Dancing and Singing

Today we were told that our Assignment, for this term, is going to be, performing in a Variety Show. This will give us the opportunity to audition 5 pieces at the most, which showcase our talent. As I originally applied for Musical Theatre, I will aim audition pieces from Musicals. Later, I will post some of my ideas.

We are also required to perform as an ensemble in Musical Theatre numbers. One of which, will be a number from Mary Poppins. Today we were given a taster session of the way in which we will be expected to dance and the energy we will need to put into this number in the form of a choreographed dance routine. I made many mistakes, as I always do, when trying to pick up a routine at first. However, I did find that my movement memory has considerably improved since before Panto.

Today during our singing lesson, I could tell that my singing was very under-practised, due to lack of singing practise during The Holidays. I found it difficult to project and sing in tune. I need to engage in more vocal warm ups and technique tutorials to improve this. When it came to singing in the correct pitch, I failed my attempt. I often sing too low or flat in general and need to focus on improving this by recording myself singing to scales more often.

Here is a video of one of our warm up sessions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkEEdlSLLvs&list=UUsc6As_10ht676BbLjDH3iQ
Even though this was only a warm up, I noticed that I didn't look very happy and it would be good practise to smile during vocal warm ups in preparation for actual performances. I managed to last quite long in the 'scales warm up' as I remembered to use my mixed voice and I remembered to think low when trying to sing high notes, as my old singing teacher taught me. Here is a video about the mixed voice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYEsGuldIQY

We sang 'When I Grow Up' from The Musical, 'Matilda'. It is a possible ensemble number for The Variety show and so I have recorded myself singing it in order to improve on my endurance (vocally), when it comes to singing a song all the way through.

Here is the link to my youtube video of  'When I Grow Up', acapella:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSPkmNujIfU

From this video, I can tell that I need to improve on my diction, reading the lyrics, remembering the melody and engaging my anchoring muscles. I also need to work on pitching, as I found that I sang the song too low and I was flat at times. I believe that I need to sing the whole song higher in my range. I especially think that when I sang 'When I grow up' at the beginning of the last verses, I could have belted it to a much higher note by singing 'through my mask' and using other techniques for belting (such as having a 'twang' in your voice and opening your throat wide, by lifting your soft pallet). I am setting myself the task of learing the song lyrics for if it is used in the variety show.