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Vocal lessons

You can go to the a cappella society to learn singing techniques. Check out the website at http://www.a-cappella.org.sg . Have fun singing ! Do take a look at the video as below to learn singing properly without hurting your throat !


Take note: please remember to bring water and towel and clothes.

The choral way of singing :  Bel Canto Singing

Bel canto (bel-canto) (Italian, "beautiful singing" or "beautiful song"), along with a number of similar constructions ("bellezze del canto"/"bell’arte del canto"), is a term relating to Italian singing. It has several different meanings and is subject to a wide variety of interpretations.
 
The words were not associated with a "school" of singing until the middle of the 19th century, when writers in the early 1860s used it nostalgically to describe a manner of singing that had begun to wane around 1830. Nonetheless, "neither musical nor general dictionaries saw fit to attempt [a] definition [of bel canto] until after 1900". The term remains vague and ambiguous in the 21st century and is often used to evoke a lost singing tradition.
 
Musicologists occasionally apply the label bel canto technique to the arsenal of virtuosic vocal accomplishments and concepts imparted by singing teachers to their students during the late 18th century and the early 19th century. Many of these teachers were castrati.
 
"All [their] pedagogical works follow the same structure, beginning with exercises on single notes and eventually progressing to scales and improvised embellishments" writes Potter[16] who continues, "The really creative ornamentation required for cadenzas, involving models and formulae that could generate newly improvised material, came towards the end of the process."
 
Today's pervasive idea that singers should refrain from improvising and always adhere strictly to the letter of a composer's published score is a comparatively recent phenomenon, promulgated during the first decades of the 20th century by dictatorial conductors such as Arturo Toscanini [1867–1957], who championed the dramatic operas of Verdi and Wagner and believed in keeping performers on a tight interpretive leash.
Early 19th-century teachers described the voice as being made up of three registers. The chest register was the lowest of the three and the head register the highest, with the passaggio in between. These registers needed to be smoothly blended and fully equalized before a trainee singer could acquire total command of his or her natural instrument, and the surest way to achieve this outcome was for the trainee to practise vocal exercises assiduously. Bel canto-era teachers were great believers in the benefits of vocalise and solfeggio. They strove to strengthen the respiratory muscles of their pupils and equip them with such time-honoured vocal attributes as "purity of tone, perfection of legato, phrasing informed by eloquent portamento, and exquisitely turned ornaments", as noted in the introduction to Volume 2 of Scott's The Record of Singing.
 
Major refinements occurred to the existing system of voice classification during the 19th century as the international operatic repertoire diversified, split into distinctive nationalist schools and expanded in size. Whole new categories of singers such as mezzo-soprano and Wagnerian bass-baritone arose towards the end of the 19th century, as did such new sub-categories as lyric coloratura soprano, dramatic soprano and spinto soprano, and various grades of tenor, stretching from lyric through spinto to heroic. These classificatory changes have had a lasting effect on the way singing teachers designate voices and the way in which opera house managements cast their productions.

Recommended website to visit for budding singers - http://www.vocalist.org.uk/voicetraining.html



Musical mistakes in SATB



Singing or vocal range in Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass (SATB)







  • > If you are primarily a solo/part singer, sing two contrasting solos for us, unaccompanied. We want to hear your tone, phrasing, intonation, personality, and energy. Have fun with these and pick songs that are in your comfort zone, we want to see you at your best!  Just a verse/chorus of each song is plenty. No Musical Theatre or Classical pieces, please.
  • > If you are primarily a beatboxer/vocal percussionist, please give us a demonstration (approx 2-3 mins), which can include anything and everything you’re comfortable with (straight-ahead beats, fills, freestyle beatboxing, etc). ALSO, please include a segment where you do a simple beat at a comfortable tempo along with a metronome. No need to be flashy for this part, we just want to see that you can keep a solid tempo.
    • > If you are primarily a bass singer, sing us a bass line using bass syllables (dm, doom, bm, ba, etc.) and also a bass vocal solo. The bass line can be something you just make up, or it can be an existing bass line. For the bass vocal solo, think along the lines of Old Man River, but it can be any song in any style. We just want to hear you sing a low range solo with lyrics. For both of these demonstrations, we’re looking for tone, pitch accuracy, and style. Note: if you are a bass with a higher solo register, you will also have the opportunity to show that to us as your secondary skill (see below).

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