Sigma Alpha Iota

MUSIC MEDLEY PHONATE continued from page 3 T PAN'S CORNER his column is for all SAIs who would like to ask a question about music education and/or give advice or write a short lesson or give a great tip to teachers in a mini format. Please send all suggestions, lesson plans and advice to: Dorothy Kittaka at: dkkittaka@ frontier.com. Question:  During the summer, I would love to travel abroad to expand my knowledge about other cultures and music which I can then share with my students.  Do you have some programs that I can contact?    Answer: Fulbright Hays Seminars for teachers (www2.ed.gov/programs/iegpssap) offer excellent study tours from four to six weeks of cultural immersion with a comprehensive project you can use in your classroom.  The countries vary each summer, but past trips have included New Zealand, China, India and Peru. For a sample of a lesson plan prepared by a former participant to introduce Chinese culture to elementary students, try ncuscr. org/files/Draheim_pdf.pdf. Sponsors allow for discounted trips with which educators can earn graduate credit. Whatever your encounters with multiculturalism, engage in research to make sure what you are presenting is culturally accurate. Choose reliable materials and stay true to the culture you are trying to introduce or represent. Beta Mu initiate Dorothy Kittaka is a co-founder, past president, and consultant for FAME (Foundation for Art and Music in Education) in Fort Wayne, IN, where seven arts programs annually have reached over 3,000,000 children and adults in the past 23 years. 4 PAN PIPESSPRING 2012 sai-national.org bottom of the mouth, with the tip of the tongue behind the bottom teeth. Do not let the voice drop to the throat and become gravelly. This often happens when one is tired, ill, depressed, or on the telephone. We talk more than we sing, so you must get the speaking voice in the correct placement. Keeping the throat free from tension is essential in all phonating situations. A good way to open your throat is to imagine biting into an apple. The throat will open, the tongue will get out of the way, and the soft palate will rise. The subject of where to focus your sound is an article in itself. If you normally talk with a raspy voice, you may need to see a Speech Pathologist. TO "TAKE A BREATH," JUST REPLACE THE AIR YOU HAVE USED atmospheric pressure. Replacing the air does just that. Open your throat, and allow the air to come in, expanding your lower rib cage. Do not fill up the top part of the lungs, and do not pull in the air. If you hear yourself breathe, you are pulling in air. Keep the ribs out, and allocate the air as you sing. These techniques require a lot of mind-body coordination and are not obtained quickly. Be patient. It is worth it. And don't forget lip trilling. This is a great way to experience freedom of lips, controlled air, and open throat. Lip trill a phrase and then sing the phrase with a single vowel, allowing the muscles to do exactly what they did while lip trilling. This process will retrain muscles for legato singing. USE THE VOICE SENSIBLY Screaming, boisterous laughter, talking over loud noises, and heavy coughing cause the vocal folds to slap together violently. Avoid this vocal abuse! Use common sense when talking or singing. Keep the yells and laughter out of the throat! Focus them into the cheek area (zygomatic arch) and use proper breath support when trying to project This is not how I was instructed in breath control, and it took me quite some time to retrain my muscles. We need to keep tension out of our bodies to Figure 2 keep the vocal folds healthy. Do not crowd the lungs with your voice. air by "taking a big breath." The lungs should Following these Vocal Health Requirements never feel really full, just satisfied. When you will help you talk and/or sing with fullness for pull in a lot of air to fill up the lungs, you will many years to come. Best wishes for a great year feel lots of tension in your neck and sternum of phonating!! area. To keep from having that tension and still have enough air to sing long phrases, think about how we breathe when speaking. The body tells you air is needed, and the throat opens to allow that to happen. It is the vacuum principle. Now let's transfer this to singing. Imagine blowing up a balloon. You have it filled to capacity and wish to tie the top of the balloon to keep it inflated. As you try, the air starts to escape. Out comes the air, and the balloon is quickly emptied. This is exactly what happens when you fill up your lungs tightly and start to sing. Out comes the air, and you are no longer in control of the air usage. To keep control of how to use air in singing, the subglottal pressure needs to be the same as the An Iota Eta initiate, member of the Fort Wayne Alumnae Chapter, and past National President, Ginny Johnson is a private voice teacher and consultant at Ear Nose & Throat Associates in Fort Wayne, IN, working with patients who are singers.   Ginny is a member of the VoiceCare Network and attended vocal health workshops for ten consecutive summers.  She has conducted workshops on vocal health at retreats for churches and colleges. See Ginny's Book Reviews on page 19.

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