This week in my practicing I kept playing with how I want my low notes to feel in my classical singing. I was able to find a lot more lightness, even thought I was afraid of letting them be too heady and worried about whether my folds were closed all the way. Between my practicing and my lesson I'm learning to feel the difference between fold closure and registration. I also realized I did not have enough flow and energy in my lower middle voice this week. Once we added more breath energy in all parts of my voice, I found things naturally balanced a lot more.
I also spent a lot of time on rhythms for Le Spectre de la Rose last week. In my lesson the previous week I realized that I learned a couple wrong, didn't learn some well enough, and struggled in some spots once I put it with the piano. I used a lot of strategies; I listened to the baseline to help me feel the beat, I used a metronome, I mixed counting and the words, I sped up and slowed down my recorded accompaniment to test my knowledge, I memorized sections that I struggled with, and broke things down into tiny chunks. I made huge strides and feel much more confident in the piece and how it fits with the piano part.
Exercises from my lessons
54321 [z] focusing on good flow
54321 [u] focusing on keeping it light, but still have focus and core the voice. Feels like speaking on pitch with some elevated aspects.
1-8-1 start piano and then mezzo di voce on the top before coming back down
-don't glissando down
-make sure the breath flows even as we come back from the forte, and especially in piano sections
-keep the top space as we come back down, I do not need to adjust for every note, it is the same voice, trust my body to adjust as necessary
-almost more energy in the piano
-it all feels so much smaller, the energy feels big in the body and then focuses
-If your vowel doesn't have a focus then the focus will be in your throat
565 454 343 232 1 [i a i a i]
-keep the [a] bright
-do it all in head voice with breath flow
[aje aje aje a] 1 3 5 8 5 3 1
-do it all in head
-feel the energy surge as you move up and over the top, let it be like a wave, use arms to guide it if you need
La Spectre de la Rose
- Some of my [E] need to be more open, I'm moving them closer to a close [e]
-/virginal/ has a soft /g/
-Keep my nasals open otherwise it goes to the [n] or [m] phoneme
-Check nasals in /viendra/ and /parfum/
-/Profundis/ pronounces the [s] at the end
-If you need you can make nasals the pure vowel and then change it to a nasal right at the end (similar to a diphthong)
Batti, Batti
-My diphthongs need to feel more like a glide in order to avoid a glottal
-Think of the phrases in waves. The energy is building and moving up and over the top of the phrase
-crescendo through /sapro sapro baciar/ at the end of the third page so you have the energy to move through without taking a breath.
-Improvise on the fermata at the end of the phrase before the first set of /pace pace o vita mia/
-Choose where to breathe in the second to last section
-Review the last sections
-Breathe in rhythm to bring me and the piano in for the entrance after the fermata
-The runs are all in the same place, pitches are just thoughts dropped on one focused stream of air. Use your finger to point to where you want to aim.
-For the /passar/ runs I need to keep the energy and remember I am just moving around two different notes. Coming down from the Bb I lose lift and energy and need to stay engaged. The wave motion will help here too.
I also learned in this lesson that I need to slow down when things aren't working and decide what specifically I'm missing and how to fix it.
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