Recognize that there are different ‘modes’ of practice and that each mode requires a specific approach. The longer you practice like this, the shorter the process becomes!
- Warm ups
- Easy long tones in a comfortable range. Remind yourself how to breathe and what an optimal onset is (talk to your teacher about this). You can also check out our Vocal Warm up library for more recommendations!
- Purely technical work
- Simple exercises that work your full range (not your comfortable tessitura). Later articles in this series will suggest countertenor-specific exercises. I think it is important to at least start with the same set of exercises each time. You want to cultivate the sense that your voice will dependably respond every time you use it. Building a routine is integral to accomplishing this.
- Incorporating your new technique into new music
- Read the translation out loud as a poem (if in a foreign language).
- Read the original text out loud as a poem. This will help you find the important words in each sentence. Hopefully the composer paid this much attention as well.
- Write in a word for word translation (that means that your English syntax will be wrong, as you will follow the original language’s word order).
- Sing the music on a single vowel (or NG, vvv, zzz, or some similar sound). Make the transitions from pitch to pitch easy and sloppy – lots of portamento. The goal here is to use the technique you practice in your exercises. Do not compromise that because you perceive that the words will have meaning that you need to convey. That is for later.
- Sing the music with just the vowels of the actual words. Change nothing in your technique from step #4.
- Sing the music with the tragically bad English translation. It will be awkward and stilted, but enlightening.
- Sing the music with the actual words.
–Ian Howell is a countertenor based in Boston, Massachusetts, educated at Yale and Capital Universities and currently a Doctor of Musical Arts student at the New England Conservatory of Music.
source: http://blog.counterpointspublishing.com/2011/06/vocal-technique-how-to-best-practice-practicing-singing/