Unit 26 Singing Technique - Deacon Cutt

Overall, I think this rehearsal was incredibly successful. I have been able to improve on my performance of the lower harmony sections within both songs, in particular I feel that I have improved most in the song 'And So It Goes'; this due to me deciding to sing this in a lower octave as it makes it easier to differentiate between the lower harmony and the high harmony which is naturally sung in a higher key by the other members of the ensemble.  However, I do think we still need to improve on certain things as an ensemble. From watching the videos, it is clear that many of us were not entirely confident on the lyrics of both songs and as a result it caused us to break focus and our projection and diction suffered due to this.  I also think that I personally need to improve on my projection throughout both songs, especially 'And So It Goes'. As mentioned in my previous reflection I think that this is due to a lack of confidence in the song, however i do feel that I will...

Today we continued to work on the ensemble songs 'Somewhere Only We Know' by Keane as well as 'And So It Goes' by Billy Joel. In these two songs, I sing the low harmony in a high octave. Due to the many of the notes we have to sing being 7ths which can be quite difficult notes to hit at times. As a result, this was something that although we greatly struggled with in the initial rehearsals we are slowly improving on this as a lower harmony group.  Midway through the rehearsal, we were told to form a circle and that would sing the 'And So It Goes' in acapella with our different harmonies. To begin with we found it incredibly difficult to find focus and perform the piece, however after a few tries we managed to perform the piece. Although, I do feel that some improvements do need to be made as I struggled a great deal to find the correct notes due to not being able to hear them from the playing of the piano.  For next week, I feel that I need to further improve on...

Overall, I feel that the rehearsal was very successful. I think that as an ensemble we had a good use of diction throughout both of the songs as there was not a moment where I heard the words become slurred or hard to understand what was being said. I also feel that as a majority we managed to sustain our harmonies throughout both of the songs (1:15 - And So It Goes/1:10 - Somewhere Only We Know) particularly the high and middle harmony sections to do this almost throughout both songs to a very high standard.  I also think that we had a very good use of dynamics throughout both of the songs as towards the beginning, we all started with much softer vocals due to the gentle and quite slow tempo of both songs (0:20 - And So It Goes/ 0:15 - Somewhere Only We Know) compared to later on within the songs where we build upon these volume and projection of the vocals more (1:45 - And So It Goes/ 1:25 - Somewhere Only We Know)  However I do think there are some things we need to improve...