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Subject: Re: TECHNIQUE: singing "ah" -THANKS!
From: Jessica
To: VOCALIST <vocalist>
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To all who wrote in with suggestions for singing "ah", I thank you so much
for your help!

I have begun implementing the singing over the pencil, chopsticks, etc.
(there are so many ways to skin that cat!) which is a similar exercise to
one my teacher gave and am also trying some of the visualization techniques.
Between the lot of them, I hope to soon be singing bright and clear "ah"s.
It's amazing to me what some seemingly innocent choir coaching can do to
hurt one's technique. This whole bad habit of mine comes from days of
junior high school and high school choir singing when the teachers would say
"drop your jaw" and "make your mouth form the vowel you are singing". It
seemed to make sense at the time. Perhaps this is an excellent reason to
put young singers into some kind of training early on - even if not to train
them in specific technique, but only to catch the formation of bad habits
early on and halt them before they do damage. Otherwise the things they
learn from those well-meaning choir teachers might be obstacles difficult to
overcome later on.

Thanks to all who wrote in. It helped!
Jessica