Presentation by Dr. Bruce Browne on Choral Warm-Ups 1/25/2001 12:00 PM
Present at the Meeting: 13 students as well as David Jimerson and our guest Dr. Browne.
Meeting called to order with Melanie Smith introducing Dr. Browne.
Develop warm-ups that nurture the voices in your choir. Care for their voices. A choir teacher is first of all a voice teacher.
Warm-ups should be very thoughtfully done by each participant.
Plain Vanilla, vocal calisthenics
a) "Hung" not "mmmm"
b) from seated position "nah - nah - nah" and abdominal crunch
c) Stretch / massage
d) Yawn sigh - raises the soft palate.
Breath management, posture / Hand leads the brain (Bono): move while you sing.
Airplane
Rag-doll
Seated
Bent over
Lay down
Intercostals - keep rib cage expanded
Hands above head, drop
Hands on ribs
Need to re-liberate baby cry resonance.
Resonance (focused tone)
Chewing / sing on scale degrees 1, 3, 5, 3, 1 on "mm" while chewing
Rrrrrrr
Hung
N [i [ae
Mixing consonants with vowels
. Flexibility / Two villains: tight jaw and tense tongue.
Have them sing on rolled rrr's and la la la's
5 note or 9 note scale
Triplets
(Tounging) - large groups only
Aspirate H - NO
Downward vocalization
Singing is an overlaid function of an overlaid function: singing over speaking over grunting.
For the Ear (challenge the ear)
Unison - fan out and back
Tuning thirds
8 part chord
Crescendo of pitch, color, vibrato
Whole tone scale --- vs. chromatic
Modes!
Use augmented and dimished chords to warm up your choir.
Attention to color, vibrato, weight of tone, intonation and dynamics.
Robert Shaw / crescendo p to f in eight beats.
Rhythm
Get "Step It Down" by Bessie Jones for rhythmic games every day.
Clapping
Echo clapping
Rounds
Patterns ("Juba" from Jones)
Diction / Cup ears forward with hands so you can hear yourself more the way others hear you OR sing into a corner for a more accurate perception of how you actually sound to others.
Cinnamon - Aluminum
Bumble-bee
Red-leather, Yellow leather
La-be-da-me-ni-po-tu
Use other languages
Melanie Smith stepped down as president. David Jimerson appointed a new president, Ryan Brown
Meeting Ended
