop your vocal chords to sing in different scales.

One of another vocal exercises that I do regularly is stiff mode, this exercise develops my vocal strength when trying to hit the higher notes. This exercises improves the vocal chords so that the voice don't break during the singing. This technique aims to change into Falsetto or Breathy depending on what you are trying to achieve. This technique is very effective when rehearsing for a solo, as it teaches you to change dynamic vocal changes throughout a song.

D1:
       Throughout the usage of these techniques, I have noticed that they helped me to develop and maintain my vocal technique. I have noticed that in order to see effects in the vocal technique you have to carryout these exercises continuously with not big breaks. This is because the vocal chord will cool down and it will take some time to get it back on track. It is a good idea to create a calendar with a set date on when to practise each exercise, but also remember to not over do them as it can lead to serious damage to the vocal chords and therefore your voice in general. It is very important to do exercises that will help you as an individual, certain exercises can damage your vocal chords and therefore you have to carry out the correct exercises for you and do them correctly without a overdose. In my opinion, I think that you should practise all of the exercises regularly if you want to develop and maintain a vocal technique. If you don't practise them, the process of vocal development will take longer and you will see less effects, which may cause you to get demotivated.

 

My comments:

In this assignment I have to do some extra research to develop, deepen my knowledge about vocal exercises to better describe and explain them here. I found this assignment quite good and very useful. This assignment helped me to improve my already acquired knowledge in this field.