Singing: 3/05/11

In todays lesson I came in the lesson focused and prepared enough to be off book for every song without any doubts. To start of the warm up we did the usual breathing exercises and when doing the scales of: 'Mee, Moo, Lala, Zaa' I felt confident and reached to the top note in the scale. During the breathing exercises I became light headed and Sapphira told me that this was because of the way we was breathing and the amount of oxygen we was taking in to open our lungs. I also found that when I was doing the 'Lala' exercise I kept stumbling and slurring towards the end of each note, this was because I was not opening my mouth wide enough and felt that when Sapphira corrected this it improved but its also because I need to practice the techniques at home.

The song that I am most confident with would have to be the 'telephone hour', I know the complete structure of this song and do not struggle to remember when to harmonize. I know the lyrics extremely well and Sapphira has praised me on this because I have practiced this song and feel this is the strongest song for me so far. I need to work on my character and work on making the lines punchy and more 'bitchy'. At the moment I seem to be just focusing on my vocals and singing the lyrics correctly but I need to make sure I am bringing that character into the singing and expressions in my face.

Other songs that we worked on today were:

• Hymn for a Sunday evening 
• A lot of living to do
• Put on a happy face
• How lovely to be a woman
• Overture

One of the main focuses during todays rehearsals was trying to remember the harmonies that we have worked on previously and making sure songs like ' A lot of living to do' were sharp and perfect timing. Although ' Hymn for a Sunday evening' is an extremely short song for the chorus part it is essential that the timing is good and also tuning is correct because even the slightest tuning problem could make a big difference to this small number and make it sound off key. Sapphira worked on the tuning in this song and I think we all feel confident that this song is working and running smoothly. One of the songs that is also really well known is 'Put on a happy face' the only thing that I need to work on is my expression and to remember to put emotion in to what I am singing as I know the words well I just need to move on and develop this.

I am proud of myself because I am one of few that have learnt their lines extremely well, I know my timing and what I am meant to be singing. In 'How lovely to be a woman' Again I need to work on my character and think of being more 'girly' but I know that I also need to work on using my diaphragm more so in this song because it is such a high key that I forget to take breaths before big notes and I cant hold them as long as I should be able to. In the 'Overture' we didn't really work on this too much but we all already know the words as we have done this numerous times, so I am just going to go over this with the backing track and have it ready to show Sapphira next week.

       'Using my diaphragm when singing will improve the sound quality'