Article: Stress can lead to shallow breathing and increased heart rate. If your heart is racing right now, look for a quiet place where you can take a break for a few minutes. Ideally, get into a sitting position or lie down so you're as comfortable as possible. Close your eyes and try to tune everything else out. Slowly and deeply inhale through your nose until your abdomen swells. If it helps, place your hand on your abdomen so you can feel it expanding. Mentally count to 5 as you slowly inhale. People often take shallow breaths from the upper chest when they're stressed out. Deep abdominal breathing can slow your heart rate and make you feel less anxious. You can exhale through your nose and mouth simultaneously if that feels more comfortable for you. Keep your hand on your abdomen so you can feel it relax as you release your breath. Mentally count to 10 as you exhale. You can increase to 15 seconds as you get more comfortable with deep breathing. Try to focus on breathing and counting and be sure to count at a steady pace. Keep taking slow, deep inhalations through your nose for 5 seconds, followed by slow exhalations through your mouth for 10-15 seconds. You should feel your heart rate slow down within the first 1-2 minutes. Continue the exercise for 5 full minutes for the best results. Deep breathing can lower your heart rate in a moment of anxiety, but it's also important to practice it regularly to establish the habit and keep your heart rate low. Try to dedicate at least 5-10 minutes every day to deep breathing exercises to reap the most benefits. You can also break your exercises up and do 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the evening. Over time, increase your time to 15-20 minutes of deep breathing daily.
Question: What is a summary of what this article is about?
Find a quiet place to sit or lie down. Inhale slowly and deeply through your nose for 5 seconds. Exhale slowly through your mouth for 10-15 seconds. Continue deep breathing for 5 minutes to lower your heart rate. Repeat this process for 5 to 10 minutes every day to establish the habit.
Article: Many people have heard the terms soprano, tenor, or bass, but may not know to what they actually refer. In opera, voices are another instrument that must reach particular notes on demand, just like a violin or flute. Consequently, range classifications were developed to help identify voice types, which made it easier to cast opera singers for specific parts. While most people aren't trying out for opera these days, being aware of your voice type helps you be more aware of the notes you can reach when performing other types of music, either solo or in choirs. Informally, it can even help you figure out which songs you can effectively cover when singing karaoke. The different voice types descending from highest to lowest are: soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, countertenor, tenor, baritone, and bass. Each type has a typical associated vocal range. You can divide range classifications into categories based on their respective vocal registers. Each register has a distinct timbre and is produced by a different action of your vocal cords. Accurately assessing your vocal range requires investigating the breadth of more than one type of vocal register, primarily those of your "modal" and "head" voices, and, in special cases, those of your "fry" and "whistle" voices. Your modal (or chest) voice is essentially your comfortable singing range when the vocal folds are in their natural manner of action. These are the notes you can reach without adding a low, breathy or high, falsetto quality to your voice. The range of notes that you can hit comfortably in your modal voice comprise your "tessitura." Your head voice includes the high end of your range, produced with elongated vocal folds. It's called "head voice" because it refers to those notes that feel the most resonant in one's head and have a distinct ringing quality. Falsetto--the voice most people use when impersonating female opera singers--is included in the head-voice register. For some very low-voiced males, the lowest vocal register, called "vocal fry" is also added, but many people cannot even reach this low end. These notes are produced by floppy, vibrating vocal folds that create low, creaking or croaking notes. Just as the "vocal fry" register extends to super-low notes for some men, the "whistle register" extends to super-high notes for some women. The whistle register is an extension of the head voice, but its timbre is distinctly different, sounding not unlike, well, a whistle. Think: the infamous highest notes in a song like "Lovin' You" by Minnie Riperton or "Emotions" by Mariah Carey. An octave is the interval between two like notes (for instance B to B), the higher of which has twice the sound frequency of the lower. On a piano, octaves will span eight keys (excluding the black ones). One way to characterize your vocal range is by expressing the number of octaves that range spans. The octave also corresponds with standard musical scales, which are typically comprised of eight ordered notes in ascending or descending order (for instance, C D E F G A B C). The interval between the first and last note of a scale is an octave. Scientific pitch notation is a standardized way of writing and understanding musical notes using letters (that identify the notes, A through G) and ordinal numbers (that identify the correct octave, from low to high, starting with zero on up). For instance, the lowest pitch on most pianos is A0, making the next octave above it A1 and so on. What we deem "Middle C" on a piano is actually C4 in scientific pitch notation. Since the Key of C is the only major key with no sharps or flats (and, thus, uses only the white keys on a piano), scientific pitch notation counts octaves starting with "C" notes rather than "A" notes. This means that though the lowest pitch on the far left-hand side of a keyboard is A0, the first "C" that occurs two white keys to the right is C1 and so on. Hence, the first A note that appears higher than Middle C (C4) will be A4, not A5. The full expression of your vocal range will include three of four different scientific pitch notation numbers, including your lowest note, highest note in modal voice, and highest note in head voice. Those who can reach the vocal fry and whistle registers may have pitch notation numbers for those as well, always ranging from the lowest notation note to the highest.
Question: What is a summary of what this article is about?
Understand voice-type classifications. Distinguish between vocal registers. Make sense of octaves. Recognize scientific pitch notation.
Article: This does not work on all discs. Use a belt sander on the top side of the disc. This should be done in an easy-to-clean area. Soak a cotton pad in pure acetone, then wipe the bottom of the disc with it. It should become frosted and unreadable.
Question: What is a summary of what this article is about?
Cover the disc with duct tape, then rip it off. Sand the discs. Wipe with acetone.