Vocal Techniques

I looked at “The Performer’s Voice” by Meribeth Bunch Dayme. This book discusses different vocal techniques and the ways in which you can potentially improve you vocals. Not only does it look at the vocals, but it explores the performance side and what makes and creates a good performance. Dayme gives us several different techniques and exercises to try for ourselves and I feel this a good way to reflect on our own skills as a vocalist and performer.

Looking at creating poor vocal and performance technique allows me to understand what is critical to be able to produce something good. Dayme tells us to try a phrase or sentence using “poor posture”, “so much abdominal pressure that the vocal folds are thrust apart at the onset of sound”, “by means of poor breathing patterns such as pulling the chest down” “by deliberately producing a breathy sound”, “ holding the breath before beginning the tone”. She gives us these areas so we are able to immediately realise what not to do. I think good posture is such an important part of singing and performing. The way you hold yourself and carry yourself not only helps the vocals flow and sound better, but it also portrays a much more confident and proud performance. Whereas poor posture displays an attitude of not wanting to be there and it most definitely does not allow for the vocals to sound to the best of their ability. After applying these bad techniques to a short phrase I found that my sound and vocals sound breathy and under pronounced. Working on these bad techniques and changing them, definitely showed a big difference. I could definitely hear how much my vocals sounded after changing my stance and my breathiness.

She also talks about phonation and how it generally comes natural to professional singers, however, to inexperienced performers, it’s something that tends to need to be worked on and nurtured. I feel that phonation is definitely something that vocalists need to pay attention to as pronunciation is important to a vocal piece. I have always found that certain words or letters I find difficult to pronounce well and clearly for an audience to understand. Working on pronouncing will definitely improve my performance.

I think after looking at Dayme’s ideas and work I have found it helpful towards my future work and skills. Understanding different techniques and the right and wrong ways to perform a piece will definitely be incorporated into my solo work or piece.

 

I have also been looking at diction and pronunciation with my vocal development as this is something I deem extremely important. "Although both music and lyrics are important for the musical accompaniment. if the words cannot be understood, the song can become meaningless.". (Diction for singers, 2001) If the words are clear and pronounced correctly it makes a lot of difference to the listeners as they feel much more included.

 

Meribeth Bunch Daye, The Performer’s Voice, 2005
Vocalist.org, Diction for singers, 2001, http://www.vocalist.org.uk/diction.html