Saturday, January 20, 2007

Singing

As a singer, I've learnt to become much more imaginative. I've been taught so many analogies and comparisons people use to help them sing better. They are very interesting and amusing, I must admit, but they are really effective! Here, I've compiled a handful.

Low-register notes

1. Beat your chest as if you're King Kong to help you sing low notes.
2. Gulp down cold water when you wake up in the morning and blast your lowest note.
3. Sing like a BK Mushroom Swiss Double, not a KFC Shrooms burger.
4. Sing like fatty pork, not lean pork.
5. Do not sing as if you're struggling to walk across a bog.

High-register notes

1. Place your voice on the mezzanine level of the bungalow, not the ground level one, which is cheap and has no scenery to look at.
2. Let your voice be like a feather that is buoyant in the breeze.
3. Imagine you are holding a lit candle in front of you like Sarah Brightman. When you sing, the candle flame should not flicker violently.
4. Sing with your centre of gravity pinned at the bottom of the pelvis (crudely but truthfully, in between the legs).
5. Tuck in/squeeze your buttock muscles to sing a very high note.

Transition

1. Let your voice turn into a pole-vaulter who gracefully glides over the beam.
2. Sing as if you are a jockey, riding a horse to leap over fences.
3. Sing as if you are putting a slab of char siew pork through the hook.
4. Sing like a Chinese dancer waving her long ribbons around.
5. Sing like a ballet dancer leaping across the stage.

Tone

1. Your voice should be the mellow colour of maroon, royal blue or burnt sienna, not bubblegum pink or pastel blue.
2. Sing like the Cantonese porridge, not like the Teochew porridge.
3. Do not sing like a secondary school chorister, a Taiwanese female singer, Mary Poppins or an 80-year old ah-mah.
4. Sing with an 'OO' in your 'A' (ah) and 'I' (as in 'in').
5. Sing as if you have an apple/fishball in your mouth.
6. Sing as if you have an ice-cream stick pressed down on your tongue.
7. Do not sing as if you are a happy little girl eating a lollipop while skippety-hopping in the playground.
8. Do not sing like a vacuum that reverses the way it works and gives out too much air.
9. Do not let your voice remind others of a zipper.

Movement
1. Sing like the currents that flow past you when you swim.
2. Sing like the leaves swirling in the winds.
3. Sing like a bouncey spring.
4. Let your voice become a hand that is repeatedly stroking the body of a cat.

Breathing

1. Your pelvic muscles is your bank, and your diaphragm is your ATM.
2. Breathe as if you are sniffing a flower.
3. Breathe through your nose and let the air flow into the part between your brows while breathing out. (???)
4. Let your breath be a liquid that is poured to fill the bottle fully.
5. Breathing = noteless singing

Haha.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the tips!

    Haha. :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. i must confess that this blogpost gave me an endless source of laughter. i was really laughing and laughing

    ReplyDelete