April Is In My Mitress' Face Video Reflection

Strengths:
I believe that I did well at making my vowels open and tall, while having good knowledge of the pitches in the piece.
Weaknesses:
My biggest weakness was not taking big enough breaths, which lead to me running out of air and having to take a quick breath in the middle of phrases. I was also not very confident in my rests and timing on my entrances.

April Is In My Mistress' Face Video

Carol of the Bells Vocabulary

• Allegro
• A fast tempo marking
• Staccato
• A style of playing notes in a detached, separated, distinct manner
• Sempre
• Always
• Crescendo
• A directive to a performer to smoothly increase the volume of a particular passage or phrase
• Simile
• A directive to perform the indicated passage in the same manner as the previous passage
• Ritard
• A directive to perform a passage with a gradually delaying tempo

Posture, Breathing, Vowel Formation, and Articulation

Posture:
Standing; the proper posture for singing while standing includes having your feet flat on the floor, shoulder width apart, with little weight on the back of the feet. moving up, the knees should be ever so slightly bent as so that they are not locked. Continuing on, your hands should be comfortably at your sides. You should be standing tall, with your back straight, and your shoulders rolled back. Lastly, this includes your head and chin up, facing forwards.
Sitting; the posture for sitting includes everything from standing up that relates to the waist up, excluding that the hand can also be resting on your legs. Then for the waist and below, your feet and legs should be facing forwards, and again, your feet should be flat on the ground.
Breathing:
Good breathing should expand low, near the stomach, instead of high up in the chest. The breath should be full, and take in as much air in an efficient, preferably quiet way, as possible. Normally, this is achieved by keeping the jaw open when breathing, often times having the mouth in the formation of the upcoming vowel. Also, if it relates, the breath should follow queues by the conductor.
Vowel Formation:
Vowel formation should always include an open jaw, and should never include a wide mouth or lip formation. The tongue should never get too close or touch the roof of the mouth.
Articulation:
Articulations should be clear and easily defined as what letter(s) they are pronouncing. these help the audience in knowing what words the choir is singing, adding clarity, so they should stand out without taking away from the vowels. Articulating normally includes making d's, t's, c's and k's, and sometimes p's stand out.

Song Recommendations

1. My first recommendation for Bel Canto would be My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark by Fall Out Boy
2. My second recommendation would be On Top of The World by Imagine Dragons

I chose both of these songs, as it can be seen, mostly for the pop concert that will eventually be coming up. I can not say that i know if either of these songs have arrangements already made, but if either or both of them do, I believe that they could be good songs for our chior to sing that we would all like, but could sound nice as well.

Concert #1 Reflection

• What was our greatest successes and struggles?
• Successes:
• I believe that, from what I could hear on stage, our successes were mainly in our diction in My Favorite Things, and I believe that we did a fair job with our pitches in both pieces.
• Struggles:
• There were issues in mainly sourwood mountain, but pertains to both, with people not being definite in their knowledge of the rests, and slight echoing of people listening to others in order to know when to enter or exit.
• Do I believe that we represented ourselves professionally?
• Yes, to an fairly decent extent, I believe that we handled ourselves professionally. We walked onto the steps in a mostly quiet fashion, despite a few small phrases that I heard, as well with when we exited the steps. when we were off the stage, were loud, but it wasn't too excessive, and I didn't see any bad behavior or actions.
• What were the differences between chorale's and bel conto's performances?
• Chorale was definitely more serious about what they were singing, and it could be seen that they took it more seriously than bel conto did. 
• It's not much to say that they sung in a more mature, advanced level than we did, as they are a group of the advanced singers in the school, but it was still a major difference between the two chiors.
• Biggest goals for myself, my section, and the ensemble for the more advanced literature that will be in the next concert:
• Myself:
• Have more solidity in my knowledge of the song and be more confident in my entrances and exits
• My Section:
• My goal
• Get out of talking range of pitches
• Whole Ensemble:
• Be independent in our sections from the other ones
• Excluding the guys; to be louder
• Everyone could be more confident 

Sourwood Mountain

How is speaking in your native language easy and difficult?

How is speaking in your native language easy and difficult?

Singing in my native language, English, is easy because I can understand the words that I'm singing, and therefore know how I should sing them. and it is just nice to know what it is you're saying when you're singing. However, it is also difficult to sing in your native language because over time, you have built up your own certain way of how you say words, and because you said them that way for so long, it's hard to have to sing words in a different way than you speak them.

Posture, breathing, vowel formation, and articulation explanation

To start off, when using good posture while standing, your feet should be shoulder width apart, knees comfortable and slightly bent, making sure not to lock them, with a tall stance on the balls of your feet and your shoulders rolled back, which pushes out the chest.  While siting, posture should include anything previously said about the upper body, plus sitting on the front or middle of the chair and having your feet on the floor. Having good posture increases one's ability to take a good, full, proper breath, and helps with singing out.
 To continue about breathing, a good breath should come from the down low, and should expand out, instead of up. A full breath allows for maximum control in your singing, allows for strong singing, and helps keep long notes from dropping off towards the end of them.
Next, vowel formation. It is what it sounds like. Some examples are making sure not to keep your tone very tall instead of wide, and keeping your jaw open. This makes one sound very mature in their singing.

Finally, articulation. Articulation is the clarity in the production of notes. Articulating is making sure that things like k's, t's and d's can be heard clearly and easily. Good articulation helps with the understanding of what the lyrics are of a song when it's being listened to. 

Reflection

       I believe that the reason for why my newest singing test is better than my last is because my confidence has changed. in my old test, i was not confident in my singing, but i have gotten to slowly become more so, resulting in what i believe is any bettering in my singing. This does not mean that i couldn't become more confident, and then think even more about musical things, like pitch and dynamics.

Roses

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