Mariah Lesson Summary 9/26

Mariah Lesson Summary 9/26
     I felt prepared for my lesson this week. I had worked on "Traume" and learned "The Last Rose of Summer" almost to memorization. I had listened to all of my songs that I could find on youtube. And I had warmed up fairly well before going.
     At the beginning of the lesson, we talked about my song analysis form for "Traume" and some clarifications with that since it was the first analysis I've done. We did a few more warm-ups including lip trills moving around on the pitches and not going up by half-step. Laurie had me swing my arms and body around while making sighing sounds to help me release tension. She also had me do the plank exercise to help me connect more with my core. She introduced the snort inhaled K which helped open up the back of my throat more. We focused a lot on having me breathe in slowly through my nose and then go into singing. This helped me a lot to center and have more full, relaxed breaths. She reminded me to always think pitch in every exercise to prepare myself. While working on "The Last Rose of Summer," I was having a hard time singing the higher notes and especially keeping them in the feeling of the song. I would either sing them really soft or really loud. Laurie taught me a great technique to help with this. She told me to trace a line in the air how I thought the momentum of the song went. When the feeling in the song built, that's when I would curve the line upward instead of when the notes went up.  I tried doing the song on a lip trill while focusing on tracing the line and then singing while tracing the line. This really really really helped me connect those higher notes with the rest of the piece and sing them so much more freely. We also worked on saying the words sing songy. When I would say the words, I wasn't forcing air through at certain times like I tried to do in singing. She had me say the words sing songy in a more projected way to add that next step to singing. Laurie also told me to try not to play for myself while singing so that I am not distracted. She suggested bringing in an accompanist sometimes so that she can focus more on teaching me and less on playing. Laurie notice that I tended to breathe and hold my breath before singing. I need to focus on having slow, full breaths that go right into my singing.
     The key things I learned in this lesson were the tracing the line exercise and taking slow, full breaths. Saying the words sing songy also helped me be more relaxed and connect my breath while singing.
     My goals for next lesson are to start learning Clair de Lune, work on the pronunciation and have "The Last Rose of Summer" completely memorized. Also, I would like to have the song analysis form done for This Little Rose. I need to find a recording of someone singing "D'un Genio"as well.

New Vocalizes
primal uh huh into singing ya ih ya
oh no no
Santa Clause
snorted inhaled K into meh oh oh ee
mhmm mee
pull the tongue out and quacking