Matilda- Monday 16th January 2017

On Monday, i had my first singing lesson to learn the "School song". Over the weekend i had listened to the song a couple of times so that i could get the lyrics in my head.

We began the lesson by warming up. We warm up our whole bodies not just our voices. It is important to warm up our whole bodies but we have to use our whole bodies to sing. We have to make sure that our posture is correct for singing so we can sing to the best of our ability. After we have stretched out our bodies we done some diaphragmatic exercises to make sure we was holding our core and we worked on our flanks. Whilst we was doing this we was making sure the notes were short and sharp. We then began to work on our vocal warm up, this included working on our diction. Diction for the song we are singing is very important because it is a quite fast song so we need to make sure that the audience can understand everything we are singing. After this, we worked on scales and making our lips vibrate. After we had done all of this and made sure all of us was fully warm we started on the song. We sang through the song once to make sure that everyone knew the words. I had been over the words at the weekend so that i would feel more confident in class. I had the lyrics next to me just in case i needed to use them if i had forgotten a small section. Once we had sung through the song, harmonies were added in. In my group, Sarah and Darcey are doing the harmonies and Anais, Claudia, Imogen and me are singing the tune. We have to make sure that the tune is strong throughout the song so that the harmonies can really be heard. At first, i found it hard to not sing the harmony as it was really easy to slip into but after i had practiced and made sure i wasn't standing next to someone who is singing the harmony section i had picked the tune up easily. When we changed over to using the backing track instead of the piano, we struggled at first to get the harmonies in but after practicing a couple of times we got there. 

I feel as though this lesson went really well and i have picked up the lyrics really quickly which has made me feel more confident with the whole number. I feel as though i have improved in my singing because i have had to push myself to sing the quick section but i think that i have done really well to pick the song up in two lessons because by the end of this lesson i didn't need the lyrics anymore.

Next lesson i definitely need to work on characterisation because i didn't work on it this lesson and now i feel as though this is the part that is lacking and needs to be as strong as the words are and the choreography. My next lesson is drama so i feel as though i will be able to work on my character. I need to be more confident in myself and just make sure that everything looks over the top and sharp and so it looks as though we are scaring the younger children.