Week 4

Monday 4^th Feb

In this lesson, we focused on getting our vocals to performance standard, in preparation for filming the school song at the end of the week. This means that we focused on diction and projection as those are the two key focuses of the song, vocally. We sang through the song a few times, making sure that our projection stayed as consistent as possible throughout as its important, come performance day, that the audience and camera is able to pick up our vocals. Its also getting to the time where we should know the song confidently as we now needed for focus on the details such as characterisation and physicals.

I felt that, in this lesson, I met my target from the 14^th, in that I felt that I kept my energy consistent when singing and make sure that I controlled my breathing in order for the high notes to be as powerful as possible. My target for this lesson is to continue to build a stronger and more believable character in order to give myself the best chance, come performance day. Tuesday 5^th Feb

In this lesson, the group split up into school song group. This lesson, our groups task was to work on our characterisation. Firstly, we began with a warm up which consisted of high levels of physical movement in order to warm up our bodies and build up a heart rate. We also focused on building and improving our coordination. We were also tested on a memory skill, by doing intricate movement with our feet, such as moving our arms and feet at the same time in different patterns. Despite struggling with this warm up to begin with, I soon became familiar with the moves and it became easier for me. This warm up help me to improve on my ability to pick up choreography and to focus on the task at hand. Despite not doing any vigorous activity today, we knew that it was extremely important to warm up as it helps to reduce any injuries.

Whilst working on our characterisation, we decided that we wanted to add some movements to the choreography in place, in order to enhance our performance and for it to look more visually exciting. We added a few new elements, such as shaking our head side to side during the line “or a princess” in order for it to look like we are making fun of the little kids, and also to make it look more menacing. During the line “you’re just wasting energy”, we decided to add a hand gesture. The original move was to close on legs an bring our hands down and be left in a straight stance whilst looking at the little kids. In order to adapt this, we decided that the people on the left-hand side would cross their hands over their neck on the right and pull it to the left side, mimicking chopping off their heads. The people on the right-hand side did the same movement but mirrored (with their right hand) and the girl who was in the central spot at the front used both hands and crossed them over.

 My long-term target for this lesson will be to make sure I go over and remember these new elements added to the choreography. I will do this by practising them daily and to make sure I include them during every rehearsal from now on.

  Friday 8th Feb

 In today’s lesson, we started with a thorough warm up, making sure that we were warmed up and prepared with every aspect needed for the performance, such as vocally and physically. This was because we were being filmed in the end of the lesson as our only time for self-evaluation before our final performance, which meant that we needed to be as prepared as possible. We began by singing "I like the flowers", which is split into four groups and is sung as a round. As a class, we were all familiar and confident with the song, so in order to create a more challenging warm up, we decided to include a physical element to it, and we were assigned movements for the song. Each line had a set of different movements. The movements consisted of rolling the shoulders, bending the knees, running on the spot whilst rolling heels and running around in a small circle whilst clapping on beat. These specific sets of movements, although simple, when done repeatedly, raise the heart rate and help you with stamina work as we must constantly move whilst singing, in The School Song.

We then proceeded to learn the rest of the blocking for the song. The struggle from this lesson was now learning up to 5 separate blocks movements and being able to work closely as a team in order to make sure that each letter was shown to the audience both at the right time and making sure that each letter was easily visible.