Sam Meredith Lesson Summary 11/22

I was warmed up and everything for my lesson today, but my voice did feel a little tired. I think singing in rehearsals for the concert on Saturday is responsible for that. Thankfully, I was still able to vocalize without any problems. We started with a couple of vocalizes. First I sang 'fah' on a descending arpeggio. I started in falsetto at the top and transitioned to my full voice for the last note of the exercise. The transition from falsetto to full voice was a little rough, so we changed the syllable to [hu] and I switches to 'wah' on the final note of the of the arpeggio. As we got lower I had to let the transition happen earlier. I have been doing a lot of similar vocalizes in my practice and I feel like it's really helping me navigate the transition between those two different registers. Next I did a vocalize on the words 'pity me'. I sang this phrase on a descending third pattern. While we did this vocalize we worked on helping me retain a speech-like quality while still having a good depth to the sound. Originally I was trying to control the sound by changing my articulation, when really what needed to change was my breathing gesture. After that we continued to do some exercises that helped me maintain good space between my molars, have better breathing technique and also keep my larynx in a healthy, low position. The last exercise we did included me singing an ascending scale going all the way up to the 9th scale degree, alternating between the vowels [i] and [e]. To make it work I had to get a good, low breath, keep the space between the molars consistent, and keep my larynx low. I want to keep doing this vocalize whenever I practice so I can get all of those benefits. After vocalizing we jumped into my repertoire. First I sang 'wohl denk ich oft.' I think it has made some improvements, but there are still some problems in the breathing and also with jaw tension. For the remainder of the lesson I sat on the piano bench with my elbows on my knees. This made me more aware of the fact that my breathing was shown too much in my upper body. I also noticed similar problems when we moved onto 'beau soir'. I want to try singing more in this position throughout the coming week so I can at least be aware of particular spots where my breathing could be better. I also had a problem with keeping a free feeling in my voice during the last page of 'beau soir'. I was trying to carry the same feeling up from lower notes to higher notes. Cindy told me that each note needs to have a feeling of freshness and release. I'm going to try to be more aware of that this week.