How has music been a big part of my life?

Hey guys!

Today’s blog post will be a short story about my life and how music has been a big part of it.

Let’s go way back, to when I was about 6 years old.   

I remember walking into my first piano lesson, with not a care in the world. A girl of 16 came up to my parents asking if she could teach me some piano so she could earn a little bit of money. I started learning step by step. I never thought that this random decision would change my life. I kept visiting her, lesson by lesson. I remember that sometimes she would make me a hot chocolate, and she would give me stickers at the end of the lesson.

When we moved away, I decided not to stop with piano, but continue on. Now that I was a bit older I could understand how much I actually liked music. Soon, I did my first piano exam and happily came back with an A. I soon discovered how I could sing, and I started singing lessons. I can’t believe that without that single act of luck, maybe now I would not like music at all!  Now I am a piano player, a singer and have a love for music. 

Music has helped me a lot through life. Music has always been a sort of 'backup' plan for me. I can always come home and play the piano, or plug in my headphones to listen to the music that I am into. It always gives me happiness. 

Tell me if you feel the same way about music! I hope you enjoyed this blog post, I am soooo sorry that I have not uploaded for a little while, I have had a lot of assignments due. But, don't worry, I will be uploading more now that they are mostly done. Please look out for my next blog post, it doesn't have anything to do with music, it is to do with my sister's photography! 

Comment below what you would like to see on my blog, and I will try to do it. 

That's it for now, talk to you guys in the next blog post!

Music4life xx 

My tips for warming up :)

Hey guys!

It is obvious because of the name of the blog, that I love to sing! But a lot of people know that before you sing, you have to warm up! Here are some warm ups that I always do before I sing my heart out! Remember, everyone is different, so you should always decide for yourself the warm up that works for you :)

1. Bubbles

If you know me, you know I love the word bubble, but that isn't the reason that this is the first warm up. Bubbles is when you vibrate your lips sort of like brrrrrrr. You go up in thirds on the piano – C, D, E, D, C and so on.

2. 12345678

If you sing then you probably know this one. You basically sing in tones up the octave and back down. This is the order of the numbers,

1

121

12321

1234321

123454321

I think you get the gist of it.

3. aeiou

Basically, the way you do this scale, is you start on one note, and go down 5 tones. For example, if you were at G, you would go G F E D C.

4. EEEE

Sing E up and down five notes. Helpful hint: try smiling when singing this vowel.

5. Humming

Another very good way to warm up is to hum. Don’t have an H at the beginning of each note. Try humming in thirds with this pattern:

1323132313231

Or..

CEDECEDECEDEC

6. Ma

Do the same as the EEE scale, but with ma. Hold ‘a’ as in ‘are’ the whole way, starting with m.

7. Bumblebee

For this scale, you have to sing bumblebee (like bu-mble-be-ee) in this pattern up tones in the major scale:

1 3 2 4 3 5 4 6 5 7 6 8 7 9 8 10 8 9 7 8 6 7 5 6 4 5 3 4 2 1

Or…

C E D F E G F A G B A C B D C E D E C D B C A B G A F G E F D C

8. Tay eee Tay ohh

For this warm up, you have to sing slowly up a major octave. You have to hold each ‘Tay’ or ‘eee’ and so on for at least two seconds.

9. Moo

Do the same as the ‘ma’ and the ‘eee’ scale, but sing moo, rounding your lips.

10. Shhh

Now, to practice using your diaphragm, breathe in deeply and while you are breathing out, say shhhh, just like are telling someone to be quiet. This will help you breathe later while singing.

So, I hope you have enjoyed this blog post, if you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments below, because I know that some of you new musicians out there won’t know some of the terminology. Thanks for reading!

Happy singing,

Music4life xx

P.S. Thanks to Sing, Dance, Create on YouTube ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoAeq5ZRpNU4cywg6ECFu2g ) for recommending this idea to me, go subscribe to her!