Every Saturday from 11am to noon, I run Office Hours over on my Discord Server. On this Saturday in February we talked about staccato and legato singing. Check out the transcript below.

You’ll find links to exercises and warm-ups using staccato and legato. All comments are mine unless otherwise noted. Participant’s comments are in italic.

My Discord server is open to ALL singers. Here’s the link: https://discord.gg/XTWHcCu Join the discussion!

/11:05/ We're going to alternate exercises between legato and staccato. Just to review: legato is smooth and connected and staccato is short and disconnected.

[11:10 AM] Most singing - like, 99%, is legato. However, practicing staccato is a great way to improve pitch accuracy. When you only have a moment to sing the note you must land right on it. Kind of like throwing a bull's eye dart every time

[11:11 AM] Let's look at track #3 on my basic warm ups. Do the first one legato - smoothly. Then do the 2nd one staccato - short. Alternate them from there. Do the exercise on an “ah” the whole time.

[11:13 AM] How did that go?

[11:17 AM] We'll do another exercise so we'll get a second chance at practicing this.

[11:15 AM] Staccato singing can be a little tricky. One strategy that can help is to add a very small "h" at the onset. So you're thinking of the syllable "ha" on each note. But, the h is so small that it is barely discernible.

[11:18 AM] Let's try exercise #5 doing the same alternating between legato and staccato. When you're doing legato sing a long "ah" throughout.

[11:20 AM] Let's try this legato/staccato exercise together. It may help illuminate the technique. It's new to me so we'll be testing it out together!

[11:23 AM] If you follow the female voice up it gets pretty high. Remember that you can always drop down an octave when exercises get too high for you.

[11:24 AM] The singers gave a very good demonstration of that "h" strategy I talked about earlier. Take a moment to hit play on the video a second time and just listen. Hear how they add only the smallest of h's on the staccato note to help get into the sound, but it is not so prominent that it is leaking air/breath support.

[11:26 AM] Let's check out these exercises:

[11:26 AM] Skip to about the 1:10 minute mark in the video

[11:28 AM] Her explanation of the breathy onset as compared to the glottal attack onset is very good. It's important to understand the difference between those onset types.

[11:28 AM] She goes into that right around the 2 minute mark

[11:31 AM] VERY fun exercise starting at the 3:45 minute mark

[@J] Nice range. I stopped at about 5:45

[11:32] I LOVE how she explains adding emphasis in legato phrases! All phrasing needs to have a little swell somewhere. We don't always practice that in vocal exercises and instead default to everything being the same volume (at least I know I have that tendency, LOL). It is SO good to practice with a little swell.

[11:34 AM] The swelling legato exercise begins around 6:15

[11:35] The legato exercise she starts at around 6:15 is her last exercise of the video. Just those two exercises though are well worth bookmarking the video for.

[11:36 AM] Working on legato and staccato is some heavy lifting, so let's cool down our voice before moving on.

[11:37 AM] For cooling down exercises I prefer either using a straw or a lip trill.

[11:37 AM] I also recommend any exercise that starts in head voice and moves down the keyboard. Track #8 in my basic warm ups folder is great for this.

[11:38 AM] Grab your straw or get ready for a lip trill and let's do #8. If it starts too high for you, just jump in a little later in the track. No worries! It's all about staying relaxed and open in our instrument!

We finished this day’s Office Hours with some side chatting and a few cool down exercises. Be sure to join the next Office Hours and/or check out other past chats in the blog.