Speaking German and Italian Abroad
Common wisdom dictates that one of the best ways to learn a foreign language is to move to the country where it’s spoken. If you’re learning Spanish, you would move to Spain, Argentina or any other Spanish-speaking country. If you’re learning Japanese, you would move to Japan, and so on. In theory, those should be […]
Singing in German (Week 13) – Wrap-up of the Project
During the last week of December (and the first one of January), I further explored the voice preparation with the spaghetti exercise described in the Week 11 article. I tried looking for more ease and a sense of freedom in the voice production. I had a number of good experiences in that regard. In fact, […]
Singing in German (Week 12) – We Sing As We Train
This may sound like something extremely obvious, but many times we forget completely about it: we sing as we train, as we practice. That means that, in order to be able to achieve a specific result when we sing a song, we need to practice that a good deal consistently. We need to train our […]
Singing in German (Week 11) – Taking the Larynx Down
As I mentioned before in this series, many of the exercises with do in class with Patrick exert an indirect influence on certain parts of the vocal tract. One example I mentioned in the past was the act of yawning or sobbing. Both take the larynx down and are good resources to have an experience […]
Singing in German (Week 10) – The Unseen in Singing Training
I heard about the importance of good breathing support (appoggio) since the first time I started learning how to sing, more than 10 years ago. But knowing something for a long time doesn’t guarantee that we actually use or act on that knowledge. That’s how I feel about appoggio. It’s not something new, but at […]
Singing in German (Week 9) – Falsetto (part 2)
This week I continued practicing the falsetto with and without last week’s song. During the lesson, my teacher shared a few clarifications on how to practice the falsetto. I learned that it was okay to go high, but not really high (beyond the high C). I discovered that it was such a thing as a […]
