Song Selection: Folk

The song I will begin working on first is A Case of You by Joni Mitchell.
Joni Mitchell:
Joni Mitchell is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. She began her career singing in small nightclubs in Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto. 
 In 1965 she moved to the United States and, touring constantly, began to be recognised when her original songs ("Urge for Going," "Chelsea Morning," "Both Sides, Now," "The Circle Game") were covered by notable folk singers, allowing her to sign with Reprise Records and record her own debut album in 1968. Settling in Southern California, Mitchell, with popular songs like "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Woodstock", helped define an era and a generation. Her more starkly personal 1971 recording Blue has been called one of the best albums ever made.Blue is one of my favourite albums. It is certainly one of my favourite folk albums.  Musically restless, Mitchell switched labels and began moving toward jazz rhythms by way of lush pop textures on 1974's Court and Spark, her best-selling LP, featuring her radio hits "Help Me" and "Free Man in Paris."

Popular Songs: Big Yellow Taxi, Woodstock, Blue, River, Carey
My Favourite Songs: A Case of You, California, Big Yellow Taxi  Instruments: Vocals, Guitar, Piano, Dulcimer (or mountain dulcimer) is a fretted string instrument of the zither family, typically with three or four strings. Its origins are in the Appalachian region of the United States. The body extends the length of the fingerboard, and its fretting is generally diatonic), Ukulele, Auto-harp

Joni Mitchell recorded "A Case of You" in 1971, during her early folk period. The song was first released on the 1971 album Blue with Mitchell playing Appalachian dulcimer, accompanied by James Taylor on acoustic guitar. The recent release of the live album Amchitka - the 1970 concert that launched Greenpeace shows that the song was written earlier than 1971 as Mitchell performs a live version of "A Case of You" at the concert. The line "I am as constant as a northern star" is a quotation from Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar. I think it is one of my favourite lines from the song along with the second verse "Oh I am a lonely painter, I live in a box of paints. I'm frightened by the devil And I'm drawn to those one that ain't afraid. I remember that time you told me, you said love is touching souls, surely you touched mine because part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time". I love this verse and the northern star line because I relate it to my relationship with my best friend. I think the reason I chose this song is because it reminds me of my best friend and in some way I think I could sing it to him. 

I will really enjoy singing this song and I hope I can convey my love for this genre and this artist through my performance. 

Exercises- A typical singing lesson: Warm-ups

This is the structure of a extended singing lesson that I would have, usually in one half-hour lesson I wouldn't necessarily do all of these technical exercises but it gives you an idea of what I do during them;


Gentle physical warm-ups:

• If I were a bit cold maybe just a bit of jumping about would loosen me up and warm me up. As well as warming your voice up , being physically warm is essential  as it  helps to maintain the correct posture which is vital for getting the best result from your voice.
• I'd swing my arms about and roll my shoulders this gets rid of any tension in the upper back or the shoulders which can cause you to tense up whist signing which can sometimes cause a strained sound. 
• Then I would warm-up my facial muscles, for example a chewing action stretches the cheeks and the lips. I would stretch and relax my mouth into different shapes which warms up all the muscles in the face It is important to also stretch the tongue as well, this really helps with annunciation and helps you to pronounce everything clearly and this aids for a better performance. 
• Also, when singing it is important to ensure you are opening your mouth as wide as possible and also making sure that you smile or shape your mouth correctly. This produces a much lighter sound and it improves the look of your mouth when you sing. Also, a smile adds to your stage performance. 

Breathing exercises:

• Breathing is one of the fundamental skills in singing. If you do not have correct control over your breathing it can completely ruin a performance and every professional singer will have learnt how to control their breathing and learnt to breathe correctly. 
• To practice proper breathing you must first learn to breathe with your diaphragm. Breathing technique is to fill your lungs and expand into your stomach and expand your diaphragm not your chest and shoulders. This enable you to take longer breaths and to also support the notes when you sing especially when attempting very high notes and this allows you to not strain your voice. 
• Correct posture should be maintained to allow the diaphragm to expand properly and this also enables you to expand more of your lungs when your back is straight and your shoulders are back and relaxed. 
• When I first began singing lessons I would often find it difficult to breathe this way but you soon learn and it becomes natural. However, sometimes I do have to remind myself to hold correct posture. I notice a great difference between when I slouch and when I stand straight. 
• An exercise that I do for breathing is to breathe in for four counts, then hold the breath for four making sure that my shoulders are relaxed then breathe out for four counts and hold for four. Then I would repeat the process but with five counts, then six, seven and in my singing lessons I have manage to expand my time to 10 counts. The purpose of this exercise is to build up the amount of breath you can take in and the length of time you can hold your breath.  

Vocal warm-ups:

• Firstly I would do a few lip trills and some sirens (going from one note up the octave and back down with various noises) this warms up the lips and also the voice. 
• I would sing a few scales with different noises sounds. One sound would be a 'gug' sound to stretch and warm up the soft palate. Then other sounds such as 'may' or 'mi' to work the different muscles of the mouth and voice. 
• My teacher would play a small melody then would get me to repeat it to her, we would work up piano  and back down and this allows me to work on my range. 
• One exercise my teacher has me do is to make a whiny sound right at the front of my mouth and nose and then siren it up an octave. This nasal sound works the muscles and then relaxes them so I don't produce a nasal sound when I sing. 
• Then we would practice some intervals. This is when you sing the third or the fifth above the note played. Then my teacher would play two notes and I would have to tell her which note was the root note. Then some scales using the intervals. This all helps with some of the theory aspects of singing. 
• When I was taking a singing exam one of the exercises was a rhythm exercise. There was a few lines of lyrics and they would have to be sung the exact way the rhythm was set out. 

There are many way to warm-up and if I were singing a song that was particularly high or very low then we would do exercise working on the high end of my range and the low end too.

Song Selection

As the four pieces have to be of a different genre I have selected a few genres that I would feel comfortable singing. However I have also chosen some genres that will help my to improve and extend my skills but taking me out of singing the same styles of songs that I suit and are comfortable singing.

Genres:

• Folk; I listen to quite a bit of folk music and some artists I would select songs from would be Joni Mitchell, Kate Rusby and Eva Cassidy. Recently I have listened to songs of a Bluegrass style, it would be interesting to learn a song in this style but recreating the backing music or finding a track to accompany me would be problematic. 
• Musical Theatre; I love musicals and I find the mixture of singing whilst acting very enjoyable. Some of my favourite musicals that I would possibly sing a song from would be; Wicked, Les Miserables, Fame and Funny Girl.
• Pop; this is such a wide genre and I think I would edge more towards the alternative end of pop with artists such as Kate Nash or Gabrielle Aplin. Adele has several songs that I think would certainly work and push the strength I need in my voice and these songs would be more soul pop.  Other soul artists to select a song from would possibly be John Legend, Alicia Keys or Bruno Mars.
• Rock; I love classic rock and one of my favourite bands are Led Zeppelin. It would certainly be a challenge to sing a Led Zep song to the standard I would deem appropriate for performance but I  wouldn't  rule it out. Other bands I would consider maybe singing my own versions of their songs would be Nirvana, Biffy Clyro, Aerosmith and Fleetwood Mac. 
• Alternative/Punk Rock; I am a fan of bands such as Blink-182, Muse, Fall Out Boy, All Time Low, Twin Atlantic and Hellogoodbye. Even though I enjoy singing along to songs of this genre I'm not sure if my voice is necessarily equipped to sing songs that are mostly sung by men. However it would be interesting to try and adapt some songs. 

As I'm very indecisive it may be quite a hard decision to choose  four different songs!

Introduction

The purpose of this blog is to support and evidence my work towards part of my Extended Certificate in Music course. One of the Units in my study is Solo Musical Performance. One of the specifications is that I evidence my preparations and all of the practice I put in, so I have created this blog to support my work.

I am a singer and for my solo musical performance I have to sing four pieces of a differing genre. I also have to prepare by selecting my songs with my singing teacher and my music teacher. Through this blog I will be demonstrating how practice and preparation has improved my technique.