Vocalists here? A routine?

[Bob]

What do vocalist do?  Do they have a daily routine?  What is it?

[pianoplayer88]

I'm a vocalist, but I don't really have a routine...I just practice whenever I have the time. Which is not very often...    I really wish I did have more time though....

[cmg]

I'm a vocalist, but I don't really have a routine...I just practice whenever I have the time. Which is not very often...    I really wish I did have more time though....

Okay, here's another example of this 14-year-old's amazing hubris.  This is the same kid who started a thread about Broadway productions and proudly admitted to never having heard of "Gypsy" or "South Pacific."

Now, she's taking on proclaiming herself a "vocalist" who doesn't "have a routine" and "just practice(s) whenever"(she) has the time.  "Which is not very often."  And all of this in a thread entitled "Vocalists here?  A routine?"

Why does this crap have me steamed?  As a musician who has trained all his life since the age of 5, I can't just read this garbage.  Is this what music educators are producing these days?

Rule Number One to be a musician, kid:  You MAKE time to practice and you PRACTICE.

You're welcome to participate here, but you need to learn something about being appropriate.  If you have no expertise (which you don't), you don't post innane comments that clearly indicate you have no expertise.  You ask questions and try to learn.  Examine yourself and your "slacker" mentality and wake up to the fact that WANTING to be a musician is different from BEING one.

Musicians work their asses off all their lives beginning at an age MUCH younger than you are now.  They practice before they eat.  At 14, it's inexcusable to be as ignorant and arrogant about music as you are.  You're not a vocalist.  You can't be.  You don't even think a practice routine is all that important.  You claim that you don't have the time to practice, though you "wish" you did.

For 14, sweetie, you're pretty immature.

If you have this little discipline and education now at 14, it's clearly too late to be a real musician.  Even a "vocalist."  Maybe your abilities are elsewhere:  say, nuclear physics or medicine.  But, I can tell you right now, music ain't it.  You don't even make time to practice!       

[concerto_love]

humming a scale right after wake up, vocalizing at school, at home try to repeat the last song that I've learned, yeah... go to lessons...

[Bob]

Hey, hey.  I'm just looking for ideas. 

If you're in school, what do you do for warmups?  Although that's a group and not quite what I was thinking of.  The group takes precendence over the individual there.

Individual vocal routines though?

[keypeg]

I am NOT a vocalist, but the warm-ups that I learned are: singing a five-note scale ascending and descending starting at say G below middle C, starting a tone higher each time.  Glissandos going up and down a certain range, singing certain patterns, attention to accurate pitch, breathing, posture to support singing.

[Bob]

Yes, that's what I'm looking for. 

Any more?  I guess I'm looking for a comprehensive idea.

[pianoplayer88]

I've learned the same things as keypeg has...and my teacher has some strange names for the warm-ups. Like for the glissando thing, he calls it the siren. I guess it does sound like one...

Usually whatever song(s) I am working on with my teacher is what I'll practice, but I also do a variety of other songs while I am singing. I try to get the little things that my teacher catches at lessons, right.

[Bob]

Yes, I know the siren. Haha.

Basically....?
Glisses
scales and patterns, Major and minor

Articulations?  Legato vs. "ha"

Dynamics over all that

Lit

Stuff with the lips and tongue.  Those type of exercises


Anything more?

I suppose color would be a lot easier to work on for voice.  Vowel sounds.  Consonants too I suppose, but that's kind of already mentioned.

[pianoplayer88]

He also has me working on pronunciation. Even if it sounds too harsh or sharp to you it sounds really good to someone else. Breathiness also works on certain songs.


I hate the siren, btw. It sounds so weird. 

[Bob]

Esp if you're a guy.  It's supposed to stretch your range, get into falsetto, etc.  Still sounds a little odd though to me too.

[timothy42b]

Yes, that's what I'm looking for. 

Any more?  I guess I'm looking for a comprehensive idea.

I only know one exercise, but it does seem to help.

You start on (well I'm a guy, I start here) C below middle C.  I sing ah in as relaxed as possible a tone for eight slow beats, while playing C, C major chord, C, C major chord, etc.  No straining, you're trying for absence of tension.  Then go up in half steps.  C#, D, etc.  Go up as high as you can without straining or getting that strangled forced tone.  Then start back down, same procedure, and keep going past C as far down as you can go, again comfortably without straining.

I got that out of a library book on singing, don't remember which one.  Most of the standard choir warmups just create tension in me, so if I know I'll have to do them I try to do this first. 

[morningstar]

I do make time to practice, but somehow never end up with as much as i would like with the other instruments to practice

[concerto_love]

scale is important....   

[Bob]

Scales yes.  Patterns.

Doing things legao v. staccato

Flexibility.

[concerto_love]

it's already answered  . This thread is helping me too, thx guys! 

[Bob]

I just want the voice as a basic tool.  Stinks when it disappears though.

[keypeg]

I just want the voice as a basic tool.  Stinks when it disappears though.

That should make it easy to find.  Follow your nose.    

[pianoplayer88]

I have now been working on raising my chest voice. Working on my middle range...

Just out of curiosity, what's the highest note you've hit and what is your range?


My range is 3 to 3 1/2 octaves, and the highest note I've ever hit is the Ab after high C.

[morningstar]

I have now been working on raising my chest voice. Working on my middle range...

Just out of curiosity, what's the highest note you've hit and what is your range?


My range is 3 to 3 1/2 octaves, and the highest note I've ever hit is the Ab after high C.

Let you know when I get over my cold hahaha I'll send you a audio file how's that?

[pianoplayer88]

Ok. That's fine. Hopefully I'll be able to listen to it with our computer.

[m19834]

I am a vocalist and my current daily routine is to practice the piano as much as possible ... speaking of which.

[concerto_love]

highest range: F# in 3rd octave!!!