3. Moving from nasal forward (or mix forward) to BELT forward
Pop/Rock style!
Today we started to add style to our song! This means we took our song from sounding like we are talking it (or any of our transition sounds), to sounding more like a finished product. We change the pronunciation of our words to fit the style of the song - rather than just worry about keeping it forward, increasing our vocal agility (or our ability to sing quickly), and staying in the pocket (or being able to keep up with the music).
In order to get to this place, we started our lesson by going over everything we did last week - and checking it off - making sure that Estelle was shortening her words, that she was keeping her voice forward, that she was smiling, and that she was hitting her consonants hard (or making it punchy!)
From there, we changed the pronunciation of our words to a lazier place - we softened the consonants in the middle of our words, while widening the vowels so that it felt like we were singing through a constant mouth shape: a trapezoid. (Wide and short). We do this in order to get the swing feel of the song - rather than the staccato feeling that we had with it in a purely talked place.
Widening our placement
By widening our vowels - we started to make our song sound more contemporary - taking it out of a harsh vowel sound and moving it into a more produced place (or like something we would hear on the radio).
Moving from nasal forward (or mix forward) to BELT forward
At the end of our lesson - we worked on feeling our forward placement in a less MIX voice way - and more of an open BELT voice way. We listened to Estelle's after video - analyzed how it sounded and talked about how she wanted the end result to sound. She decided that she wanted it to sound and feel bigger and more belt- like. So, we worked on taking the place slightly wider at the END of our words - moving it from the squeaky sound of mix - to the big open sound of belt.