Notes from Dave LaBar's Craft Class
The voice is a muscle. Like other muscles it needs to be ‘warmed up’ before it can work effectively. Warming up gets the flow of blood to the area. Stretch and relax this muscle to get the blood flowing. One particularly good warmup is to gliss the singable consonant M from the bottom of your range to the top and from the top to the bottom.
Drink lots of water to lubricate and consider also some apple juice. It starts the digestive process to help water move to your body rather than through your body.
Warm-ups
There are 3 warm-ups: physical, mental and vocal. The physical gets the body ready to sing, the mental gets the mind focused on singing and the vocal warms up the vocal folds. Warm-ups are a preparation for singing that can be done individually. You can do them yourself prior to coming to chorus.
How do you know when your voice is warmed up? When the voice can do what you ask it to do with the least amount of effort. Mental warm-ups mean focus… but focus outward –hear and tune.
Tune-ups
Tune-ups are the execution of singing by the chorus. Tune-ups include work on tuning, vowel matching, target sounds, balance, synchronization, uniform singing of singable consonants and diphthongs. Tune-ups require knowledge of how to execute the singing and commitment by every member of the chorus. Tune-ups are a team sport.
Breathing
Breathing is a result of what you've done. You talk, you breath; you laugh, you breath. Consider the following approach: “End the phrase with a breath”.
This means the process is: the thought and the breath. You are now set up for the beginning of phrases.
Another mental picture: water skis – always lifted at the tips. This image helps lift the ends of the phrases.
You can also use the breath for musical effect.
Helpful Hint – if your mouth is dry, put the tip of your tongue under your back teeth and bite down a bit to salivate.
