Steve Ericson’s Tips for Singing (Part V – Surviving a Concert)

previously at ChoirSinger.com – Surviving the Long Concert

Republished with Permission

 

One of the best Basses I’ve ever had the privilege to sing with and a good friend.

Most choir directors know better, but every once in a while they go a little crazy and put together a program that has the choir members singing at the extremes of their vocal capacity, both in terms of range and dynamics.

As a singer, how do you cope with the fatigue? What can you do to have enough voice to finish the concert? Today I hope to answer these questions, at least enough so you stand a fighting chance.

First things first: You know how long this concert is going to be because you have been rehearsing the music for several weeks. Sometime early in the process you found yourself going home with a tired voice, and you realized this was going to be one of those concerts. Time to start getting in shape to handle the load.

The sooner you start preparing, the more likely it is you’ll survive the experience, so once you’ve had that revelation don’t wait to start gearing up to handle it. Begin by spending more time practicing the music on your own, paying attention to dynamics and phrasing. Remember, dynamics are relative, so if you can sing the soft passages very softly you won’t have to sing the loud ones quite as loudly to compensate. Of course, if the performance involves something like Verdi’s Requiem or Orff’s Carmina Burana you have a rather large orchestra to contend with, but the principal still applies.

Proper support for your tone is vital in this situation, so whatever you need to do to get those neglected abdominal muscles in to better shape is strongly advised. If the abs are soft you’ll use your neck and throat muscles to compensate, and you’ll run out of juice around intermission.

Pay attention to posture, too. If your back gets tired from holding your rib cage high you need to work on it. Build up the stamina so you can make it to the end. If you use music on stage and hold it in a folder, then start practicing with the music in the folders at least four weeks before the performance. You’ll want your shoulder muscles to get used to the weight.

Beyond the physical conditioning you need, don’t forget to exercise your voice so it’s in the best shape possible. Practice the music using the dynamic markings as soon as possible, so the whole package is in your muscle memory, not just the notes. Practice the passages with sudden or frequent dynamic changes on your own so they don’t come as a surprize at show time. Few things are more embarrassing than being the only one still singing fortissimo when everyone else has observered a subito piano.

Make sure you start getting plenty of water at least two weeks before performance time. The vocal mechanism needs to stay moist, and if you’re underhydrated you’ll end up fighting a dry, scratchy throat. Proper rest is important, too. We all have a life to live, but the social part of it won’t suffer too badly if you spend a couple of weeks going to bed early.

Finally, on the day of the performance pace yourself. Don’t let the excitement of the moment steal away your preparation and cause you to over sing. Save some of it for the end of the concert. You want the finale to be grand, don’t you?

 

ChoirSinger.com – Keep your voice healthy

All too often singers develop problems with their voices which could have been prevented by a little knowledge applied at the right time.

Today I’m going to try to provide a few simple guidelines that I hope will help spare some of you the frustration of having your voice go out on you at a bad time.

One of the most important things you can do for your voice is to stay healthy. I know, not all illnesses can be avoided, but if you are serious about keeping your voice in shape you should make an extra effort to stay healthy. Ear muffs in colder climates can help prevent numerous ear and throat infections by keeping the inner ear passages warm. Washing your hands before touching your face or after contact with people who have the sniffles can help you avoid many forms of the common cold. Getting plenty of rest can help your body’s immune system resist the ‘bug’ that’s going around. A healthy diet will also help.

Beyond such obvious steps to maintaining your health, there are a few things you can do specifically to keep your voice at its best.

Drink plenty of water. It not only is good for you, it helps keep the vocal mechanism lubricated.

Moderate your alcohol intake, especially for a few days prior to any planned performances. Alcohol dries out your throat and can cause unnecessary strain on the vocal cords.

If you smoke, quit. The husky lounge singer sound belongs in a smoke-filled bar, not in the choir. You know all the health reasons to stop, so I’ll just add that it’s possibly the worst thing you can do to your voice.

Reduce your use of dairy products. They increase mucous production and aare generally not good for your voice. If you don’t believe they affect your voice, take this challenge: cut out ALL dairy products for a month, preferably the month before a scheduled performance. After the performance, resume your normal dairy intake and see what it does to your voice (and the rest of you).

Get plenty of exercise, too. However, avoid doing much exercise that involves heavy lifting. Many voice coaches teach that this type of activity can put excessive strain on the neck and throat, affecting the vocal mechanism.

Another thing: be aware of how tired your voice is. If you are tired, your voice is probably tired, and you shouldn’t strain it by trying to sing too loud. Once you have had a chance to rest, and to rest your voice, then you can use it with strength.

Here’s to healthy singing!

 

ChoirSinger.com – Glossary of vocal physiology

The following is a brief glossary of the parts of the body involved in vocal production. It is not a comprehensive list, but does explain somewhat how the parts fit together to produce a good vocal sound.

Abdomen – area below the ribs containing the digestive organs.

Cartilages – The framework of the larynx. The largest cartilage is the Thyroid Cartilage, whose bulge creates the Adam’s Apple. The Circoid Cartilage is a structural part of the larynx, and is attached to the trachea. The Arytenoids Cartilages are responsible for adjusting tension and the amount of separation of the vocal cords. The vocal cords are attached to the Arytenoids Cartilages at the back and to the Thyroid Cartilage at the front.

Clavicle – collarbone.

Clavicular Breathing – breathing from the top of the chest.

Costal – pertaining to the ribs.

Costal Breathing – breathing with the ribs, above the diaphragm.

Diaphragm – flexible partition of miscles and tendons separating the chest and abdominal cavities.

Diaphragmatic Breathing – breathing by relaxing the abdomen, forcing the diaphragm to drop and the lungs to expand.

Epiglottis – cartilage at the root of the tongue which covers the vocal cords during swallowing, protecting them.

Glottis – space between the vocal cords.

Hyoid Bone – the bone at the base of the tongue. Both the tongue and the larynx are attached to the Hyoid Bone.

Larynx – voice box. The cavity holding the vocal cords.

Palate – roof of the mouth. The front is called the hard palate. The back is called the soft palate.

Pharynx – throat. The cavity connecting the nose, mouth, and larynx.

Sinuses – small cavities in the skull behind the eyes and nose. this is where most vocal resonance occurs.

Sternum – breastbone. The front of the upper ribs are attached to the sternum.

Thorax – upper part of the body between the neck and the abdomen. Separated from the abdomen by the diaphragm.

Trachea – windpipe. The air passage leading into the larynx from below.

Uvula – fleshy hanging projection at the back of the soft palate.

Steve Ericson’s Tips for Singers (Part IV Blending and Phrasing

formerly at ChoirSinger.com – Blending the choir – part 1

Republished with permission

One of the best Basses I’ve ever had the privilege to sing with and a good friend.

Many people who listen to our choir comment on how each section sounds like one voice. This is not by accident, or good luck, but is a tribute to the work our director puts in on fine-tuning the choir.

It takes a well-trained ear to match voices so they reinforce the sound he is after, and it is not something I could possibly hope to teach in a text article online. I can, however, offer some tips that will make your director’s job easier.

First and foremost is intonation. If you can’t sing in tune you will never achieve the blend that’s necessary for a top-notch choral sound. There are some excellent ear-training resources available. Check out your local college bookstore for the kinds of material being used by the school to train music students. But the most important part of intonation is active listening.

Active listening involves learning to hear your own voice when you sing, and recognizing the difference between what you hear in your head and what others hear. A tape-recorder is an excellent tool for discovering what your voice sounds like to others.

Once you can pick your own voice out, listen to the sound of your section. Are you producing notes that match exactly the pitch of your section? You should not hear any ‘beats’ or waves of sound. Those indicate a difference in the pitch.

Another, often neglected, component of singing in tune and blending the sound is vowel alignment. By that I mean singing exactly the same vowel sound that everyone else in the choir is singing when you sing the same text. It is easy to hear the effect of different vowel sounds if you sing vastly different vowels, for example some people singing an EEEE sound while others sing an OOOO on the same pitch. That’s because the shape of the vowel alters the overtones of the pitch, and affect the intonation. What is not so obvious is that the SAME problem with intonation exists when you have two different versions of AH going on at the same time.

This is just the beginning of the problems a choir faces with blending. Next article I’ll discuss some of the common solutions, and which ones are better than others.

ChoirSinger.com – Blending the choir – part 2

Achieving a good choral sound can be a challenge, particularly in an amateur choir. Many of the voices are underdeveloped, or the singers have had little formal training since leaving school, and it can be somewhat like herding cats to get the choir to sound like an ensemble.

Many choir directors try to accomplish this by asking the singers to use a more breathy tone. This foggy sound seems like it would blend more easily, partly because nobody can actually hear what the sound is. Of course, that approach is wrong for a number of reasons, including possible damage to the voices of the singers.

A better approach, though perhaps more difficult, is to concentrate on producing a mature vocal sound. A sound that is focused and full of resonance. This requires more effort on the part of the singers, but the rewards are well worth it.

Once the singers start using their whole voices you begin to hear the rich overtones that comprise a good choral sound. When you combine the mature sound with the proper vowel alignment as discussed in the previous article you can accomplish wonderful things with a choir, and the sound will cut through even a large orchestra such as you would find with a work like Carmina Burana or Verdi’s Requiem.

The remarkable thing to many people is that the mature choral sound can be quite successful doing contemplative a capella works like those of Palestrina, too. Of course, some works call for a less turbulent sound (less vibrato), but that does not mean less intensity. A choir should sound the same at pianissimo as it does at fortissimo, only softer. Think of it like this: when you hear a work coming from the next room, then walk into the room and realize it is much louder than you thought. Same group, same music, different volume level.

This is important. It is more difficult to sing quietly because you have to work harder to maintain the support, yet without the support the pitch will not hold.

Here is another idea. Some voices should not be placed together. Either because they reinforce each other too much, or because they cancel each other out. A good choir director can hear this, and will often take steps to separate such voices. By the same token there are some voices that should be placed together. These voices compliment each other and form a more complete sound together than separately. Remember, if your choir director moves you around and pairs you up with someone else this is usually the reason (unless of course you are a talker and disrupt the rehearsals – but a good director would just encourage you to drop out in that case…).

ChoirSinger.com – Make it Mean Something

Have you ever gone to a choir concert that seemed uninspired and lifeless? Chances are you have, even if the sound was well blended and perfectly on pitch. Today we’re going to take a look at another part of the whole puzzle – the text.

As a singer the music you perform is more than just notes, tempos and dynamics. You have the added dimension of text to deal with. This adds a whole new set of concerns for phrasing the music, because you have to deal with more than just the melodic line. Text has meaning, and unless that meaning comes through you might as well sing the whole thing on LA.

Putting the meaning in the music is naturally easier if the music is in your language. For most of us reading this article that language is English. We are able to give the words their proper emphasis, and shape the phrases, because we understand what we are singing. If you sing in a small church choir that may be all you need to remember from week to week. You sing mostly hymn arrangements or other songs that speak to the text of the sermon, and you usually sing it with an understanding of what is being said. But what about foreign languages?

If you sing in a symphonic choir, or a non-church community chorus, you have probably sung songs in Latin and German. Possibly French or Spanish, and if you have an adventurous director, maybe even Russian. Carmina Burana is a very popular piece which uses Latin and an obscure language known as Frankish in some of its movements. So how do you convey the same level of meaning to your listeners that you do when you’re singing in your native tongue?

It would be great if we could all learn to speak five or six languages. That isn’t likely to happen, though, so we have to look for some clues in the music itself.

Much of the music you will do in other languages was written to be sung in those languages, and the composers did a lot of the work for you. The pulse of the music is a good clue about where most of the syllabic stress belongs (though not always). You should also look for hints in the way the text is broken up in your music. Most music publishers put dashes between the syllables of a word that is broken up by several notes, and they leave space between words. The punctuation can give you a sense of the phrasing – periods at the end of sentences, etc.

Some publishers now even help by marking the stressed syllables in the text, either by underlining the stressed syllables, by MAKing the stressed SYLLable all caps, or by other obvious markings.

Careful attention to such details can make a huge difference in the music. Choirs who successfully master this aspect of choral singing tend to stand out from the crowd, and their audiences will keep coming back for more.