The Singers Thread

[Tessar]

OoooooOOOOOooooh guess what I figured out how to do last night?!!? I figured out how to give my high notes 'space' in the back of the mouth/throat! I was just playing around with my voice in the shower, testing the difference between taking a breath, setting the vowel, and then singing vs. the 'breathing in the vowel' trick that I've been doing for my high notes. I noticed that the main difference is in how the breath flows, BUT also that breathing in the vowel makes me open the 'back' of my mouth more. I played around with that and it started making my middle register easier to access.

I don't think I have it quite right yet, but I think I'm on the right path. I played around doing my middle register with too much space and too little space... too little space makes my voice shrill and difficult to control, while too much space makes it woofy and I lose the true vowel. So there's definitely a happy medium for me to find, but I have certainly been keeping my mouth too small up to this point and I was opening the front and middle of my mouth instead of properly opening up the back space.


We're supposed to look at O Del Mio Amato Ben by Donaudy today, and I also want to try to look at the Catalog aria from Don Giovanni. But last night while I was watching a DVD of Don Giovanni (which I'd never seen before--I just knew a few arias from it) I discovered the character Masetto!!!! I think I'm in love. It feels like a psudo-tenor role in the way his character is portrayed (i.e. he's not the big manly bass, he's more of a romantic/pathetic character) and I REALLY want to try his aria. I love how he's angry, but it's not like one of Handel's 'rage' aria where you're like a big burly guy singing how you're going to kill everyone with your godlike powers . It's more like impotent rage, and you don't find hardly any baritone roles like that! I'm going to go find the aria in the music library in just a few minutes and give it a shot.