Sample Choral Warm Up

Warm-up Script

Breathing/ Posture INHALE> lift arms to sides and stretch overhead EXHALE>release arms back down to mountain pose. Your feet are firmly planted in the ground, like an old tree whose roots have been growing for hundreds or years. INHALE> Your breath is energy, rising up from the earth through your trunk EXHALE> and releasing out through the top of your head. *on the next exhale, release arms towards the floor hinge from the hips and let your torso fall down into ragdoll. Stay here for a couple breaths. Your knees should be bent. As you inhale, notice any tensions your upper body might be holding and on your exhale release a little further into the pose. Your entire upper body feels like meat hanging off the bones. INHALE>as you inhale your way out of this pose, imagine that each vertebrae is aligning above your tailbone, starting from the lowest bone, one by one. The last vertebrae is in your head. Gently let the weight of your head roll around, finding its balance point with the rest of the spine. The spine is not forced into a straight line but rather is upright and healthily balanced. *draw spine on board Shoulders: Up-down-middle, forth-back-middle. Singing Posture: Your body is comfortably aligned but to sing healthily and to the best of your ability, it helps to make some slight adjustments. Your feet are still firmly rooted in the ground. As you inhale and feel your belly expand, imagine a shelf is being placed under your ribcage when its at its highest natural position. Your head is balanced without overusing any neck muscles. There are three strings attaching a helium balloon to the top vertebrae in your head and your two shoulders, helping you to stay tall as your muscles relax. As you inhale silently your throat feels open and your shoulders stay heavy. Breathing/ Posture/ Phonation: Ascending then descending a fifth, another fifth, then a ninth. He he he he, he he he he, hay hay hay hay, hay hay hay hay, haw haw haw haw, haw haw haw haw, haw haw haw haw, haw haw haw haw, haaaaw. Each syllable should be hard work for the abdomen, necessitating a belly breath full of air support. Set a slow pace. *start on D major and ascend by semitones. Breathing/Posture/Articulation: INHALE>set pace and audiate pitch EXHALE>Descending a fifth. Ooee ooee ooee ooee oooo. Exaggerate each vowel change. *start on D major and descend by semitones. Breathing/ Posture/ Range stretching: Say mhmmm! As if agreeing with your friend on the telephone, descending to the bottom of your range then ascending to the top. Inhale and exhale on your own time, staggered breathing when needed. The point is to feel your entire range on your own time, not to listen to the group or to complete the activity quickly. Change to uhhhuhh!, gradually opening to a full a vowel. Use rising hand gestures while pitch descends and lowering hand gestures while pitch ascends. This helps promote a healthy tone (i.e. demotes “pushing”). Breathing/ Posture/ Resonance/ Listening: Stand in a semicircle with basses at the center. No piano. One base chooses a pitch. The other bases listen carefully and join the pitch to add volume. After listening carefully and first audiating fifth above, the sopranos join. Then altos very softly add the major third. If tuning is off, start over. Sopranos change pitch rising one semi-tone, then return. Altos lower one semitone. Sopranos lower one semitone. Bases lower one semitone. Always allow time to listen in between changes.

In Chapter 5, Williams talks about the importance of breathing and posture and notes their interdependence. She says, good alignment is a direction not a position. I think it is a great idea to explain posture to kids this way. When being forced to stand in "singing position", students tire easily and feel that posture is a chore. Explaining balance in terms of direction encourages openness and alignment, directing the head up without forming negative habits such as pulling the head forward or pulling the chin up. I like that Williams includes a section about different musical styles that kids may want to explore, but I wish this section was more detailed. She briefly mentions the possible issues with children copying the adult voice but the issue is glossed over and no practical solutions for teachers are provided.

Williams introduces singing through a Darwinian lens, noting that "Raw emotive vocal gestures such as wailing...laughing, shrieking and sobbing are much closer to singing than speech. Because of these emotional roots, singing has the power to move us. With or without words, we can understand the emotional message on an intuitive level". I think this is an excellent way to help children understand the importance of singing. This argument could also be used when defending choral programs to parents and school administrators. I like the idea of using the voice as organically as possible, avoiding and "forcing" that may occur when trying to mimic other singers. This notion is reinforced by Williams' opening argument. Exploring the voice's natural capacity to produce a variety of sounds can and should be done during the choral warm-up.

A certainly had and AHA moment while reading Chapter 8 of "Vocal Technique". I always had thought that "falsetto" and "head voice" were synonymous terms. Again, this book has really opened my mind to all the areas of vocal technique that I need to further research and explore. I would tend to encourage singers to use their "natural" range assuming this would be the most comfortable and healthy, but I have spoken to my colleagues and have changed my thinking towards realizing the potential of teaching falsetto. One of my colleagues feels the most comfortable using his falsetto range, and many students may feel the same way. Some transgender students may choose to sing in their falsetto range, and this can be executed healthily and should be encouraged.

I believe that vibrato is way overused by amateur singers, and is often "forced". Singers hear vibrato on recordings and attempt to mimic it by waving pitches up and down. Vibrato sounds and feels best when it occurs naturally, as the voice rings like a perfectly tuned string. Although I don't know much about vocal technique or vibrato production, David's chapter on vibrato confirms these suspicions for me. I am going to talk with my colleagues and further learn some ways to address the vibrato issue as a teacher - are there ways to discourage unnatural vibrato in the classroom or should the topic be avoided entirely?

Davids describes how to sing consonants quickly and efficiently, which is an important lesson. Preceding the beat helps students to feel "in the pocket", which is especially difficult in group settings. Slow consonants contribute to lagging tempos, which quickly can kill the energy of a choral sound. I think this principal is generally undervalued in choral settings. Davids also provides a list of problematic consonants, and provides some solutions to overcome their difficulties.

Watching the Shallaway choir this semester, I noticed they use the IPA system. This seems to work really well for them, and I can see the benefits of teaching phonetic vowels. Not only do they help with vocal vowel production, they can help ESL students with English and can be transferred to singing in many other languages such as French or Latin. Some argue that it adds an unnecessary layer of difficulty for young students, but I believe in "setting the bar high" and giving students the opportunity to rise to that challenge. The IPA alphabet can be taught to any age group if explanations and pace are tailored to their learning level. Learning IPA vowels can reduce the need to explain how a vowel feels in the mouth, eliminating tedious explanations in the future and proactively eliminating vowel issues. Davids IPA discussion helps me to formulate the language and knowledge necessary to teach IPA vowels to my future students.

The Musician's Breath

https://www.scribd.com/presentation/329566127/The-Musicians-Breath

The Musicians's Breath

https://www.scribd.com/presentation/329566127/The-Musicians-Breath

The Musician's Breath notes

1 I selected The Musician’s breath by James Jordan to review because breathing is important in my personal yoga practice and I want to learn how to connect that to vocal technique. It comes with a guided yoga DVD focusing on understanding breath and freeing points of tension.

2 Dedication:

“To my good friend Maurten Lauridsen whose music has inspired us through sound, for all to ponder breath and its miracles, within and among the notes he sets to paper.” (American composer Maurten Lauridsen has also dedicated the third movement of his Midwinter Songs to Jordan).

3 Jordan has over thirty publications dealing with conducting pedagogy and spirituality in music. This book is part of a series including The Musician’s Walk, The Musician’s Spirit and The Musician’s Soul (which Emma reviewed for us last week).

(other suggestions: Evoking Sound and The Anatomy of Conducting).

4 Dr. Jordan is Senior conductor at Westminster Choir College of Rider U, where he teaches choral conducting. He frequently travels to conduct and perform lectures.

He has a “far reaching pedagogical and philosophical impact” on the choral world.

Jordan has studied with several “landmark teachers of the twentieth century” including Wilhelm Ehmann (who we learned about in Adrian’s presentation).

5 Mark Moliterno holds Bachelor degrees in voice and opera. He is also a certified yoga instructor having studied hatha yoga since 1985. (His vocal teachings apply yogic principles to the lives and work of performing artists).

Nova Thomas teaches at Westminster alongside Jordan and Moliterno. She teaches musical theatre and is an accomplished soprano performer.

6 Jordan writes to support his belief that breath transports the human spirit. Being mindful of the breath underlies all creativity and music-making yet many artists spend their careers subconsciously avoiding this simple truth. (“To deny the power of breath is to deny one’s ability to be truly expressive and honest in all things musical”).

7 The prologue outlines issues with some musicians’ disbelief in the power of breath. Conductors must use the breath to effect color and texture changes in an ensemble. Musical idea and intention can’t be translated without it. Often for beginners, it is a challenge to open up to body and allow the breath to move.

8 Part one focuses on convincing readers of the power of breath as a carrier of musical expression.

In chapter two, Jordan notes that conductors who do not use their breath yield a monochromatic sound.

Chapter three talks about the clairvoyant moment that can occur when your breath coincides with expressive thought.

9 In chapter four, Jordan talks about the process of breathing with musical intention.

The first step is stillness during which the musician is calm and mindful.

The second step is opening your mind and body to psychological vulnerability.

You then must connect to your center, define your intention and breathe into it. Next you must allow others to read the breath, and release unencumbered sound.

10 In Understanding breathing through semantics, Jordan examines how breath enters the body. The breath’s rhythm physically affects your bloodstream and heart rate. “Unnecessary tension created by the ineffectual use of breathing often occurs because of dis-harmonic inner states of mind”.

The anatomy of breathing is examined with the use of charts.

11 Chapter seven makes the interesting point that effective music performance is often described as “coming from deep within” and although we know what this means viscerally, it is difficult to describe.

Technically discussing breath gives us some vocabulary to help explain concepts of the “inner” self.

12 Jordan claims that the fearlessness and boundless creativity felt in childhood comes from a feeling of internal spaciousness which diminishes over time. He calls the reader to reclaim their internal spaciousness.

13 Jordan believes in the power of the rest. Moments of rest before beginning a piece and during have the “mystical power to influence the trajectory of a phrase”. Musicians should see rests as opportunities to infuse expressive idea.

14 In the final few chapters of part one, Jordan talks about what it means to “be in the moment” as a musician. He talks about his personal struggles and triumphs throughout his career in defining and finding “artistry”.

15 Part two focuses on specific ways to incorporate breath into musical creation. In chapter thirteen Jordan notes the many kinds of musical connection such as

the spiritual connection between the conductor and the ensemble,

the physical connection between the conductor’s gesture and the ensemble’s breath,

and the physical connection between the conductor's hand and their own breath.

16 In chapter sixteen, Moliterno offers his unique perspective on the creative process combining his knowledge of vocal technique and yogic breathing. Breathing is not commonly talked about in Western culture but it is central to many Eastern philosophical traditions.

“In Classical Yoga, breath is viewed as part of the energetic field which lies between mind and body”.

(Specific guided breathing practices are provided).

17 In the following chapter Nova Thomas writes about the power of breath from her pedagogical perspective as an advanced vocal technician. She notes the variety of opinions on the singer’s breath in existing literature which ranges from ignoring the breath entirely to labelling each miniscule step of the process.

Thomas also provides breathing exercises for vocalists.

18 Many musicians stumble upon some method of mind-body-spirit connection through Yoga, Tae Kwon Do or the Alexander Technique throughout their career and find that its helps them to release physical and mental tension and positively influences their breathing.

The author suggests the ancient Chinese healing practice of (CHEE gong) Qigong for all musicians.

19 Jordan summarizes:

“There is a great deal of belief and some artistic security in believing that if we tend to our technical house, then our communicative expression will somehow magically appear in the sounds we make. As a musician, you must realize that those details are only ever the framework. Human expression is birthed in the breath.”

20 I loved this book and definitely recommend it to you guys.

The arguments are very well supported with many quotes, and each section provides an extensive bibliography.

Jordan writes with a connection to human emotion

and there are practical lessons and suggestions for conductors.

In my opinion there were way too many quotes. Some sections were almost entirely composed of quotes making it difficult to hear the author’s voice and at some times non-cohesive.

I am not a trained singer so the concept of resonance is relatively new to me. The following statement provided a lot of clarity for me: "...a singer who has good resonance is more efficient in converting breath energy to sound...". This book does a good job of putting difficult-to-explain vocal phenomenon into words.

I am unclear on how to define "upper register" and "lower register". Are these terms relatively ambiguous, or are there certain pitches that fall into the upper and lower categories for each choral section?

Davids, J., & LaTour, S. A. (2012). Vocal technique: A guide for conductors, teachers, and singers.

http://prezi.com/7iiljom9lpsz/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

In chapter three, Davids and LaTour explain in detail the physics of creating vocal sound. Although most teachers tend not to explain sound production to their school-aged students at this level, they make a few analogies that may be useful teaching tools. Kids may be interested in understanding that just as wind instruments makes sound when the vibrator is fueled with pressurized air, their body makes sound when the vocal cords are made to vibrate by pressurized air. The term "breath energy" can be useful in a discussion about the basic anatomy of singing. Students can learn about the abdominal muscles supporting breath energy which acts on the lungs, and fuels the sound source. 

"Beautiful sound starts in the mind of the singer". How can we, as future teachers, explain this notion to young singers? A young child may not understand how to "picture" a sound in the "mind's ear". I'm curious to find out if any of my vocally trained colleagues have any suggestions. 

Davids, J., & LaTour, S. A. (2012). Vocal technique: A guide for conductors, teachers, and singers.

Immediately while reading Chapter 1 of Vocal Technique, I had an "AHA! moment". Even as an adult choral student, I have ignored my choir director's demands to stand up straight, despite being aware of the benefits proper posture could have on my sound. Feeling I was too tired to stand up straight, I thought of it as a chore, not realizing that practicing proper spinal alignment would reduce fatigue. 

David makes the invaluable point here that fully understanding the value of a balanced posture will encourage students to comply. This is our duty as educators.

I disagree, however, with David's method of creating alignment. She says, "align your body so that an imaginary straight line passes from the top of the head". Telling students so stand up straight or stand in a straight line can cause unnecessary tension and pain just as hunching over can. In my opinion the ideal stance is about feeling balance which is slightly different for everybody and the spine has a natural slight curve. I do though, understand that a singing stance involves a slightly elevated sternum which requires an adjustment to every-day standing posture.

Davids, J., & LaTour, S. A. (2012). Vocal technique: A guide for conductors, teachers, and singers.

Food for thought: Body Alignment Methods for Choral Teaching

http://www.choralnet.org/2013/07/vocal-advantage-body-alignment-part-3-by-dina-else/

Music and Memory

http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/why-the-progress-in-the-practice-room-seems-to-disappear-overnight/