Jeff,

Explain amplitude and developing voices need to foster this.  Have them sing a tone and have them crescendo and then diminuendo.  I often illustrate with my speaking voice the desired effect.  It is also a matter of intention and sending the tone forth it's not sufficient if they are " singing to themselves"  I studied voice with Chloe Owen at Boston University and she was very much a proponent of  using the entire body.   You also want to avoid them artificially darkening the tone or singing in a forced way.  Perhaps a few voice lessons would be helpful as well.  It can also be a confidence factor.

 

John Rondeau, Director of Music

The First Congregational Church of Dudley

Jeff,

  All the ingrediants are there but one. As did the Cowardly Lion both of your singers lack c-c-c-courage. And an abiding belief that they can actually do this.

S

Jeff,

 

Couple of thoughts.

 

1) Lead them in an exploration of vocal qualities, including volume. You make X sound, they make X sound. I agree with John about physicality, and would suggest adding a motion to this as well. So, you might... whimper, bark, say "Hello" like a Martian, do the JGG's "Ho, Ho, Ho," do a gentle siren, a football cadence (41, 24, 32, hut, hut, HIKE!), whisper a phrase, then mutter it, speak it fully, then PROJECT it fully, et cetera.

 

2) After all that, process their experiences and observations. They'll probably notice that the speaking voice can have lots of different qualities ... and volumes.

 

3) Ask them to pick one of the "mirror sounds" which allowed them to project a full and relatively powerful speaking voice. Then lead them in that one again, but this time stop on various spots in the phrase, and sustain the vowel and the pitch. It might sound like this: "Forty one, twenty fooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohr."

 

4) From there, take their "speaking on pitch" and give them some more phrases to "say" the same way, on clearly defined pitches. "(do) Give me (re) the ball (mi) now. I said (fa) no... (mi) ow."

 

You get the idea. Obviously, you'll have to watch for unhealthy vocal tension, and doing physical moves with all of the above will help with that.

 

5) You can also have them mirror your (high to low) "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!" (Et cetera! :-)

 

6) From there, have them "speak/sing" phrases from easy songs, and ask them to experiment using that same feeling of vocal fullness and relaxation.

 

While this technique by itself can create some unnecessary tension, it can also give them a "leg up" to a fuller sound. That, combined with your other singing technique tips, can turn the timid into titans! (:-)

 

Now, start your standard warm-ups and play around with this new awareness.

 

Other things like thinking of pure vowels, diphthong awareness, thinking that all pitches are "middle," with none going high or low, and having them bend down when the "sing high," and reach up when they "sing low" ... can help.

 

Warm regards,

 

Tom

Jeff,

 

 Jeff,

 

I have a freshmen men's choir that comes from a middle school that doesn't have a choir program. Singing is totally new to them. I do a lot with confidence building.

 

They stand on their chairs and proclaim, "I sound my barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world." (Walt Whitman)

I break down the dynamic levels of pp through ff on a scale of 1-10. I label an 11 as Yelling and we briefly explore that with a high school football cheer. We practice speaking and singing at all the levels both as a group and as individuals within the group. I break them into dyads and have them identify the levels with each other. I ask them to identify the number that corresponds to their volume. It helps calibrate them to what the reality of their volume really is.

 

All just to get them to explore their voices. We sing in a manner to imitate young boys and then middle school boys and then high school, college and professional voices.

All to engage the conversation of sonic potential. We sing nasal. We sing woofy. We create as many sounds as possible just to show the possibilities. They can't get resonance if they don't know how to identify nasality and woofiness.

 

A lot of it is just vocal play with the purpose of awakening in them the possibilities of their own voice.  We do lots of falsetto glides, too.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Robert