This week we started working on our recital and musical auditions!! We started introducing performance techniques, introductions, stage etiquette, choreography - it was a great week for us!
We vocalized on: humming, hooty - lowering our falsetto, me-me, yah-yah - lots of mix voice today.
We had a long warm up today - Walker worked REALLY hard. His voice is improving so fast. it's awesome!!
We worked on:
Performance techniques/stage etiquette: We mapped out our stage in the basement and went over very simple tricks to work a small to average size stage and audience. We worked on grounding our feet, keeping our weight in the center so that we can shift directions easily and not look awkward. We talked about how frequent Walker should shift body positions (every few lines) - shifting his shoulders and slightly his feet - but not his whole body so that he doesn't put his back to any part of the audience.
Performance techniques/choreography: We started adding movement to Walker's song. Starting with just raising his hands at different points, building a stance/arm movement with a building note - and opening up to the audience with the first lines of the song. We will add more and more movement each week so that it feels natural by the time Walker hits the stage. He wont even have to think about it by then.
Introductions: We started having Walker introduce himself before he sang each time to get ready for both musical auditions and our recital. Practice makes perfect!! This is always the one people forget to practice and then they feel/look awkward introducing themselves. It was great. He got more and more comfortable each time he did it.
We kept working on our forward placement - first removing Walker's vibrato to make sure he can feel his voice shift forward. He is REALLY nailing this!!! He can feel and hear when he's doing it incorrectly and correct himself. Which is hard. Go walker!!