We started out with laying on the
floor, just to get into the swing of things. I reminded him that the goal was that his lower back be
closer to the floor, and so he could bring his feet closer to him if that would
help. I described how his arms
should be like shivasana pose from yoga, and that the neck should be
lengthened. I had him feel his
lower back, and feel his inhale expand in that area. I asked him how he felt about his sides expanding, and he
said he felt pretty good about it.
I mentioned that you don’t actually breathe out of the back, because the
spine is in the way. You actually
breath all out of the sides, but the thought of breathing from the back is
helpful to create what we want. I
asked him to feel for his lowest rib, and that was the place where I felt the
most breath expansion. I felt his
lowest ribs as he did some inhaling, and felt some expansion, but not as much
as I’ve felt before. We then
transitioned to the leaning over the chair exercise. I asked him to find his lowest ribs again as he leaned over,
and made sure the expansion was occurring there. I told him to pretend that he had nostrils on his back,
because that helped me do the butt breathing a lot more effectively. I asked him if he noticed any
difference, and he said he did in a subtle way.
We
then stood up and reviewed the standing against the wall exercise we did last
week. I told him that his lower
back, shoulder blades, elbows, and wrists should be touching the wall as his
knees are bent. Then we slowly
straightened our legs and came off the wall.
He
mentioned that the nostrils in the back really helped him, so I will continue
to use that analogy to help him.
We
started singing with some yawning exercises. I gave him an example yawn, and his was much less
exaggerated than mine. I
encouraged him to go above and beyond and create the biggest yawn ever. I mentioned that the yawn helps me feel
the inside smile, which is similar to the python jaw that we mentioned the week
previous.
Then
we went straight from yawning to singing downward 5 note scales, starting on B3. We only varied a whole step from that
note on either side, practicing the yawning feeling while singing. I pointed out that you can’t be
literally yawning and singing at the same time, because yawning involves
inhale. However, you can have a
yawning sensation. In listening
back, I notice that his tone is quite breathy, and that’s something I want to
help him with. I only did the yawn
exercise for a minute or so, but telling him to keep it in mind in all the
exercises, because that will help his throat feel less constricted, which will
lead to being less tired.
We
then transitioned to “show me” on a octave downward arpeggio, staring on
D4. I told him the goal of
exercise is go from a light sound at the top to a heavy sound at the very last
note. I also told him that the
“mmmm” of “me” can help get into the heavy sound. In listening back, his light sound at the top is very
splayed, like a frayed rope. But
the heavy sound at the bottom sounds pretty connected…. Interesting. After a couple of modulations, I reminded him about the
yawn. Even though the light sound
wasn’t very focused, he was accomplishing the transition. I asked him to keep the lightness until
the very last note. At one
repition, he told me that he wasn’t feeling any air support, and he wondered if
it was because he had a stuffy nose.
I told him to imagine that his back was inflating via the nostrils on
his lower back, that he was not taking in air, but it was coming in by
itself. After that, his
breathiness seemed a tiny bit better.
At the times that he didn’t let air come in as successfully, his sound
got less focused and more breathy.
I counted to 4, and on 4 he had to allow the breath to come in, and then
sing on 1. I told him that I
wanted a sudden and full breath on 4, not a slow breath on the other
counts. Breath than immediately
sing is what I was going for. That
helped his sound get even a bit more focused, in the light and the heavy part
of the voice. I pointed out to him
that each time we repeat a vocalize it goes back a bit to his old bad
habits. He needs to reiterate all
the advice I give him, every time he sings!
Then
we switched exercises to a smear from [u] to [a] down a 5th,
starting light at the top on [u] and transitioning to heavy at the end on [a]. We started on B3, went up to Eb4, and
then back down. I counted to 4
before he sang, instructing him to breath through his back on 4, and sing on 1
afterwards. On his first couple
attempts, he wasn’t really going through all the pitches, so I asked him to
smear through all of them, not just skip some. I know that it was a good thing to ask for, I just can’t
think of a pedagogical reason why.
This exercise, his upper light notes were more focused, most likely due
to the nature of the [u] vowel, but the heavy bottom note was more splayed. I pointed out to him the subtle
difference between hearing a bit of gaspy breath and hearing nothing. He mentioned last week that he was
worried about having a closed throat, and I pointed out to him that a gaspy
breath is telltale sign of a closed throat.
Then
we transitioned to another exercise, one that I made up: 53421 on “bap bap bap bap bap” then
immediately into a smear from 5 to 1 on [uuuuu a]. I feel like this exercise helped focus his tone a bit. We started on C#4, and after a couple
of downward modulations, I asked him for a bigger difference in lightness and
heaviness between [u] and [a] in the smear. When I reminded him to “smear it” it improved. He told me that this was his favorite
we’ve done so far. I explained
that when I do the “bap” part of the exercise, the goal is to go from silence
to sound as immediately as possible.
I told him that this exercise would be a good practice for this week.
He
didn’t bring any music with him at this lesson, so we just continued with some
more vocalizes: We tried doing
the…. wobble (really fast 535153515351).
I demonstrated for him, and he thought it sounded really difficult. I assured him it wasn’t, and that it
was all about letting voice do whatever it was gonna do. I told him that the light is still at
the top and heavy is still at the bottom, and you just allow the voice to flip
between the two. His first
attempts sounded really labored, that he was trying ensure all the pitches were
present. I told him that, and that
he doesn’t need to worry about getting all the pitches! The key to getting the benefit from the
exercise is to just trust that the voice will get all the pitches without
trying. He was still a bit
labored, so I told him to go even faster and faster. We changed from [u] to [a]. He got less OCD about it as we went along. He felt really silly and felt it was
really weird, so that’s good! J I told him to try doing the wobble, but
trusting his body and voice to get the pitches without having to try to hard.
Another
exercise: [e be de be e be de] on
5313531. I told him that this
exercise was working on having the light top and heavy bottom. This exercise was a harder for him
accomplish the goal, so it might have been a little past his sweet spot. I modified the exercise to just 53135,
focusing on both 5th scale degrees sounding the same (light) At this point, I noticed he needed to
reset his posture. We got back on
the wall and did our former exercise. I pointed out to him that I noticed his hips were jutting out
before we did a posture reminder.
This
was essentially the end of the lesson.
Reaction:
I felt a lot more confident in this lesson than I did the
last one. In listening back to the
lesson, I heard some improvement in the difference between light and
heavy. However, I realized that I was neglecting his breathiness in the tone. I think the yawn activity was not helping that become better. Next week, I would like to get some focus in his sound. I feel that I was better at pointing out good attempts and not so good attempts, and he seemed to agree with my assessments. When I asked him to identify which attempts he liked, I normally agreed, so that was good.
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