Pop Music

The first style of music I will be looking at is pop. Pop is short for popular, so pop music is usually what a lot of people like to listen to and is what we hear on the radio as chart music. Pop music does not always follow exactly what is written, singers add riffs, breaks, longer and shorter notes in order to make a piece of music there own. The intention of pop music is to communicated a feeling or emotion, therefore creating a different vocal arrangement can help to communicate your idea. After practising the techniques below I will sing a pop song and then analyse my outcome.

"All singing requires support, and pop is no exception. A good way to connect your voice to your body is to place a finger in front of your lips, touch them, and blow firmly. You should feel the connection to your stomach muscles, and the contraction of the abdominal area.
To work on speech quality, a vocal technique commonly used in pop that is closer to speaking than singing, try saying "uh-oh" with an edge on it. That's called starting a sound with a glottal onset, which means that the sound starts before the breath. If you say "ho-ho" with an "h", you can feel your breath escaping. Now say "uh-oh" again without the "h" and engage your abdominal muscles up a bit. The glottal onset is an important part of speech quality, which is the communicating factor in singing - it's what people recognise when we talk. Avril Lavigne and Alanis Morrisette both have terrific speech quality. Speech quality singing becomes much harder in the higher range. To practise this, try singing "ee", going up in thirds (ie do-me-so). The sides of the tongue should touch the insides of the top back molars. Add a glottal onset to "ee", then say "hee" with a big "h", and feel the difference - the former gives a clearer speech quality." (The Guardian, 2009)