Tougas- Voice Overview- 11/16

 This week I have felt really anxious and very on edge for a myriad of reasons. Today in Voice Recital Hour, John Malory performed his original song, “Run River Run”. It made me feel completely at peace and like I could ease into the song and more into how I have been feeling. It really made me ponder on what we discussed yesterday in class about how music can heal us, especially the way we sing. The way he sang not only was a beautiful performance, but especially in the second chorus, he gets a little raspy up high to express the emotion of the song. Just as Dr. Brott described on Tuesday, he was willing to sacrifice some pretty to help you feel the song’s text a little more without hand gestures or lots of movement. The stillness almost had more impact than if he had big, boisterous gestures. This performance inspired me to not only sing my repertoire well technically, but more than anything, make it mean something to someone.

In my voice lesson this week, Laurie had me lay on a big exercise ball both on my back and on my stomach. On my back was difficult but I didn’t feel a massive difference. It helped to open my rib cage and gain a sense of where my breath is traveling versus where it should be traveling in my body when I sing. However, when I flipped over on my stomach it was incredibly hard! The ball almost automatically doubled the force my abdominal and intercostal muscles had against my diaphragm because it contains such a strong push back. We worked through about 4 or 5 measures for most of the time on this ball and each time got a little easier but it still felt like treading water with just your diaphragm. Yet, when I stood up, my breath expansion and sustainability was significantly better! I had more ring on my high notes and ran out of breath much less quickly. Something that I am having a hard time recognizing is when there is good resonance versus not. Sometimes I will sing a high note and it sounds very straight tone to me but Laurie will say that it was much better. I know we discussed how different it sounds to the audience versus to you as the singer but I am having difficulty navigating around it and recreating the sound each time. 

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