2. Performance technique: Microphone stand technique
Pop Ballad Placement
Today we worked on our "pop ballad" placement! This placement is slightly different than our "uptempo pop box" placement. We still work on coming from a talked place - keeping our voice nice and forward - but the challenges bring out new singing monsters because the song is slower. While our singing monster used to be singing softer and farther back in our throat than we needed to, the new singing monster that comes out is adding heavy vibrato and style that slows down and thickens our cords making our song sound more muffled, less controlled, and more heavy than it needs to be.
We worked on taking this singing monster out by focusing on the simplicity of our style - really talking it out, and then extending our words, making sure to separate each syllable so that our brain can reset between each one.
Abby did awesome!
Performance technique: Microphone stand technique
Today we worked on performance technique in preparation for our fall concert! While we continued our work on moving while maintaining our forward placement - today we added something new to switch up our songs: a microphone stand!
When performing with a hand held microphone, we study and work on different ways to move the mic up and down, how to hold it to make sure the volume levels stay consistent, and how to use a mic to add to our performance.
When you remove the hand held mic - and the different kinds of movement that a microphone can add to a performance - you have to add in different kinds of movement to fill the gap left behind. Today we worked on ways to move our hands when we have access to both of them, how to move around the stand without bumping it, and how to gage the size and placement of our movements so that we don't move far away from the microphone while performing (resulting in volume inconsistencies). We worked on a variety of different moves and practiced the appropriate time between each move. Every time Abby needed to move her hands or body differently - I would clap!