Bric Slade VRH 10/31

Bric Slade VRH 10/31

Sarah Brenay- The larynx seemed to be relaxed. The are was free and flowing for the most part, but I still sensed some swallowing of the sound in the tongue. I feel it could be more grounded in some parts it sounds too straight tone. Perhaps speaking the text poetically could fix a lot of the moments that are lacking. Overall I thought that she had the right idea and with some more practice it will be golden.

Mariah Boyer- I noticed some tension in the root of the tongue. More expression is required to connect to this song. Reading text poetically to understand and speaking poetically will help the body connect. The vowels could use some defining. It got better as the piece went on. Some of the piece was a little flat, which goes back to staying connected. Reading text could potentially fix this. Also breathing lower in the body would help.

Carolee Beck- Fantastic expression. You are kind of collapsing the body and reaching with the neck a little bit. I enjoyed your style in the song. Try to let things happen rather than make things happen.

Bric Slade VRH 10/29/13

 Bric Slade VRH 10/24/13

Elizabeth Tait:  It sounded great. There was free flowing air. The breathing was smooth. The diction was great. There might have been some tension in the upper range.

Ben Shaw: Sounded like he was holding back the resonance in the bottom of his throat. Needs better placement. Sounded like the air could be flowing more freely. Diction was alright. Could use more expression.

Kaylee Ann Simmons: Needs more shape and line to the phrasing. Needs to stay more connected. This will bring more free flowing air.

Mandie Skousen: For the most part air was free but still could sense some tension in the root of the tongue.

Laura Wride: Needs more free flowing air.

Emily Cottam: Needs more free flowing air.

Brad Summers: Improved since last time with the placement of the resonance. Still feeling like it needs to be more up and back. Speaking the text will help the music run more smoothly.

Luke Shepherd: Great performance. Air was free and flowing. Expressive in the text. The diction was understandable. There might have been some tension in the upper body that I noticed.

Jaron Putnum: Great performance. The air was free.

Taylee Beckstead: had flowing air.

Sam Meredith: Still seems like he needs better placement of resonance. Sounds like he is swallowing his sound. Sounded connected.

Bric Slade Master Class 10/22/13

Jake Spjute

Breathing is balloon and free. Diction is good. I feel there is some tightness in the upper notes. Free flowing air is needed, but he is getting there. Intonation on some high notes is a little flat.
Cindy asked him "What’s your favorite part to sing? What parts of the music really bring you sensations of release and emotional engagement?" Tried to get him to tap into that same sensation and applying it to other parts of the song. Talked a lot about the "magic Unicorn horn" that we all need to be singing into. I feel that this will allow him to get his placement more correct and in tune. Also by creating the line of music by linking the text together would allow for more smooth singing.

Luke Shepherd

Expression is very good. Diction is very good. Breathing is very free and open. Air flow is free and trusting and open. Luke mentioned that he looked at each phrase of the piece and asked "what is my objective". This definitely helps in the expression of music. There should always be an idea in your head, a reason why you are saying what you are saying.

Laura Berg

I felt that there was some gaspy breathing but for the most part it was very open and free. The air flow was also free for the most part. Worked on "line singing" where she was chopping up most of it. I feel there was more of a connection when she did this than when she was chopping the song up.

Bric Slade MC 10/15/13

Brooke Myers

Breathing is a little unprepared. I feel like there is some holding of the breath before she starts phonating. The jaw could be dropped more loosely. The expression will come with practicing the song more and understanding/memorizing the wording. Cindy told her to be more ready for the C#, the high note in the transitioning chord she sings. He told her to "get out of the way" of her voice so she could hit that higher note. Then she had her distract herself from using her neck muscles by doing something else with her body before she tensed up. wlrewaof Binuidlg Ternoramsfrs

Laekin Burgess

I feel there is some tightness in the upper body a little. The stance could be more centered and less  swayie. Cindy had her speak the text in english in order to make the text make more sense in german. Looked like she was thinking to much about the text. Cindy suggested opening the A more wide instead of closing it off and likened it to threading a needle. If the eye of the needle is huge its nothing. When she was taking the song seriously, there was less swaying but still there. It started during the part she knew the least. Overall we can still see her thinking about the music but it is improving quickly. When she opened her jaw taller for the high A at the end of the song it was more free and in tune.

Emily Floyd

She could open her vowels quite a bit taller. Cindy suggested "hijacking" her singing voice for her speaking voice. She had her speak the text quite a bit because there are small and simple details to speaking the text that don't come out in singing that could be added. Normal, elongate, elevate, inflect.

 

 

 

Bric Slade VRH 10/10/13

Caitlyn Craig:  Your diction was good. Breathing was open in the chest and in the core.Intonation was placed well. It sounded like it was in tune. I felt for the most part you were breathing on the gesture of inhalation.  Tightened up a bit when singing the high notes. Just have to loosen up and relax when you sing those notes. Trust your voice it will do its job.

Brooke Myers: Keep in mind expression is half the battle. I feel it could have been a little more expressive. Your body seemed a little stiff. I feel focusing on expression will loosen you up a for the most part. Just relax. I feel your vibrato is a little fluttery which makes me thing your tongue might be retracting. Get that thing out of the way! I do the same thing. I feel it was quite an improvement from the last time I heard you sing.

Alyssa Robinson: Breathing really low which is good but expansion in the rib cage and the back is also required. A little gaspy and forced. Practicing just speaking the text will give you a sense of the natural breathing rhythm of the piece. Diction could be improved. I wasn't sure what she was saying for the most part. The song wasn't entirely in tune. Vowels need to be darker and more tall and gothic.

Bric Slade MC 10/8/13

Brad Summers
Timbre is very dark. Resonance needs to be placed higher. Needs to feel like your singing out your eyebrows. I sense some gaspy breathing. He was told to sing "happier". I feel it brought his intonation into a more natural place. It sounded happier too. With the extra expression he brought to the songs his breathing was more relaxed and smooth. Still needs work but much improvement was seen.

Sarah Gee

The mouth at times is not opening wide enough and I am sensing some gaspy breathing at unsure moments. It makes the audience feel the singer is unsure. Her expression was very good. I liked her diction. She was told to simply be more aware of her mouth and making sure she was more open and resonant in her mouth. It really made a difference when she paid attention to everything.

Sarah Brenay

I feel there was little expression in the performance. There could be more realization of what the text means. That is what Cindy worked on. When she realized what she was trying to say it really opened her up and added to the performance.

Bric Slade MC 10/1/13

Bric Slade MC 10/1/13

Amber Denslow

Breathing is smooth and balloon like. The placement of the vowel could be more spacious in the back of the throat. It is causing intonation problems. Expressively... Ok. She could read the text and be more expressive. The piece is difficult because it is all a cappella and she kind of moves all over the place, its a challenge to stay on the pitch. Dr. Dewey encouraged her to keep the pitch in her head that she keeps returning to and it fixed a lot of the intonation issues. Loosening up helped her up quite a bit too.

 

Mariah Boyer

There isn’t much expansion in the lower body when she breaths and you can here it when she sings. She can open up her mouth quite a bit more than she is. When she goes for high notes she closes off her mouth more. She doesn’t trust her voice when she actually opens her mouth on the high notes. She is clenching on top. I think she is more worried about technique than expression. She was told to think about the text, listen to the music, and figure out her strategies. There is much communication in the harmonies of the piano part that she could draw upon to communicate to the audience. When she thought about these things she seemed a lot more desperate. It was quite a change. It added so much more emotion. Then she was told to “bring the audience the verb” by understanding the verbs of the song.

Ben Shaw

His Sound was very dark. I feel he is putting a ton of work into everything, which may have something to do with the fact that his upper body wasn’t very loose. He was given an exercise where he sat in a chair and leaned over like a ragdoll which I feel freed up a lot of energy. It really improved on his power in his voice. It sounded more free, but in control. By working on the gesture of inhalation too I feel he will improve.

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.

Bric Slade Master Class 9/17/13

Bric Slade Master Class 9/17/13

Sam Meredith

I feel like Sam had deep centered breathing, very balloon like but he could definitely breath better to prepare for the high notes in some parts of the piece. He has a covered sound which doesn't promote fullness in his voice. Expression wise I feel he is focused too much on the mechanics of singing to make the song have any emotional dynamics at all. Cindy worked with him in having him draw how he felt the melodic line went. I think this gave him the opportunity to think more about the piece and what impression he was trying to give us with it. I feel his expression improved quite a bit through this exercise but I still think he needs to go back and not just understand the song, but understand every word and why that word is in place. A lot of what an audience hears is what an audience sees.

Luke Shepherd

Great breathing. Effortless and smooth. Intonation spot on. Open and resonant. I feel the arms were a little tense, I might be wrong. I feel he has the right idea what to express through this piece but I still feel there are parts he could sing differently. Cindy worked with him trying to draw the phrases out and crescendoing to the very end. I feel this sort of guided the audience and pulled me emotionally more into the piece. Driving the emotion in one steady crescendo into the end of each phrase has a powerful effect other than rising and falling through each phrase. Overall it was a wonderful performance.

Bric Slade VRH 9/19/13

Luke Shepherd

I really like Lukes voice and every time I hear about his experience with music in the past it floors me. I'm not sure I want to believe it. Luke has free open breathing and is engaged at the right moments when he is singing, very smooth mechanics. He has nice loose posture. Intonation on this song wasn't an issue. Expression is good but it got even better. I feel when Mr. Glenn gave him something to think about, about relating the aria to something he loved, the song got deeper. I could sense that tender feeling that he described and it gave me chills. It was really quite nice. Overall I think Mr. Glenn had quite a few good points, I don't know if I entirely agree on the deep vowels part but he is a professional so what do I know. More importantly I feel he was giving really great pointers on how to make the piece his own, which is something I could do a lot more of in my own songs.

Elizabeth Tait

Liz has really great technique. The breathing is free and balloon-like. The posture is loose but grounded and centered. The intonation was open and the song was in tune. Not much I could say wrong about the performance. I feel as Mr. Glenn helped her make that high note fuller he might have been onto something. Its just something that will give more depth to her voice if she can pull it off.

Bric Slade VRH 9/5/13

 Bric Slade
Voice Recital Hour
9/5/13

Emily Floyd
I felt the performance was a little held back. It could possibly be because the breathing was less like a balloon and more like a bucket. We need to expand our breathing so we have plenty of energy to sing. Most of her problems could be traced back to this. It was causing her to seem less confident and emotionally weak. She has a very Bright voice and most of it was in tune. One thing that could help with the breathing is practicing annunciation. Clear crisp consonants will give the piece a little bit more power and we will be able to understand her more. Other than that it was very clean, it didn't seem she was straining her voice so it was quite healthy.

Amber Denslow
The first thing I noticed was that she was very rigid and was moving her fingers throughout the performance. It kind of gave me the feeling she was nervous. Relax. Being tense effected her breathing. She needs to un-furrow her brows. This wasted energy could be quite useful in performing this piece. She has a very light, clean, healthy sound which leads me to believe she is using her power in her core like she should, which was good. Loosening up will give her that much more and it will help her to connect with her audience emotionally as well.

Amber Ferrow
I feel the performance was a little constrained. She was holding back and she needs to breath more free. The resonance was a little twangy/nasely. She needs to focus on opening up her whole body when she sings. This piece paints a very vivid picture with its poetry and such and at one time she speaks the text and there is so much emotion she could put into it but she doesn't.

Michael Lechner
I feel his performance was quite a bit breathy and forced. Opening up more in the back of the throat and breathing down into his core will help him overcome some of the resonance issues he showed. Stylistically I was unimpressed. I'm not sure he knows what he's singing, and a lot of the time I can't tell either. Reading the text and practicing annunciation will add more power and also reading what it means in english will give him more to work with as far as his emotion goes.

Jared Daley
I feel he sang this song very open and very smoothly. He prepared for the high notes and knocked them down like a pro. Now, there are high notes in that song that are less important but he still has to prepare for them and hit them, and not just skim over them. Overall it was a very healthy smooth performance. I like his energy in his voice, he has a lot of expression. In his face not so much, but I might not have been paying much attention. It seemed to me he was like a statue and not so loose.

Sarah Gee
A Little more emotion will fix a lot of the diction problems she had with this performance. Read the text and find out what it means to you. Make the audience feel something. I feel I couldn't understand much of what she said. Other than that her voice was very vibrant and in tune.

Jordan Davis
Jordan has a very bright, clear, voice. I don't feel it is coming from the right place. Its a little to forward and should be more lofty. He needs to focus his power in his core muscles and less his neck, I felt there was quite a bit of strain in the high notes. Relax, practice breathing throughout the song, maybe even practice the piece slower and I know he can nail those notes.

Aubrianne Dunn
I feel her voice was a little raspy. There is room to improve by bringing that sound even further into the back of your throat rather than the front, opening up your mouth like an inverted megaphone. It will make it sound a lot clearer and healthier. The diction was hard to understand but can be improved if she would look at her music and sing it as though she were speaking it, acting it out. Her voice is very vibrant and flutters like a bird and this keeps the piece nicely in-tune.

Emily Hess
Her voice was lofty and open. Her breathing was smooth and relaxed which made her performance sound healthy. One thing I noticed was her voice sounded a tiny bit raspy which makes me wonder if she is using all the energy she could in her core.

Kayelee Farris
Her performance was a bit gaspy and it seemed like she was taking quite a few bucket breaths. Her vowels closed at the end of her words sometimes which didn't offer the best open sound she could produce. Working on keeping the vowels tall throughout the word and breathing more smoothly will up her performance by quite a bit. Stylistically I wasn't sure if she felt what she was singing. I think she could read the poetry and find out more about what this piece actually means.

Bric Slade Master Class 9/3/13

Bric Slade
Master Class
9/3/13

Shalayna Guisao
 Very nice bright sound. Lofty resonance focused in the back rather than the front of the mouth. She has a very healthy vibrant sound, a wonderful model for healthy singing. The vowels were a little closed off which caused I think some diction pitfalls. I couldn't understand everything. The help she recieved with understanding the text and speaking it with more feeling and emotion helped her overcome those pitfalls. It was quite a remarkable improvement.

 Jake Spjute
I like Jakes confidence. I wish I had as much. He doesn't freak out when he hits those high notes. There were places where the airway sounded constricted like he might be reaching and forcing the sound. The pencil trick helped open it up quite a bit and added another demension to the sheer power Jake gives during his performances.


Elizabeth Tait
 Elizabeth has a very bright, clear, clean, healthy voice. Totally free. Confident. Vibrant. Most of what she can improve on I feel is appearance. In helping her loosen up her posture whe was able to make the song more stylistic. I was able to connect more with her after that.


 

Bric Slades VRH Critiques8/29

Bric Slade
VRH Critique
August 29th, 2013

Sarah Brenay
I feel that for the most part she had very smooth breathing, but still there were parts that she could work on not taking sharp breaths. Mostly with the breathing it felt like she was holding back energy in certain places of the piece and it could be making her more tired. Intonation wasn't a problem, she was in tune. The timbre of her singing could be more resonant. Her wording was clear and precise. I could understand her. Overall her performance was confident and expressive. Could be more free with the breathing.

Sarah Boucher
Smooth relaxed unrestricted breathing. Intonation for the most part clear and in-tune. Timbre seemed too relaxed and could be more open and resonant. Piece was wonderfully expressive. Clear diction. Overall, wider more gothic vowels will help intonation be that much better.

Taylee Beckstead
Breathing was too sharp and it was effecting her intonation. Bright resonant timbre helped her performance be clear and in tune. Seemed like there was one level of expression in the piece. Clear and precise diction. All in all it could be more expressive if she understood the piece more perhaps. This would also help her with her breathing more relaxed.

Mariah Boyer
Sharp intake breathing. Holding breath too much in parts where she doesn't sing. This tires a singer out and makes it harder to breathe properly. Clear and sweet timbre. Emotional expression. Breathing properly will amplify her story-telling ability. Understandable for the most part, improper breathing effecting the other part. In short, Beautiful intonation and timbre. Breathing more smoothly and relaxed will make the piece seem more natural and free energy to be more expressive.

Carolee Beck
Smooth, calm, confidant breathing. Her timbre is wide and spacious. Her vowels might need a little work but that is my unprofessional opinion. Needs precise diction, feels like I am losing her words. Her performance was deeply expressive and moving.

Emily Cottam
Restricted breathing which in turn is effecting low notes. Her high notes seemed neglected, like she was just rolling over them. She has an open and spacious timbre. Not enough expression in the piece. Seemed a little "american" in the italian.

Laura Berg
Tight restricted breathing. Bright bell-like timbre. Couldn't understand a word, wondered if it was in another language. Tight in the body. Lively expression in the face. If we could find a way to keep that expression without tightening the body and relaxing her breathing it would make her performance that much better.

Cailtlin Craig
Needs to work on breathing more deeply, they are too shallow, which cause slight intonation problems. Quite relaxed in the body. Clear diction and timbre. Very expressive performance.