Sunday night - Rip the Shower Curtain Open with Lynne Smith

Our last session on Sunday night was with Lynne Smith. This was a more practical session, so I don't have as many notes.

Lynne talked about 'rip the shower curtain open' - when we're on our own in the shower, singing like nobody's watching, we look and sound amazing. We can do this in performance - just take a chance. It's doesn't require new skills, you know how to do it - it's just a choice we make every time we perform. All we need is more energy and more stamina. Lynne notes that we still need to have good sound first.

1. If you're part is oooohing or dum dumming you still need the same expression as if you were singing the words, so you need to know what the words are
2. Using body language to express different feelings, eg sad/sexy (Lynne writes a word on the board and in pairs one person acts it out and the other person guesses it)
3. Demo using volunteers to form chorus singing Sound Celebration. Expression vs animation (facial expression is fixed, facial animation keeps changing). Some people like showing off, others have to work at it - feeling part of a neighbourhood of friends and being aware of their energy level - go over the top and be a completely different character
4. Sustained notes - have to have energy and movement on sustained notes - use thigh-draulics, facial animation, moving body, restating body

Let Directors have fun too.

After class we planned to go to a cafe for a late supper but they were all shut by 9 pm. Luckily the local corner shop was just shutting up and sold us soup and a chicken, so we had a scratch supper at Steph and Pippas with contributions from all our fridges.