Valde Voice Studio
  • Home
  • Meet Me
  • Work With Me
  • Contact Me
  • Join My Book Group
  • Blog

the Secret ingredient

5/13/2014

0 Comments

 
I have a tip for you that will advance your singing by leaps and bounds and is FREE. Yes, that's right, it is absolutely free! It's something most elite singers do or have done instinctively and is so much a part of who they are that they don't think to mention it. LISTENING! Singer are always listening and asking themselves questions about what they are hearing.

When I was in college and grad school I learned so much from my teachers, coaches and conductors but I gleaned an enormous amount of information by listening. My friends and I would spend countless hours listening to recordings together and discussing what we heard. In this way we learned about style, phrasing and use of language. "Did you hear how he lingered on the M of that word?" "That pause was orgasmic," "I love how she chose to float that high B flat."  We shared new rep we'd discovered, we learned about artists old and new and we learned about the history of our art form.

One can also learn about technical strategies other singers employ: "She belted that note but mixed that one," "He did that all in one breath," "She modified that vowel."  

If you want to learn from the master of this way of listening  watch some of Seth Rudetsky's Deconstructions. Then, start deconstructing things for yourself. Listen with a discerning ear, not the critical, I'm-going-to-leave-a-nasty-anonymous-comment kind of way which is all to prevalent these days, but, with the intention of learning and understanding.

Now - go make some playlists and start LISTENING!



0 Comments

the problem is usually not the problem

5/6/2014

0 Comments

 
Today I flipped out about a tea kettle. Yes, you heard right, a tea kettle - such a silly, simple thing. The tea kettle was, of course, not the real problem. The problem started hours before with the fifty other things that occurred throughout the day that had not been deal with properly and had led to built up tension and stress.


The same is true for singing. So often we will pinpoint a note or passage and label this "the problem." In fact, the problem started measures ago with vocal issues not properly addressed. Under less demanding circumstances these issues could probably fly under the radar but when met with more challenging notes or passages they become exposed. When I bump up against a problem as a singer I have learned to back up a couple of measures to see what I'm doing to hinder my success. Now, if only I could learn to do that more often in life.
0 Comments

    Archives

    December 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    Anatomy
    Doug Duncan
    Larynx
    Mind Set
    Performance
    Practice
    Self-reflection
    Stress
    Tension
    Zen

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.