Adults' Lesson 6: Turn your ears off! | English Touring Opera
Hello, and welcome, to lesson 6 in English Turin operas series, of singing, lessons battles, my. Name is Thomas Elwin and like. My colleagues who made the previous 5 lessons I was. Meant to be seen on tour with, English to opera, around England. Singing. Fair and inclusive until, tea and the. John passion and. Sadly the tall was cut short but. English touring opera has been very supportive, with all of us and. Part. Of the videos that we're doing, is to continue, our sense, of, being. A team and being part of the English tour as an organization, and I'm. Sure that my colleagues and I will feel a very strong attachment. To eto, for. Many years to come. The. Previous lesson that headed, Hawkins gave finished. With some homework for you all if, you haven't seen it make sure you check it out I'm sure if you maybe check, out over here and there'll be a link, to the video on youtube or. English, turn up his Facebook page and. You'll see it, talks, about posture. And. Is, a tall man he's, six. Feet a very. Generous. Presence, in a room and. He. Talked. About how much he had to consider his posture, and get, it right for his singing and, it's the same for all of us I'm not 6/8 more. Like. Five foot eleven and, a, half maybe. But, posture is something I have to consider as well and. Particularly. For me about. Seven years ago I lost my voice my singing voice for about five months now this. Was as a, result of a tumor I experienced. But. I had to really consider, how my. Body. Was, set up for me to sing and. Ever. Since getting my voice back in the late. 2013, I've. Been very aware of physical. Things about how to be. Healthy as a singer not. Just think, about warming up and thinking. About not, eating too. Much chocolate or, peanuts, before I sing or not drinking milk all, those things that people have considered. That affect their singing but. Actually considering, my. Whole body as as poss management, it really is very important, that you, consider, your body as. The. Basis of your instrument. Of. Course without air there. Is no sound and, to. Produce the, most efficient. Sense of air and. The. Efficient, connection, to your body we. Want to be free and relaxed, and, very. Aware of what we need to use and what we don't need to use. Okay. Are, you with me still good. So. One of the first things that I do apart, from outside work which I know, we've now all done, is. I, check. My. Shoulders out and. They relaxed, and they're in a good neutral position, they, seem so okay. That's. All, together now I lift up my shoulders tense, them up we. Don't want to make that we don't seem like this good, drop them down in, a very central place not. Forward not. Back, in. The middle like that okay, everyone, happy I'll. Continue. So. I've become. Central. Neutral, relaxed. Flexible. And. One. Of the first things I do is I check my, breaths working, but I also want to, really. Free up the neck there's. Any little, clicks here and I want, to make sure that that's all ready for me to start singing and start warming up properly so. I look over my right shoulder, it might probably your left side if, you're looking at the screen and.
I Go like this I'm, looking over my right shoulder and. I breathe in low breath. And. I breathe out on an honest. Slow. Release of breath. And. What I feel is a stretch, here a bit, of a compression here and. As I do it one more time I want to feel those things go. A bit further. Good. Back to the middle how. Are you feeling, okay. Back. To the other side. And. The same again. Good. Good good, back. To centre to the middle, now. Do the same thing but I want you to lean either. Side so starting. On your right, lean over there and, the same thing again breathe in and I'll. Try less. Good. As you do that I'll explain a bit why the s. So. We want that. Out-breath. To be very consistent. And, slow. And. When you do it on an s like that okay, go to the other side. When. You do it on s like that it's. Very obvious, when it's not consistent, and, very obvious when your breath is stopping or, your, breathing out too quickly or. All. Those things that you. Want to check on your breath so if. It's just a consistent, that's like this. I, know. That, my breath there is all. The same. Very. Consistent out-breath. Whereas. If, it stutters a bit I. Know. That somewhere my breath and my breathing. Apparatus is locking which, we don't want obviously, and. If it's too quick. Then. You feel you might get a bit of tension up here, you. Might feel, a bit of tension back here as well and. It's. Not setting, you up to have a relaxed. Singing, apparatus. When. I say apparatus, I mean. Really. From your head down so it's of your legs in fact your whole body your, whole body is your sing apparatus, what, we use to sing with. So. Our. Neck and shoulders are relaxed, we've. Done some breathing, out, and. Now I want you to consider. How. Else you can prepare. Your voice best, to sing I. Had. Some speech therapy years ago part. Of my. Getting. My voice back after that trauma and. The. Speech therapist talked about vocal hygiene and, what she meant was. How. To look after your voice really and the. Two things that are real voice killers, and also. Voice savers as a result are. Getting sleep and hydration. So, you might see just there I have water and. You might see just down there I have a bed no I don't have a bed down, here okay, so get, good sleep drink. A lot and. Stay. Hydrated through, the day so people. Talk about drinking one. To three liters I just, drink as much as I can I always have a glass of water when I go inside to the kitchen I have a glass of water and. Always. Have water here in my studio, very. Important to be hydrated. Now. The. Next step. We've. Done, that those, breathing exercises a, little bit we've done that release event is we want to start singing. Now. Keeping, the breath in mind, let's. Do an exercise that, really, checks the breath and it's using a roll I hope. You can all roll your R's if. Not try maybe your lip trill. What. I mean by a lip trill is this. Okay. What. I mean by roll bar is this. I'm. Going to do two types of rolled our exercise, we're. Going to have a frontal. Roll, bar exercise like, this. That's. Frontal, then. I want a puffy cheeks rolled our exercise. So. We rolled ER with. Puffy cheeks Jenny, mentioned puffy cheeks. Okay. We're. Gonna do whole scales okay, so. With me. Let's. Park low down just a B flat. Front. Will roll our first. And. Before. I continue the. Breath you want to give before. You start singing is, that release and start. All. The teachers so far talking about breathing a bit I'm. Not going to go too far into that but, I do, you want I do want you to consider where, that breath is happening and how relaxed, and, how, sort. Of poised it sets you up to sing so. Before I sing. I always release. The. Breath happens okay I release, no down. And. Then I'm ready to, use. That air in the, way I want to which is to make a noise from. Here coming, out of a rock okay. So. We're going to be. This. Is a 9 note scale, twice, but. This time I want you to have a puffy cheap roll down. Good. Now frontal. But. We cheek. That. Was perfect wasn't it frontal, now do. Good. Now, you can continue that as high as you want to go as.
Long As you want to go but. What you want to do is make sure that roll dollar is happening, all the time if. The roll that stops, then. That's the, air not, quite working right it. Might also be some, sort of tension to come in and Jenny, in lesson 3 talks about keeping. This, relaxed. And. Space. Here but. Making, sure that you're relaxed, and everything is. Just set up for the, sound just to come out without me stopping it because actually what tensions, do up here, are. Affecting sound and they, stop the sound working freely. What. We're trying to do is opera singers it's, produced, the most brilliant, sound. With. The least effort. We. Want to produce a, really. Efficient, sound that. Can travel a long way it's. Also beautiful, and. Emotive. At, all those things we want all those qualities. But. The most important, thing is the efficiency. Because. We, have to sync sometimes. Three sometimes four, hours in an evening and. You're, not singing, efficiently, and quickly you'll lose your voice quickly, the. Muscles that are substituting. For what you should be doing will. Tire. Out and and you won't be able to sing the whole wrong. So. What. I mean about efficient, singing well, imagine, a bell and. The. Perfect, Bell sound, is. When you hit in a very specific place. If. You hit it on the top it doesn't sound right but, you get a bit of sound but. If you hit it right, on the edge and it ding and, then. It rings so. We want the, same idea. Singing. Wise. So. With, that, this. Role da is, about, controlling. Them out of there we use. And. Not trying, too hard not, pushing it you have to have all the way through your register that are all that working well and. Doing. Two scales of it that's quite a lot there you use we, want to be as efficient as possible that air very sort of. Consistent. Airflow and, keep that rolling roll, out going try. To get with me. Did. A cheeky, hold up there on that deep, try. That hope if you want. Part. Of the roller, exercise, is really good it takes you all the way through your range if you want and. It keeps you our air flow going. Now. In. A room like this it feels quite booming it's. A very, new. Space. Not. Too many soft furnishings that are stopping that echo. Acoustics. Are very different wherever. You sing and. That's a real issue for singers. Feedback. Can, be different and and. Your, ears like. To lie to you. We're. All surprised, when we hear our speaking, voices. Because. We aren't already. Aware of what we really sound right and it's. The same with singing, so. The next thing I want you to do is try these roller exercises. But I want you to cover your ears and see, what that, does, or you take a nice easy. Release. Breath and. I want you to just roll out from, our. Face and chords for you we'll. Go see, maybe, up to to, eat, I'm. Going to do those scales, but cover, your ears so, you can't really hear yourself singing and, and then I want you to think about how that affects you so number, one I. Won't. Say no does play the chords say start. Okay. C-sharp. Good. So you've done some rollers, and it covers, your ears now. What you might feel this is a greatest. Sense of connection, to your body you, might feel a greater sense of, of. What's, happening below here that's. What the ears do is. They hear, sound, that's already left you, so. If. You effects the sound by what you heard all, you're doing is affecting, a future, sound not the sound that's just released so, if you don't like that well you can't affect it it's gone already. If. The sound is out there already, if. You're trying to affect that sound all you do is, usually. Negatively. Affect the next sound. So. What I want you to do is to try and turn your ears off and turn. Your body sensation. On our, way to be really aware of how you feel physically.
When, You're singing. That's. Sort. Of step on from this posture, thing we are postures good and, we. Aware. Of how to look after our, body, and voice in. Terms of the health of it and. Now with it is it's very important, because sometimes, you sing in a big church and you get this feedback all the time then you're seeing a really dead, theater. And you don't get it back in you your, ears get all where's, my sound, where's. My cell oh I can't affect it oh I'm. Gonna disappear, into myself your, shoulders get tense and we know how that affects your breathing and then. That affects your voice and then you lose your voice and you lose your stamina so actually by. Turning. Your ears off and being, trusting. With the physical, sensations. Of making. That noise what. You're doing is. Being. Generous to your sound. It. Might sound like a contradiction that by not listening you're being generous to the sound but. You, don't want the sound for you you wanted to go out to people you want people to enjoy to sound you're making I, want. You to do a few more exercises with, covering. Your ears, so. I'm. Going to take a phrase. From. The. Heart first act re from cuisine well, know around will also I. Will. Show you how, your. Ears, and, listening can. Affect you, I'm. Going to try and sing it by. Listening too much to myself and then I'm going to cover my ears and just listen to my body so. Just. The first couple. Of phrases. Okay. I've some of these roll it up that's, probably not that but. I. Know. That, there, are some maybe, little things that we're leaning slightly wrong ways of tension, to over because I was. Listening to myself singing, too much I'll. Do that again but. I'll cover my ears and see if you notice the difference. Did. You notice the difference maybe you write a little comment underneath if you can say, if you notice the difference, obviously. I'm not going to listen back to this right now so I hope, there's a difference, what. I know is different is that physically. I feel more connected when, I'm not listening to myself. So. The next stage of that exercise so. You've. Sung. It listening. To yourself you, cycle without listening to yourself, maybe. You record yourself doing those two things the. Next stage, is. To do those phrases again. Not. Covering your ears but. Trying to turn, your thoughts. Away from what you're hearing and to. The physical side of your singing. Okay. To. Me that felt the best yet. So. Then. Knowing. That Aria is lying to us about our singing. We. Can be more generous with how we're feeling physically. Okay. Homework. Time. Heads. Homework, was about posture. I. Want. You to continue that posture work this week but. I want, you to take some phrases. Of a piece of music you think maybe it's in the choir in norm or a. Song that you know that. You're learning and I want you to, firstly. Sing it through to roll down that, tune. So. Like if. I was taking one hour again I'd see her eyes. By. The frontal, and a Fiji Valda. I also. Want you to practice by, not listening to yourself so. What you maybe if you've got earplugs you love so, ear protectors. Or. Just use your hands I want you to cover. Your ears and sing. Maybe. A phrase the first phrase of CoV Osama or, whatever you've chosen to practice I want. You to really be aware of how you feel physically, and. Increasingly. I want. You to. Turn. The, effort level down here and up. Down there then. That's really the aim the, aim is so that here is the effort, level and say one to ten we're talking it to one. Or two here. Here. There's no effort down. Here we want six. Seven eight maybe, you. Really, want to be physically, aware that, I'm singing from, low down physically. I'm making a noise. So. Your, homework just. To. Be, a bit more succinct is. To. Practice. A song. Any song that you want to sing with, rolled. Ours but. Also cover. Your ears maybe. You record yourself when you're doing it and. Check. In see how things, feel different and how they sound, different as well as well, sometimes.
You Might do a scale and, take. Your hands away miss scale and, get all this that's. A fact I didn't realize my sound was like that and really. Be. Very analytical, about how that sound and the physical, feeling, changes. Okay. Happy, with that homework, now. I've been very happy to do this lesson for you I'm, not quite sure who the next lesson is from, but. I hope you enjoy that lesson if, you've enjoyed this lesson and you'd, like to, learn. More with, with, this series do check out the previous lessons and, make. Sure you're following English, touring up for here on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter and. Check out their website see what they've got coming up and. We hope to be back with you soon performing, out. In the theaters around. The country and, concert, halls it's. A real, that, we don't have this this, proper, connection, with, our audience but, this, is hopefully something to, to. Fill that void a little bit I, hope, you stayed safe and stay healthy goodbye.
2020-05-22 13:55
