Last week, I addressed my five points of vocal technique that I use for starting out beginners in my studio, which is reduced to the handy-dandy acronym, BRAAP™. Students who work with me receive vocalise sheets that they can draw from to set up their practice time. This is just to get them started, because I don’t do the same exercises with everyone. Or, at least, I don’t necessarily do them the same way with everyone.
If it works better for you to do an exercise on an /u/ vowel tha an /a/, we might do it that way (at least as a gateway for /a/, because, let’s face it, you’re going to have to sing that vowel). If an exercise designed to work through your passaggio gives you fits if it’s done top-down, we’ll flip it the other way (and vice versa). And I make up all kinds of exercises on the spot for people – some of which I actually remember when I see them the next time.
In a lesson, we generally spend about 10-20 minutes on vocalizing, depending on what you have to work on that day. I always start out with alignment and then move into SOVTEs (lip trills, tongue trills, etc.), and then move from there into other components of technique. Even though the vocalise sheets are set up based on one specific component, we don’t do that in lessons. A resonance exercise might be followed with an articulation exercise, back to breath work, into a registration exercise, then some work on releases, depending on what I hear.
Honestly, a good vocalise – and I use good vocalises – encompasses multiple concepts. Breath is always there. Just like it is in our lives.
On Wednesdays, I do a Warmup Wednesday video on IGTV, which I then put on YouTube. Tomorrow I’m going to go over the BRAAP™ checklist that I’ve created for my students to structure their at-home practice time, which I will be giving away as a free download to the first 15 people who ask for it. Not sure what time I’ll be on – probably around 1pm ET.
If you’re interested in getting back to basics in the New Year, I’ll be offering a 3 hour Vocal Bootcamp on January 9 from noon-3. More details to follow!
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If you’re looking on how to become a Curiously Strong Singer/Performer in 2021, contact me to find out more about MVS and set up a Vocal Discovery Session.