Ila Siliga- Warming Up

"No matter how easy the day is, start your practice session by stretching out. You want to get your entire body ready to sing, not just your singing muscles. For your breath to really move in your body, you need to be connected to your lower body" (Phillips 119). 

I found this quote in the book Singing for Dummies, I knew before that you need to relax your body to sing but I feel that I need to pay more attention to it in order to improve my sound. As said before by many other people, "your body is your instrument," when referring to singing. So because of this I feel like I should make it my daily routine to warm up, not just my voice  but my body as well.


The new daily routine that I have developed with the help of Singing for Dummies is to shake out tension of my body, release my head forward, move my head, gently stretch my neck, move all the muscles in my face, move my tongue around, work my shoulders, swing my arms in circles. stretch my sides, swing hips to loosen tension even more, warm up legs (stretching, bending etc.), ad take a deep breath to wrap things up. Now some of these warm-up techniques I have used before, while others I have not heard of before. The ones that I have not heard of are the ones that at first I thought had nothing to do with singing and were completely irrelevant. However, when I read the description of the exercises I see what each could contribute.




I practiced each of the techniques before knowing exactly what each was and decided to only take a picture of a few. The first and second picture demonstrate gently stretching your neck which is described as, "gently drop your left ear toward your left shoulder and pause. Inhale and, as you exhale, drop your head a little farther toward your shoulder," and as you can see I did not do it as directed (Phillips 120). This shows me that maybe gently stretching is more effective for singing purposes than just forcefully yanking my head in each direction. In the third and fourth picture demonstrates stretching your side which entails, "lift your left arm over your head and lean to the right. As you lean, feel the muscles between your ribs opening on your left side," and in the picture I am doing it correctly. By this time I had realized that each of the exercises all release tension in your body and this exercise really helped me. In the fourth I am doing the exercise a different way but it still had the same effect. For all of you out there who decide to try these exercises I hope they help release the tension in your bodies and prepare you for singing. If you do try the exercises, are they helpful for your singing, do they make a difference?

Ila Siliga- Exploring the shape of front vowels

"Your tongue arches in the front of your mouth to sing front vowels. Your tongue does most of the work shaping front vowels sounds, but make sure that bother your lips and tongue are released and free of tension. The front vowels don't require as much lip action as the back vowels" (Phillips 97).

In my last post I talked about back vowels and how they have to be rounded and open, so in this post I thought I'd talk about front vowels. As we can see in the quote from the book Singing for Dummies your tongue does a lot of work with front vowels. From my previous knowledge of front vowels, I know that they make a "bright" sound. This means that when you're making the sound your teeth are more exposed and your tongue isn't covering the back of your throat. I also know that the vowels are all in the front of your mouth as opposed to the back (which explains the name being front vowels, obviously). One thing I didn't know about front vowels was that your tongue touches your teeth most of the time. This is explained in the book by saying, "another difference between back and front vowels is that, when the tongue arches in the front, the sides of the tongue also raise and touch the upper teeth" (Phillips 98). 

The front vowels are ee (as in me), ih (as in kiss), ay (as in day), eh (as in bed), and a (as in asked). And as said before, when saying all these vowels notice how you pronounce them your tongue touching the ridge of your teeth. With front vowels I have learned that your jaw drops slightly for the ee vowel (as in me) and the more forward the vowels gets the more you drop your vowel. (As seen in the diagram below). You probably have to drop your jaw more because the "brighter" your sound gets the quieter it gets, so then you need more room in order to produce a louder sound. Another thing I learned about front vowels is that, your lips open more as your jaw drops. Lastly what I learned was, your tongue arches more the more your jaw drops. After learning these new things about front vowels I realized that I needed to pay more attention to how I pronounce them the correct way. Also, the exercise showed in the video helped me apply these new found facts. For the readers looking at this description you might not understand or be able to visualize what I mean so I'm hoping the video of me pronouncing the front vowels will help as well as the diagram. Another tip would be for you to pronounce the vowels slowly and realize what your mouth is doing. Hopefully after reading my post you learned something new and can apply it to your life. Can you realize the difference between the back vowels and front vowels?

Ila Siliga- Exploring the shape of back vowels

"Now you get the chance to explore your back vowels. You make these vowels by arching or raising the back of your tongue behind your bottom front teeth and keeping your lips rounded" (Phillips 94).

This shows the basics of what a back vowel is, it is important because when your are singing you need to know how to transition between these vowels and how to pronounce them correctly in order for your audience to understand what words you are singing. Obviously words you're singing have to be enunciated differently than when you speak, but the first step into singing the word you need to know how to pronounce the word. I explored the shape of the back vowels by reading and speaking a variety of different words from my book Singing for Dummies with different back vowels. The different back vowels are ooh (as in moon), OOh (as in foot), oh (as in old), aw (as in walk), and ah (as in father). The picture from the book shows how high your tongue has to arch in order to produce the vowel sounds: "Tongue arching higher in the back of your tongue on the ooh vowel sound and arching only slightly for ah" (Phillips 95).


Not only is tongue position in your mouth important for vowels but the shape of your lips are too. Your lips either have to be rounded, slightly larger, or slightly smaller for different vowels and even though the transitions don't seem noticeable they are key factors to the sound that comes out of your mouth. After trying this exercise with back vowels was very helpful, it made me more aware of my pronunciation of   words and how to contribute it to my singing. I learned that the most difficult vowels to pronounce are the OOh vowel (as in foot), and the aw vowel (as in walk) because they are farther back in the mouth. The ah vowel (as in father) and the aw vowel (as in walk) are hard to differentiate, but I have learned how to do so with the exercises. In the exercises from my book there were more words and sentences but for video time sakes I only said a few in order to get my point across. Now I know how to pronounce back vowels and how to differentiate them. Do you think that maybe learning front vowels will be easier, considering they are more forward in the mouth.

Ila Siliga- Dropping the jaw

When singing vowels your mouth has to be rounded and or defined depending on the vowel being sung. The shape of your mouth and how open your mouth is determines how precise the vowel will sound. Since the shape of your mouth is directly correlated to the sound, this is a very important step in learning how to sing correctly. The book I am reading titled Singing for Dummies addresses this point and how sound can get trapped in your mouth if it is not opened which can greatly affect your performance.

These images show me demonstrating how you can "drop your jaw." Dropping your jaw helps open space in the back of your mouth so when you sing the sound will resonate. To resonate is to produce or be filled with a deep, full, reverberating sound. Resonance is very important in order for your voice to be heard better. These techniques are helpful and noticeably makes the back space in my mouth feel larger. The steps also imitate what it is supposed to feel like when your voice is resonating. Not only does your mouth have to be open for your sound but your neck and jaw have to be free of tension and ready to move, which is helped by following these steps. Overall, dropping your jaw is important for the projection of your voice and can be practiced with the following steps.

The book says, "To practice dropping the jaw, follow these steps: 1. Massage all the muscles around your face to make sure that they're free of tension and ready to open. 2. Try yawning and dropping your jaw at the same time... 3. Yawning inside your mouth and throat without opening your lips..." (Phillips 61). Do you think that these techniques could possibly better my singing in the long run?

 

 

 

 

 

Ila Siliga- Singing Basics: Posture, Breath, and Tone

I have been singing since before I can even remember. Most of my singing was due to my church choir. I still am a very active member in my church choir and have started singing in choir at school as well and because of it I have developed a very colorful music background. However, it is hard for me to know whether or not I am singing correctly. When I say this, I mean in a way that will prevent harm to my voice. Even with the help of choir directors I have had in the past and other experienced singers I have been taught by, I have always had the concern of damaging my voice.


The book I'm reading titled Singing for Dummies, describes different techniques that will help prevent this from happening, as well as some of the basics of singing. My goal with this book is to reteach myself to sing correctly and efficiently. Posture, breath and tone of voice all help with finding your voice and producing your sound: "Posture is important in singing well...The big key to great singing is knowing how to use your breath to make the sounds... Vocal tone is important because you want the best sounds to come out of your mouth" (Phillips 12).  Posture is improved by putting your shoulders back and removing pressure from your lungs, then parting legs slightly to improve balance (which isn't shown very well in the picture, but it's there). Breath is improved by "breathing into your stomach," which is basically breathing in and feeling your stomach expand so that you voice can be projected when pressure is applied by your diaphragm. Lastly, tone where the other two are applied to make your sound. These basics of singing all bring attention to how sound should be made and how it is going to apply to what I am singing. In the picture below I am shown using all the techniques I have learned  to sing the notes (musical notes) in my book, which are going up and down the scale. With these basics I have found my sound on my own and can now direct them into more music. Also, I will be able to find my "category" of voice on my own with the help of these techniques.


Before reading about posture, breath, and tone I already had an idea of how to use them, but relearning them helps me capture it into muscle memory. This really  brings my attention to everyday life, and how my breath, posture, and tone of voice while speaking affects my power and volume. Overall, singing is a very easy thing to do once you learn the basics and apply them the right way, which are going to be revealed as I read on. If I were to leave one of these techniques out would my singing be negatively impacted?