2. Making the connection between upbeat character musical theater songs and slow musical theater ballads
3. High belt + mix
Over singing:
Tatum's voice is improving so much and so quickly that she is outgrowing what her brain thinks she sounds like. Because she's trying so hard to make it sound good, she is overthinking and therefore over singing her songs, making them sound forced and hard for her. When over-singing something, you usually put too much pressure on the vocal chords, get out of the pocket due to latency (or the delay that happens when your voice sounds like molasses because you're singing too slow to the song, trying to fit it in the same time frame), over pronounce words, or try to add style that is too much for the song. Working with Tatum on trying to sing the song less, having her trust the pitch a little bit more, and shifting her focus from singing so hard to different tricks like shortening her words, adding character, dynamics, and vibrancy to her song - has been our project for the last 2 songs. When we get to the point where Tatum knows she can have fun and trust all the work we are doing in our warm ups (and have been doing in our voice lessons since the beginning) something magical happens. Her pitch gets better, her over all tone is brighter, and she sounds amazing!!!
We will continue to find this comfortable place that Tatum can trust in her voice, and as we do, we are working extra hard in the warm ups to make sure that Tatum's voice can maintain the placements we need it to while she focuses on other things - and doesn't fall back into bad habits because she her focus is elsewhere.
Making the connection:
It is normal to think that you would have to sing in a different way to sing a song that's faster or slower - We do different variations of our placement depending on the song - however, the connections between the two (especially when starting the song) are more than one would assume. By approaching this song in the same way as Tatum did her last song, "Good morning baltimore", Tatum is now able to build on not just her voice, but on her understanding of placements.
Things that we want to carry over: separating the words to reset between each word with placement and pitch, the brightness that comes from adding a smile (and even more brightness that comes with adding character to the song so that the student sings even more through their teeth), the simplicity that Tatum used in her verses, and the relaxed placement she used in her high notes.
The more connections we can make between her songs, the more Tatum's brain will catch up with her voice and the better and better not only her AFTER videos will get, but her BEFORE videos as well!
She's crushing.
High belt + mix:
We worked a lot on our mix and high belt register today in our warm ups. Tatum has an incredible mix range!! And her placement in her high belt is amazing. We are working on transferring all of her hard work over to her songs. And even as much as she's improving with each voice lesson on camera - she's improving even more. We are building things that, once the muscle memory of Tatum's BRAIN catches up (something that only comes with experience and practice) we're talking about firework moments. Tatum is getting better than she realizes. It's amazing.