Tuesday 21 October 2014

Music and Singing: How to get it right?





So, the first step is doing what we wrote on the previous post. 


You then have to work on finding out your best Do-Re-Mi sequence by testing your mouth.


Two things seem to matter: Position of the tongue and stress applied to the vocal chords.


As impressive as it may seem, when we sing The Sound of Music along with Julie Andrews, we start having some insights: The notes have to do with the position of the tongue in our mouth.


Basically, whilst the first Do should be at the tip of the mouth ceiling, front, the last one should be high at the back. 


We should try to put our tongue always in contact with the mouth ceiling as we sing.


We should also observe the pressure applied on the throat and choose the lowest possible pressure as our most natural, and therefore, best to stick to, sounds.


After we do that, we must sing with Julie Andrews The Sound of Music over and over until we can repeat it in the same way and without feeling as if we are injuring our vocal chords or throat in any sense.


We then must try to be able to do the notes in the right order (Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do) and backwards, just like in the song.


It comes the time for the So Do La Fa Mi Do Re. We then should practice singing just like them, but accompanying with our hands and tongues the changes in the notes (Do is at the edge, front, and both Fa and So are by the middle, for instance).


We are over this song when we can do the right movement with our tongues in all parts in which they have the names of the notes and we can keep the note happening inside of the words in the two sentences they have there.


They are two groups of seven notes.


The words are When you know the notes to sing You can sing most anything.




Anything takes three of the notes. 





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Friday 17 October 2014

Music and Singing: Secrets





We were little and we could still listen to the wonders of The Sound of Music with Julie Andrews (Julie). In the same way, we could listen to Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin (Lewis and Martin), Frank Sinatra (Sinatra) and Carmen Miranda (Miranda).



The interesting thing is that we actually had quite a few years of guitar classes, different private tutors, a short time of choir classes at school (primary), a short time of Singing Therapy (group), a short time of occlusion training, a short time of singing classes, and a short time of piano classes, but, even so, we cannot really sing.



Until recently, we were feeling comfortable with all and composing songs and everything.



We could not notice the problem because, when we create our own songs, all works if we do only the composition with the singing part (without the score and the actual music).



Upon attempting to sing Every Breath You Take (Police, Sting), the problem appeared: We thought it was the easiest song in this world this far, but we could not actually sing it to an acceptable level if thinking of commercializing the product.



Whilst playing the guitar with mediocre tabs and singing, we thought it was all perfect. The problem appeared when we decided to record all and listen to ourselves: Oh, dear, we had to be dreaming about being able to do it!



So many years to then realize that there is definitely much more to singing than our vain studies this far can tell.



At the same time, it is all simple and obvious: In order to sing competently, we have to be able to correctly associate our voice emissions with the notes.



Once we do that, we can read from the score and sing with no mistake and we can transcribe from our singing into the score.



The basic notes are known by almost all of us, is it not?



Julie Andrews helped us quite a lot with this one: Do Re Mi



Do Re Mi lyrics brings the lyrics.



So, basically, when we see the song Every Breath You Take and the score starts with A, we should be able to sing the La that Julie sings in her song (the same sound).



When we sing every breath you take, the first line of the song, we should be able to repeat this note all the way through: La La La La La.



Believe it or not!



For the guitar, the notes will be C (Do), D (Re), E (Mi), F (Fa), G (So), A (La), and B (Ti).



So, wow, we are thinking of giving up by here… .



On the other hand, what a finding: That it is probably the case that our investment in musical tuition is just waste because nobody will ever teach us what really matters.



We learned how to play the guitar following the tabs, but we can almost never transcribe from voice to tabs and we certainly cannot sing.



The greatest finding is then that we actually have to learn how to match those things before we learn anything else: Our voice emission with the musical note.



What do you think of all?



Please send us a note yourself!


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