Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Bric Slade Masterclass 9/24/13

Bric Slade
MasterClass


Mr. Glenn suggested that she should give more energy to the piece. When she started singing it was less energetic than the piano accompaniment. She was instructed to think one dynamic above the piano. I feel it was much better when she did this. It was like she took command of the performance rather than acted like she was afraid of stepping on the pianists’ toes. Mr. Glenn said it takes just as much energy to sing piano than it does to sing forte. Piano needs to sit on a fortissimo body. She has a very open sound. Usually when she sings it doesn’t seem to have as much energy but when she really focused on giving more dimensionality to each note it really surprised me. For instance, Mr. Glenn referred to a climbing part in the piece where the high note became too thin and made it almost sound flat. When she added a little more color to it, it really made it sound full and vibrant. Her voice really came into focus when she focused more on diction than producing a good sound. It made the performance seem more real rather than robotic. One thing I really like about what Mr. Glenn has said In all the master classes I have seen Is his stress on keeping the same vowel throughout the song. Just because you are changing pitches doesn’t mean that  you need to change vowels. You need to prepare for the pitches with spacious vowels but once you have the vowel you need to stick with it or it could mess with your staying loose.

 

Sarah Boucher

Emily Floyd
 
I feel her performance isn’t as spacious in the back of the throat as it should be. It comes with having a centered strong core to hold the throat and everything open. She might be forcing just a little with her throat muscles rather than using her abdominal muscles. With some parts of her singing this isn’t the case. She prepares well, so I know it isn’t an ability issue. It just comes with practice. Breathing properly will help improve this. Much of her breathing is shallow rather than full and balloony like it should be. I have the same problems when I sing. Thomas Glenn said the same thing about her breathing issues. He suggested breathing in rhythm. He told her to take fuller breaths “all the way down to the floor”. I feel it helped her seem not so powerless against the line she was singing. It sounded more effortless. It also opened her up. It was quite miraculous. It fixed everything that I said about her voice at the beginning. He also suggested releasing the air more relaxed, very freely and careless. I think when she gave up on trying holding back her breath the performance was fuller and richer.  It didn’t sound so thin and weak as before.

 

Sarah Lowe

Her posture wasn’t as straight as I would have liked. Her breathing was like a Shallow bucket rather than filling the back and down. Intonation is great. Her vowels are very spacious which helps her avoid intonation problems. Her breathing was gaspy. Her voice looses a little power at the end of the phrases. Thomas Glenn said she didn’t look like she was having fun. He told her to have more fun with the piece and when she pulled it off he said hell ya! It was much better I could tell. That’s really it to her performance. She needed to just do it and forget being shy. When she let it go and did how she felt it was like 10 times better. When she took creative liscence with her phrasing it was much more interesting to listen too.

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