What Should I do?

amelia

Hi, I'm in my third day, doing Volume 1 exercises. I have a performance in 9 days. For my song, I need to belt for a small portion of it. What should I do?

Should I just sing the way I normally do (I can sing it but it does not have that nice belting tone that Ken has) or should I go forward in my exercises, meaning 

do Vol 2 & 3?Thanks!

sspatrick

Amelia,

9 days is not a lot of time to make significant changes. I would keep doing volume 1 trying to stretch your chest voice as high as you can. Apply the vowel modifications to your songs, really focus on support and work the song from there. Belting takes time to develop. Moving on to volume 2/3 isn't going to help at this point there is no magic pill/formula for developing the chest voice in the upper register. Time repetition and patience will get you there. Work on your song where you are at right now trying to apply what you have learned so far. All the best!

sspatrick

The best way to look at it now is that you are a better singer today than yesterday. In 9 days you'll be even better. Improvement happens one day at a time. Keep working and you will become the best singer you can be. Have fun at your performance.

sspatrick

What is the word she is singing? Or is it just a vowel riff? As far as breathing, I would have to hear a sample. You may be blowing out too much air on the previous notes. Try conserving your air in the earlier notes and see if you can make it through the whole phrase.

amelia

Hi,

Yes I understand and I will follow your advise.  Now that you mention it, the singer actually sang starting from chest voice, OO vowel and as she went up to the head voice, she 

sang AH and changed to AA vowel as she descended. Should I actually change the AH to AA at the top followed by AA to descend?

Another problem I have is that I need to breathe just before I go onto the AH vowel, whereas the singer did not. Any tip for that?

Thanks!

amelia

Yes, they are just vowel riffs. I will try to conserve air in the earlier notes and see if there is any improvement. If not, I will try to send you a recording.

Thanks!

amelia

Hi,

I hope you don't mind I have a few more questions:

1) Thanks for the tip, I now can sing the belting part in one breath! It's amazing but unfortunately when I sang in front of my current singing teacher, I forgot everything! The likely thing is I might do the same during the performance. Not only it happened for this section but the whole song! I just could not do what I learnt in Ken's exercises which I did beautifully at home. Is there anything I can do to counter this? Or I just need time to slowly forget my previous training and keep the present one?

2) When I sing this song in it's original key, I have lots of problems with it because most parts it is just at my passagio. But when I sing one semitone higher, it's a different story! I have no problems with it. My teacher said that I lose some bass when I do that and so if possible, keep to the original key as it was written in that key for a purpose.

Is it true? I am curious because I do hear some judges in singing competitions commenting that the singer should have chosen the right key to sing in.

I would like to know so I will not sing in the 'wrong' key for the performance that is coming up.

Thank you so much, I really appreciate your help.

sspatrick

You will have peaks and valleys as you work through the program. Slowly the new techniques will become habit and you will forget how you sang before. Be patient with yourself. Practise as much as possible over the next week. Focus on support and keeping vowels as open as possible. As far as your 2nd question. It is more difficult to maintain that belt tone in your passagio. Once past it notes will seem easier to sing. Try recording yourself in each key and see where your voice sits better.

amelia

Thanks sspatrick!