Yep. This is a post about singing. We singing blokes have a strange language, indeed. And somehow throughout this strange world, we are able to find our best warble and sing on.
Since the 1980s, I have heard everything in my voice lessons from ping it into the mask to sing from your arse. And often these images actually do help with legitimate vocal pedagogy challenges e.g. finding balanced placement and sustaining efficient breath support.
Find your dome? Perhaps you need more space.
Sing in the snout position? Perhaps your sound needs to be more forward.
And my new favorite, compliments of my vocal coach Giovanni Longo? Avoid sausage singing.
Say what? As a recovering phrase breaker, I greatly needed to hear this from my vocal coach. If not kept on a short legato leash, I will quickly stray to the dark side of ABC (angular bel canto.) Yes, my singer pals, who haven’t dozed off yet, that was meant to be an oxymoron. As far as this Midwest US singer understands, a beautiful Bel Canto line is a fluid horizontal sweep. Not that I frequent this land as much as I should….
All of that to say, I caught myself using some of this wacky language with my public school 10 years olds today as we attempted to find more legato in their singing. They were highly amused when I asked them to stop sausage singing and actually seemed to kind of get what they needed to do.
So, I thank you for your patience, vocal coach Giovanni Longo. Just think, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
#akintsucrooner
#recoveringabc
akintsucrooner 