Sarah Brenay - VRH critiques

VRH critiques - Sarah Brenay

Emily Floyd
-I'm noticing bucket breathing throughout. Focus on "letting the air in" instead of forcibly inhaling.
-mostly center of pitch, but pitch was less exact on ascending lines. Tended to go flat in higher register.
-rich, melodious voice especially in low register. Tends to sound pressed in high register, probably from the tongue holding in the back or from stiffness in the jaw. Or both. For me it's both. : )
-I feel like you had all of the vowels and consonants right, but it sounds mechanical. Needs the right syllabic stress. Right now every syllable sounds the same.
-your expression looked like you were focusing hard. It can take a while to get comfortable enough with a piece that you feel you can focus on your expression, which is why it needs to be there in our practice! I feel like so many of us - and this goes for most everyone I've seen sing - have two or three facial expressions that we automatically pull out and put on when we sing. It looks automatic and insincere. Practice like Cindy did with Shalayna and sing it like you would say it.
-overall a wonderful sounding voice, and a confident attitude, but some little technical kinks to free up that will make singing so much easier.

Amber D.
-good breathing
-the pitch can be erratic, especially when you are making large leaps in the voice. You need to focus and hear the pitch in your mind before you sing it.
-bright timbre, a little breathy. I feel like you pay more attention to long notes than short ones; your tone is breathier and less brilliant on the eighth notes, and then you let it ring better when you hold notes out. Gotta pay attention to all of em! I feel you may be tensing your jaw as well, which could be causing the raspiness.
-you definitely have the nasality thing going for the French, but I didn't see the lip pursing part.
-I can tell you have a lot of expression, you know what your saying, but the way you kept changing where you were looking so fast made me think you were either afraid or confused... If the song was supposed to be afraid and confused then you nailed it... but it was distracting how much you moved around.
-relax the hands and the feet. you were touching your fingertips together a lot and were poised up on the toe of your left foot like you were ready to spring forward and run away. try to look more relaxed and natural... even if your far from relaxed.

Amber "the younger"
-not using lower body strength, can't feel the connection with the whole body resulting in less support for the breath
-under pitch especially when voice gets tight and chesty in higher register
-brassy voice, nice low range, but muscled and chesty up higher. Which is appropriate for the style I suppose, but sounded unhealthy, not well supported.
-chewing words = jaw not relaxed = hard to understand
-expression was flat, especially during spoken lines
-fun song and she showed a lot of courage.

Michael Lechner
-poster is very caved in, shoulders so hunched, not allowing breath into the body
-good intonation
-a voice capable of so much richness, warmth and power, but very closed and nasally right now. Need to bring resonance up and back instead of straight out of the mask of the face.
-mumbled, mouth is barely open. I need to show you that jaw releasing trick thing of Cindy's
-hard to get expression because you were so nervous. It's ok though. My first time singing in Recital Hour was the worst I think I've ever sung. It's one of the scariest places ever, until you get used to it. Until you realize that everyone's scared and everyone's still learning.

Jared Dailey
-really nice balloony supported breaths
-pitch was great
-chesty and powerful voice, very nice, but a little hoarse in the upper range? tongue tension maybe?
-I understood all of it, but I feel like it was strangely choppy. The phrases were cut short and segmented, for effect I think, but if you practice the way Shalayna did in masterclass, singing it like you would speak it, that might help it sound a little more natural. Unless that's exactly how you would say it. It's all up to your interpretation.
-such great facial expression! Really well animated and not phony looking. The body looked stiff by comparison. Hands kind of gestured once or twice but didn't quite look like they knew what they were doing. Maybe think about some appropriate gestures? I'm sure the masterclass in SL will help with that stuff too.

Sarah Gee
-body was tense, need to relax and take calm breaths before you start.
-very good intonation
-clear, bubbly, voice, so pleasant to listen to
-a little mumbled, make sure jaw is relaxed
-I couldn't tell what emotion you were trying to convey. I think you were just nervous.
-Relax kiddo! Everyone in the audience is on your side. We all know you can do well, and want you to do well.

Jordan Davis
-hips need to come forward, posture is not straight, causing shallow breaths
-not very in tune, especially when leaping larger intervals. But pretty consistently off key. Needs to learn notes before singing them.
-bright tone, strong, but shallow
-I understood every word, but it could have sounded more natural
-pretty good facial expression, animated, didn't look too fake. Could have been even more emphatic when singing "I hate music!"

Aubrianne Dunn
-pretty nice breathing when you have a break, but quick breaths were shallow
-good across lower range, but upper range was so pinched and tense pitch barely squeaked out.
-such a melodious, feminine voice, but she's hurting herself trying to muscle her chest voice up into the higher range, oh man my throat hurt just listening! She really needs help releasing all that tension. I don't even have anything for diction and expression because I was so worried about what she was doing to her voice.

Emily Hesse
-breathing I didn't notice anything wrong.
-some spots had pitch trouble, especially fast moving lines and the end of long held out notes.
-bright, feminine, warm, bubbly timbre
-expression was good while she was singing, but I noticed she didn't start with the pianist. She just stood there till she started singing and then she was animated. Always need to start performing when the music starts.
-confident, nice performance, looked lovely, but walked around a lot. I don't mean to be rude, but it creeps me out so bad when singers inch their way forward like that. Beh! Gives me the creeps just thinking about it.

Kaylee Farris
-shallow bucket breathing throughout, tense body
-intonation was fine
-voice is swallowed and pressed, stifling an otherwise golden, rich tone
-diction is mechanic with no syllabic stress
-didn't sense any expression at all
-great potential, wide range