Written by a January Sun cast member, with guidelines from our vocal coaches.
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This came about when I, along with the other cast members, had already familiarized ourselves with the structure of FRAGMENTS’ vocal training.
Warming up is indispensable to our vocal training. It consists of simple up-and-down scale exercises and fun harmonization activities that train vocal techniques. This serves as a solid foundation for specific numbers, where harmonization and emotions are tuned. The warm-up exercise above, yes, the two weird number sequences, is one of the most characterized: it's challenging, detail-oriented, and most importantly, fun to practice alone and in groups.
Mistakes were inevitable, even with a strong foundation and memorized harmonies. “Singing is personal; it is to show yourself to the world.” (Hà Phương, Vocal Coach) And with such a desire — one that can heighten our spirits as easily as it can crush us — we have to first know who we are. For some members, it took the repetition of mistakes and the gradual disintegration of their confidence to find their voice.
I observed one of our leads voluntarily delegating the majority of his free time to the rehearsal room. As he analyzed his songs, he understood how his physical voice could project his own strengths and weaknesses. A sub-cast, despite being one of our most experienced singers, still found it hard to reach a note lower than he’s familiar with. I personally, with no prior professional vocal training, would spend hours a day practicing just one note, in hopes of pushing away the daunting fear of messing up.
More than anyone, our vocal coaches know how mental singing is; how we put preconceptions of our voices before we even give it a chance to stand for itself. They’ve helped us learn that the best way to overcome this fear, though cliché, is to secure your confidence and believe in your own voice. Vocal training doesn’t necessarily need to be theoretical or strict for one to sing well. We thought we needed to do this alone, against a specific regimen, because it's our duty to get the songs right. But of course, it’s more fun and do-able to go from 1 to 8 and back down, together.
“Despite all the ups and downs, despite the conflicts that might arise or the hopelessness after every wrong note, I think everyone always felt a certain sense of togetherness whenever we did the vocal warm up.” (Linh Trang, Vocal Coach)
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