Sam VRH Critiques 9/12

Sam
Hannah Lovato-I thought the breathing in Hannah's performance was a little rushed at times. The breaths in certain part of the song seemed to be a little jumpy and shallow. There was a little perceivable tension in the shoulders as well. All of this made the tone quality and volume of her performance diminish slightly at the ends of phrases. Relaxing the posture a little more and taking more time to breath will help that. In the middle of phrases and in spots where the breathing was better, however, she had very nice intonation. The timbre of her voice was mostly very good, but was a bit closed when she sang in the lower register. I didn't notice any problems with diction. I thought she did a wonderful job expressing the emotion of the piece. Overall the performance had a great sound with a nice resonance to it when Hannah had proper breaths.
Jaron Putnam- There was nice breath support, which lead to consistency in tone quality and dynamic. I still felt like their was a little tension in the shoulders though. If he relaxes a little bit more he might even get more breath support. The intonation was very consistent. Timbre was great, but it seemed to be a little too covered on the frontal vowels. I thought his diction was great overall. He did a great job bringing out the consonants. This is one of the factors that contributed a lot to the good overall expressiveness of the performance. Jaron had an overall solid performance that seemed to be fairly effortless.
Laekin Burgess- Laekin had some tension in her upper body that seemed to affect her breathing adversely. I could also hear a couple of her breaths. The tone was a little shaky in the lower register and started to die towards the ends of phrases as a result. Other than that, though she had very nice intonation and a powerful timbre. I didn't notice any problems with her diction. It was a very expressive performance, which added greatly to the overall quality of her singing. Overall i thought she did a great job, and although there are still some improvements that need to be made, I can already sense that she is making some improvements compared to where she was at the beginning of the week.