- The
exercise in which we lay on the floor and worked to relax ourselves into a
regulated 4/4 breathing pattern was, in my opinion, a very important exercise.
This is because it aids your concentration and helps you to relax and focus as
a preparation for the warm-up and performance to come. It is also important to
relax to rid yourself of any tension “tension can limit breathing capacity”
- Another exercise that I found particularly
useful was the one in which we shook our hands and legs. We shook each hand and
leg whilst counting down from 10 and this exercise really helped to loosen and relax
our muscle. Its aim was to limber us up and remove any tension to avoid
stiffness throughout the warm-up and performance. This is important to do as if
we remain with tension built up in our muscles or stiffness throughout our
bodies the less control we maintain over
our voice and the muscles that help to make your voice, be it in your neck,
abdominals or back etc… The more relaxed and limber we are, the better our voice
will be ad the better quality that our voice will create, it will also help to
prevent any damage to your voice.
- I found this session
very helpful and found it very useful to learn a large range of different
warm-up exercises. I also went through these exercises on my own in order to
gain a better understanding of how they work to help our voice. The exercise
where I placed my hands on my diaphragm whilst saying “PPP-PP-PPP-POO”
was very helpful in gaining a better understanding on how my diaphragm
works, and built a connection between my diaphragm and voice.
- Warming up the body
really helped me to concentrate and relax before exercising your voice. It also
really helped to regulate my breathing. This was helpful as it would be very
difficult to perform if we were out of breath.
1.
We started off the lesson by getting
into a circle. We then had to tense our muscles and stretch up toward to the
ceiling as far as we could before we began to gradually relax our muscles
starting with our fingers. Once we got to our shoulders (deltoid muscles) we
let out all the air and dropped all of the tension with a “phwamph!” –
we did this by going floppy from the waist up, letting our upper body just hang
over the bottom half of our bodies. We then stayed in this position, with our
arms relaxed, hanging over our heads, and gently swung from side to side. Next,
we remained in the position of our upper body hanging over our lower body and
began to walk around the room, still in this position. We then started to add
the sounds that monkeys create and travelled around the room ‘communicating with
one another’.
By doing this it helped to, not only
stretch and warm up our muscles but it also helped to warm up our voices. Our
diaphragm is the muscle that aids in expelling air from our lungs when we fall
forward, because of this, the diaphragm is a muscle that is especially warmed
up. When we reached up toward the ceiling our rib cage opened up slightly more
and gave space for our lungs to fill with air, whereas when we were hunched
over, our lungs had less space to fill. “Singing is
of course an excellent way to stretch the voice. It strengthens the breathing
and makes you find and use the resonances in the chest and head.”
1.
Our
next exercises were large arm circles and swings. These are another physical
exercise that work-out that exercises our deltoid muscles and helps to open up
our chests, once again increasing the space for our lungs to spread into,
allowing us to fill them with more air.
1.
Next we did some neck tilts and
neck circles. We also did some lateral tilts, these physical stretches simply
help to warm up the body which is an important part of warming up your voice.
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