The Whole Performer Studio

We had a wonderful fall semester at The Whole Performer Studio! Many students were involved in the RHS production of All Shook Up, which was an exciting and energizing show. I certainly enjoyed the powerful singing and joyful dancing, and I constantly scanned the stage to spot my students. In preparation for All-State Chorus Auditions, the Whole Performer Studio hosted a sight reading bootcamp every other Saturday throughout the months of September and October. Making music is all about community, so it was particularly exciting to have students from both RHS and HHS participate! I certainly hope to continue the sight reading bootcamp as a tradition each year.

Next semester holds a first for the Whole Performer Studio- a studio recital! This has been a dream of mine since I first started teaching a few years ago! Both voice students and piano students will participate, and the program will feature musical styles ranging from musical theatre to folk art song to classical. The recital will be held in the Ringgold UMC sanctuary on January 27 at 2pm, and a light reception will follow.

I would also like to announce a new service offered at the Whole Performer Studio- vocal coaching. Vocal coaching is a bit different than taking voice lessons. Voice lessons are more focused on musical education and working towards long term goals. Vocal coaching is focused on preparing for a specific audition or performance. The student already has a song (or whatever material will be used), and the teacher listens and provides extra guidance and advice. This is great for anyone who is preparing for a college audition and would like help with their audition song(s) and sightsinging skills/music theory.

I look forward to seeing the RHS production of Peter Pan and the HHS production of Beauty and the Beast. Chorus concerts are always a joy to experience and bring back wonderful memories of my own high school experience. I also hope to be able to see the elementary music productions of some of my younger piano students!

Be on the lookout for the release of various summer offerings over the next few months!

Thank you!

Kirsten Lankford

Owner, founder, and teacher of The Whole Performer Studio

My high school chorus teacher really pushed us when it came to sight reading. At the time, I thought it would mostly just help me get into All-State Chorus, but now I realize how much it has helped me as an adult, especially when it comes to work. Sight reading is a valuable skill to develop. I am so thankful for the time focused on sight reading in high school. This skill takes a lot of practice and patience, but it becomes a great tool in the long run. Read on to find out why.

Independant learning. Once you can sight read, you have the ability to learn music without needing the assistance of a piano or a recording. All you need is your brain and the sheet music. You don’t even have to sing out loud, if you are in a situation where you need to be quiet. This means you can learn anywhere at anytime.

Learn faster. While the process of learning to sightread will take time and practice, once this skill is developed, you will be able to learn music much faster. Just like in any learning situation, your brain absorbs a lot more when you figure something out yourself rather than it being given to you.

Learn an instrument. If you can sight read, you will have a much easier time learning how to play an instrument. You will already have a solid foundation of music theory that can transfer to your playing. You will already know how to read the notes and rhythms and understand tonality and scales. The next step is applying all that to your fingers.

Write music. Dictation (the ability to write out the music you hear) and sight reading are two sides of the same coin. I always tell my students that they are the same skill but applied in different ways. Once you understand tonality and how all the notes relate to each other, you will be able put your own melodies, harmonies, and accompaniment on paper.

Brain health. In general, music is really great for your brain. Here is a link to another article that goes into some more detail on why. Music utilizes different parts of the brain, and sight reading is almost like solving a puzzle. You will be grateful to yourself for challenging your brain as you get older!

This Saturday at 10am will be the first session of Sight Reading Bootcamp that I am teaching! Message me on Facebook or email me at thewholeperfomerstudio@gmail.com to sign up or find out more!

Keep yourself accountable. I can ask you every single week if you practiced, and for some people, that need to people-please might cause them to practice as a result, but your motivation to practice really needs to come from you. There’s a huge difference in the quality of practice between someone who is just filling their time and someone who truly wants to improve. Also, what’s the point of studying voice if you don’t want to sing? For most people (including myself, growing up), I think the biggest hurdle to practicing is not really knowing how to, so I hope this post helps with that. I also understand that schedules can make practice nearly impossible sometimes, especially during heavy performance seasons. I have found that the best way to motivate myself to practice is by setting goals- specific goals. I try to end each voice lesson I teach with a list of goals for each of my students to work towards and will encourage them write it down in their binder. The more specific the goal, the better. As you become more self aware, you can start to set a big goal for the week and break it down day by day on how you reach that goal. There are also some external tools you can use to help keep yourself accountable. A very common tool teachers use is requiring their students to record how much time they practiced each day. This can be helpful for some people, but I find it more helpful to write down my goals and use it like a checklist. Then, I don’t even look at the clock and simply get lost in practice. Some people keep practice journals and write down what they practiced each day and what they might want to practice in the future based on what happened that day. You can also always use a rewards system- maybe award yourself with a piece of chocolate at the end of each practice. The only way to make progress is to practice in a consistent and productive way.
Unconventional practice. Sometimes it becomes nearly impossible to fit practice time into your schedule. This is the time to be creative and really easy on yourself. First of all, you do not have to go into this full routine I am about to lay out in order to get in some practice. Some days, simply singing through a song in your head is going to have to be good enough. It is always an option to pick and choose from your routine when you only have a few minutes to steal away. You can also practice in weird places. The car and the shower are great options. Just be careful of your alignment, especially while sitting in a car. I particularly find the car great for listening to new pieces you are working on and for practicing memorization. You also don’t always have to sing to practice. There are so many things to work on without even making a sound- breathing, character work, finding objectives and motivation, translation, memorization, etc. Pronunciation can even be practiced without actually saying the words aloud. These things are great to work on any time you lose your voice. Life can often be pretty chaotic and not leave any time to practice, but there are so many ways to work practice into your everyday routines. Besides, you love to sing, so why not sing all day?

Repertoire. Try not to start at the beginning of your song. Also, avoid simply doing run throughs of the song, unless you are specifically working on memory. It is better to start with the most challenging part of the song. Again, utilize any technique exercises that might help you. It is helpful to use semi-occluded vocal tract exercizes (lip or tongue trills, z or v, etc.) to make sure you are using your breath support and singing with a relaxed throat. Work on each of the challenging parts and then put them into context. I do think that a full run through at the end is helpful to put all the pieces back together. I have a rule of three I typically follow when practicing- I try to practice whatever phrase (or section) I am specifically working on at least three times before I move onto something new. The goal is to get everything in your muscle memory.
Break it down. Practice becomes so much more efficient if you break everything down into smaller chunks. When you first begin learning a song, you can always break it up by clapping or speaking through the rhythms first, singing the melody on a syllable, and then putting everything together with words. If you are learning a song in another language, it is extremely important to practice speaking through the words, then speaking in rhythm, and finally singing in the foreign language. You should also look up the word for word translation and write it into your music. If you want to start working on your acting, write out a characterization, decide on the objectives and super objective, and then try performing it in front of a mirror or pretend audience. The more specific and smaller you can break down the tasks, the more improvement you will notice in yourself.

Music theory and ear training. These are things that will really benefit you in the long run. Look at the music you are working on. What key is it in? What is the time signature? What notes are you singing? Are there any dynamic markings or Italian musical terms? Make sure you know how to answer all of these questions. Sight reading is an extremely beneficial skill for a singer. Make sure you are comfortable with your scale and arpeggio before you start looking at sight reading exercises. You need to be able to hear it before you can sing. Once you are comfortable singing the scale and arpeggio forwards and backwards and in many different ways (I teach a few different exercises you can practice), grab a hymnal and try to sight read one of the parts. You can even break this down into reading the rhythm and melody separately before putting everything together. If you can play piano, it can be really helpful to sing and play at the same time, sing only, and then check what you just sang on the piano. Once you are consistently doing well with this, start sight reading just by singing and then checking on the piano. Eventually, you will not need to check yourself on the piano as much; you will pretty much know if you are having trouble finding the right note. There are also some good online resources for sight reading, such as sightreadingfactory.com.

Technique. Choose warm up exercises that support whatever technique you are trying to work on. Breathing is a technique in and of itself that can always improve, and I think the easiest time to do any breathing exercises is right before you start singing. Most likely, any warm ups your teacher has assigned you are chosen to work on a specific technique. Some examples of different areas to work on for technique are breath support and control, phonation (vocalizing with a relaxed throat and consistent breath support), resonance (singing in the mask), vocal flexibility, articulation, singing through the break, pitch accuracy, etc. As you learn more and more exercises and become more self aware, you will soon start being able to pick out exercises that will help you yourself. As you are practicing your repertoire, you can come back to these exercises and modify them in a way that can help you with anything you are struggling with. You can also use challenges from your repertoire to inform what exercises you choose to do during your warm up. Good technique is built up over time, little by little. Sometimes, it can be fun to go back to an old song and feel how much progress has been made!

Let practice be a sacred time. I have learned to love my practice time. As a Christian, it is a special time in which I can be faithful in tending to what skills and opportunities God has given me. As a person, it is nurturing for my soul. In order to set yourself up for a productive and nurturing time of practice, it is important to first be calm and in your body. Take your time to relax your shoulders and neck. Roll your head a little and release any tension from your face and tongue. Tension is the enemy of singing. After relaxing your body and finding good alignment in your stance, practice a few deep breaths. Let your throat relax so that the air can get through and keep your ribcage lifted so that each breath is full and deep. You would be surprised how much of a difference it makes to simply take your time and do this before you start singing. It is also important to take your time throughout practice. As an ADHD person, I need to take minibreaks throughout my practice time, but I try to do so in a way that is beneficial for me. I tend to leave to drink some water or use the restroom a lot. I avoid looking at my phone because I know there will be no return to practice if I do. I try to vary what I focus on throughout. I don’t typically practice longer than 45 minutes at once (that’s fatiguing for the voice anyways), but if I need more practice time, I will do more at a different time in the day. Find a nice, secluded place to practice, if you can. If you know how to play some piano, it is extremely helpful to have a keyboard with you. It’s helpful to be somewhere pleasant, maybe with nice colors and a window to the outside, etc., but make sure wherever it is doesn’t have a lot of distracting noise or people. You want to feel focused and not self conscious. In general, I try to keep my practice time enjoyable, relaxed, and laid back.

Warm up. It is important to start with something easy on the voice. I personally love to start with some humming or another semi-occluded vocal tract exercise (lip or tongue trill, singing on z or v, etc.). Always start in the comfortable middle part of your range, go down, and then go up. After getting your voice going, warm up your chest voice. I find this to be a great time to sing some tongue twisters. Again, start in the comfortable middle part of your range, go down, and then come up until you’ve reached the top of your mixed voice. As you start mixing in your head voice, think of the sound moving up and forward in your face. After that, warm up your head voice. Arpeggios are great for this. If you are trying to expand your upper range, it is helpful to start by doing staccato on high notes. Your warm up should help you get your voice and breath going using healthy phonation, and it should explore both ends of your range.