Lilli Lehmann reminds us to never stop learning singing technique and new repertoire!!!
Overall, the purpose of this website is to document three years (2020 – 2023) of my studies to become a singing teacher. My rationale is that if I can’t sing to an acceptable standard then I should not become a singing teacher.
This post is a series of videos that demonstrate how I warmed the voice up yesterday from a F below middle C to a F above top C and then ran through the cadenza from Lucia Mad Scene.
This post follows up my last post about adapting Denes Striny’s exercises for myself. I have found his books to be groundbreaking because he explained how to achieve the head voice in a really fun way. In addition, I found his exercises provided me with a “basecamp”. This “basecamp” has given meconfidence because it provides me with a point of reference.
High notes are in everyone’s voice. These videos below are proof of that because I have never bothered with high notes about top C before and I am old – a young person should have no trouble!
Below are videos, recorded on my iPhone, of how I used the exercises in the Denes Striny book to warm up yesterday. Please read his books because I change things a bit. Also, these demos of mine are not perfect! There are a lot of mistakes. However, they head in the right direction and encourage the high notes out without any manipulation.
How I start the day practice at the moment
Gradually I bring the voice upwards and have fun with the exercise
When I stop it is because the a vowel fell out of line and didn’t sound the same colour as the others. There is no right or wrong a vowel but this one was just too difficult. The vowels down low begin to lose their correct sound. There is room for improvement.
This exercise gradually extends the voice upwards. The next video will take the voice up to a top F.
As I do this exercise I am learning to recorgnise the sensations and how to feed the right amount of air through.
After doing the above, I then sang this. Not every note is correct but overall it is heading in the right direction. I think the guitar was tuned to 440HZ in this video. Normally I tune it to 432HZ.
I am a professional classical singer with strong crossover ability. I have been in the music business since my graduation from University in 1994.
In addition to singing, I have been trained to a high level in classical guitar and brass. My guitar playing enables me to self accompany; I perform professionally as a self-accompanied singer. My brass playing facilitates my playing of Taonga Puoro (traditional Māori instruments).
I have begun to focus on my YouTube channel now that my studio is full. I have called this channel 'The Complete Singer' because I am not only a singer, but also a teacher and singer-songwriter; I write songs professionally as well as for relaxation.
I believe that old fashioned singing techniques, developed over hundreds of years in Italy, should form the foundation of good singing. I practice exercises daily from books written by Garcia, Marchesi and Melba. In addition to these exercises, I add modern singing exercises. Therefore, this forms the basis of my teaching.
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Deborah Wai Kapohe 