sound map assignment
Body Mapping
After being in the lesson and reading the article, I realized that I had a lot of my body mapped incorrectly. First of all, I had (and still have) terrible posture. My points of balance were horribly off. Even my studio professor points out that I don’t stand straight enough sometimes and has to remind me to correct myself. I also used to get called out a lot by my choral director in high school for slouching without realizing. I’ve noticed however, when paying attention to having proper balance/posture while singing, that the notes come out clearer and that I just sound better overall. I also noticed that I present myself differently, in a good way, which makes it seem like I’m more interested in what I’m singing and engages the audience. I feel that it makes me more alert too. Body mapping has additionally helped me with breathing properly while singing. Learning how my diaphragm and ribs properly expand really helped me visualize what breathing is supposed to look like in a singing context. As someone who is currently working on better breath support, I plan to study body mapping more closely. My tongue is another thing I had body mapped entirely incorrectly. I found it very interesting to learn that it is in fact a bug muscle instead of just a small flap. Now that I know, I can treat it like any other muscle in my body and make sure to keep it from getting tense and hurting my singing.
Activity
A musical version of the hot and cold game:
The objective is for a volunteer to guess what a chosen mystery object is. The volunteer will leave the room and the group left will choose an object in the room (ie. an office chair) for the volunteer to guess. The volunteer will then come back into the room and will have to guess the object with the help of the people in the room. When the volunteer is closer to the object, the group will get louder (or forte) and when the volunteer is far from the object, the group will be quiet (or piano). This exercise is fun and develops both musical skills and teamwork skills. There is an understanding of dynamics that comes into play, as the crowd gets louder and softer, and the team-building comes into play when the group had to work together to first, choose an object, and then to help their peer find the object.
Body Percussion
Tanya Taguq is an Inuk throat singer from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. She performs Inuit throat singing, traditionally sung by two women, as a solo artist. I chose to research her song “Retribution”. This song comes from the album of the same name, which includes other songs such as ‘Aorta’ and a cover of Nirvana’s song ‘Rape Me’. As one can see, there is a very politically charged message behind the album. According to Tanya Taguq, the album is about rape of women and of land. It also demands justice for the missing and murdered indigenous women, as well as indigenous people who have been abused. “I just want equality,” Taguq says. “I want people to live an equal life, and I want safety for people. It’s not coming from anywhere else than that.” The music video for Retribution is artistically unsettling and symbolic of the message it delivers. I read many youtube comments calling it “haunting” and saying that it made people uncomfortable, but I think that’s the point. Retribution talks about how we have let money rule us and in turn are ruining the Earth. The opening lyrics “Our mother grows angry/Retribution will be swift.” are a haunting reminder that, when we harm the Earth, we are harming something sacred. Retribution is an unapologetic, artistic demand for justice and shines light on the injustice toward the indigenous community. I have learned a lot from this research, but my main takeaway was that, although we hear of crimes against the indigenous community, we can never truly know how much they suffer, unless we are a part of their community. Taguq’s music and videos give some insight into that and really draws awareness.
Indigenous Artist
Reflection #7
A time that comes to mind when I think of a time where I felt frustrated with my performance was actually a masterclass from a couple weeks ago. I went to sing a song called “Caro Mio Ben”, which, though it has repetitive parts, also has quite a few lyrics to remember. I was quite nervous going into the performance, and surely enough, I fumbled through the first verse and almost completely forgot the lyrics to the second verse. I was so disappointed and frustrated with myself. As this was also my second masterclass performance of the year, and I didn’t want this to be the impression I left on my classmates. I thought that I could have avoided the entire mess up if I just practiced more and that I shouldve been better, which truly angered me. As my lesson was the next day, my studio teacher discussed this with me. He mainly just wanted to see if I was okay because I “didn’t seem as prepared as (I) wanted to be”. I very much agreed with this and felt very grateful for the fact that he cared, but I was also a bit mortified to be called out. I just wanted to leave it behind me. As talked about in the article and class, I have been trying to think positive and learn from this performance instead of just letting it drag down my self esteem. Also discussed in the article, I realized that it’s up to me how I feel about scenarios like this.
Learning and Skill Development
Ice skating is something that requires skill development. When you first start out on skates, chances are, you will fall more than once, for many different reasons. The target-practice approach says that this is necessary to acquire a certain skill. However, with each fall, your brain will correct the wrong movements to get you closer to the bullseye. According to the target approach, one should have a clear goal, in this case, we can say that is to skate one lap around a rink. The next steps are to do and then evaluate. Then, if you are off from the target, say you fall or don’t make the lap, you see what to do for future attempts at your initial goal. When learning to ice skate, falling frequently gets discouraging and frustrating, especially when seeing much younger doing fast laps around you at the rink. The idea of using this feeling of frustration as a way of motivation by saying “this just means I have more to learn” is really helpful in the effort to stay on task and motivated.
Reflection #9
Monday: Today in the practice room, I’m going to try to take in as much air as possible and see how it affects the volume of my singing.
I found that I surprised myself with how much noise I could actually make. During this session, I thought about the target practice approach as well as what my studio teacher has told me. In cases like this, you have to and see how much is too much in order to get it just right. As I am a little timid, my voice teacher always says that singing out may seem to me like I’m too loud or being ridiculous, when I’m in fact on track. I did feel that way when I first started out, but as I went along, it felt a lot better and I was happy and proud of the sound I could make.
Tuesday: Today in choir, I’m going to experiment with my posture and see how it affects my tone.
I could tell a big difference right off the bat. When I was slouching, or not sitting up “properly”, my tone was poor and when I sat up with proper posture my tone was a lot more clear and smooth. This was the result I anticipated going into this experiment as I went in, however this was the first time I’ve thought somewhat critically about it. I also found that when I focused on evenly distributing my weight on my feet, I sounded better as it allowed the air to flow more throughput my body.
Thursday: Today I experimented with how much I opened my mouth to see how it affects my resonance and overall singing.
Similar to the first experiment, this is also one that you almost have to go too far with to see what is just right. I’ve noticed that at times, I opened my mouth so wide that it caused some tension, and was very uncomfortable. I noted that that was too wide and adjusted accordingly. On the opposite end, I noticed that there were times when I had my mouth not opened enough and couldn’t hear myself at all. In this experiment, I also noticed that there are times where I tense up my jaw and that I need to work on correcting that and keeping a looser jaw for optimal singing.
Reflection #10
As a singer, I really resonated with the “By Intention Alone” article. Especially since I have been starting out in university. I find myself (more often than I should) being timid with my voice and tightening up, therefore making everything worse when I know I can sound better. Much like Marion, I also occasionally ask myself “why?”. I worked out with my studio professor that this is because I think and anticipate too much. I find when I am able to clear my mind and just do whatever my teacher instructs me to do, I give a much better singing performance. It was very interesting to read of someone else going through that and how they cope.
The posture article can also be applied to my studio lessons. Dr. Drengenberg said that when someone is slouching, that usually means that they are uninterested in whichever task their doing. Occasionally, my professor picks on me for having poor posture and too low of an energy level. I’ve noticed that the two are correlated and that, when I sing with full energy and excitement, keeping good posture isn’t as hard. As for posture whilst sitting at a desk, I really agreed with the point made about how, the longer you look at a screen, the more “narrowed” you become and therefore, the more pain you notice. Before doing this reflection, I had been working on other work during which I had that experience. After about an hour, my shoulders began to hurt, but they got better quickly after I got up to take a short break.
Reflection # 11
I think one of my main goals coming to Western was to overcome my timidness and to be less afraid to be heard.
I haven’t quite reached this goal yet but from what I’ve heard from my studio professor and other outside sources, I believe I’m well on my way. Since coming here, I am significantly less nervous to sing in front of others and am less afraid to let more sound out when I sing. My goal itself didn’t necessarily change, however, my plans to reach the goal alter as I get closer to it and can- for lack of better term- take more “risks”.
A big challenge I’ve faced this semester has been learning how to properly manage my time. Balancing work, eating, proper sleep, and social interaction has definitely been tough. Having poor time management lead me to be tired often, which then lead to lack of motivation, which then affected my self esteem. I began to create to do lists to keep track of all my tasks as well as schedule times to eat and sleep everyday so that I could create consistency. I learned that I am someone who needs to keep lists of tasks and keep organized in order to work efficiently in times of stress, and will continue to do so moving forward.
You are your only limit.
Reflection # 12
This was a very interesting talk to me. It made me think about courage, vulnerability, and guilt/shame in a way I never really have before. One part that stuck out to me was when she talked about shame vs. guilt in the classroom. The example she gave about the student calling themselves stupid for not studying versus telling the student that they’re smart yet just made a mistake really resonated with me. It reminded me of a moment (I’m not proud of) when I had a discussion with my teacher about almost failing math in grade 10. I was very shameful and sad about what has happened because up until that point, I was a straight-A student and expected better from myself. Seeing that I was distressed, my teacher mentioned that she knew I was a good student and that I just made some mistakes. Although I was still sad, it made me feel significantly better. I’ll never forget that moment and I’m so grateful to have had a teacher like that.
Before watching this talk, I thought of shame as a sort of synonym for humiliation and not as serious as this. I do now think that shame should be thought of as a separate deal and should be dealt with carefully. I have definitely felt shame for a while at school and have used the sheilds of hiding away and people-pleasing. I didn’t have a teacher who recognized that until high school, which is when I started getting better. If I do become a parent/educator in the future, I will definitely look out for that and try my very best to help out.