This past weekend our students won all four top prizes totalling $1,000.00 at the vocal competition at the Carleton Place Farmer’s Market. Last year we also placed 1st.
You can read all about it – and find out who our awesome winners are as well as all eight U-Rock competitors who placed in the semi-finals. See the story link below.
As a result of our BIG WIN, we thought some of you might be wondering why our students are so good at what they do.
It’s a combination of many things: lots and lots of training, much perseverance and some innate talent. The fact is, anyone can learn to sing, as long as they aren’t tone deaf. Excelling at vocals requires many things including ear training techniques, a lot of patience and lots and lots of practice.
Mostly, it is very routine repetition of exercises that strengthen and slowly grow each student’s vocal range (register), improve vocal support, proper breathing, working on enhancing tone, pitch, phrasing, posture, body language(emoting) and enunciation/diction.
One thing I love to do is to challenge my singers (and myself!) to try some of the most complex songs until they can eventually master them. I have a few personal favourites, but the list in the link below are all worth trying if you are serious about becoming a great singer. You can’t just sing songs from your favourite artists to improve your skills, you have to stretch and try the songs that have made legends of many previously unknown singers.
Have fun – and don’t expect it to be easy. Many of these songs will scare the very best of singers. Be brave and give some of them a try: http://akorra.com/2011/06/05/top-15-difficult-popular-songs-to-sing1
Also, please remember that all U-Rock vocalists are required to create a 20 song setlist to work on at their lessons each week. Plus, they must choose five extra songs outside their usual genre of music or comfort zone. Please know that this list – for every singer in our program – is an absolute must and will continually be updated thoughout the year as they master their song selections.
Happy singing!