This was my second lesson with Anna. I started by asking her how her voice felt that day. She replied that she felt fine. I then asked her if she had any questions regarding things we covered in our last lesson. She said no. I then told her that I wanted to talk a little bit about things that we can do to prepare to sing. I told her that it is very important to have a body that is released and fee of tension in order for us to sing to the best of our abilities. I told her that one thing she can do to release tension is stretch. We stretched our legs out starting with our hamstrings by bending over trying to touch our toes. Then we stretched our quadriceps by holding on to our foot and stretching it behind our back. Next I had her stretch her calves by getting into a push-up like position and then putting weight on the ball of one of her feet to stretch that muscle. Next we stretched the shoulders. As we were stretching I mentioned to her that the shoulders can be a place where tension can gather, which will have an adverse effect on our singing. We started by reaching our arms over the top of our head and down our back as if we were trying to grab hold our our belt. Next we stretched the shoulders by bringing them across our bodies and holding them there for a second. I mentioned that good shoulder position is key component of good posture. I said that many people have shoulders that just naturally want to be rounded forward. I showed her the 'toaster' stretch and explained that it is a stretch that can correct that postural problem. Next, we did some exercises to eliminate tension in the neck. We sat down on the piano benches, assuming the best posture we could. I instructed her to let her neck fall forward, then to the right, then back to the middle, and then to the left. We repeated this exercise several times. Next, we massaged our necks putting a hand on either side of our neck and massaging the muscles there and also the muscles closer to the shoulders. After doing those exercises I again emphasized how big a difference finding a feeling of release can make when singing. Lastly, we did some exercises to release the jaw. I told her to imagine the feeling of looseness that she feels in her jaw after having a cavity filled. I was careful to mention that I didn't want her to imagine any of the pain involved in having a cavity filled--all I wanted was for her to imagine that tension free feeling in her jaw. I said that it is important that we have a nice wide opening for the sound to go through when we sing, but we don't want the jaw to be forced down. I told her that she can talk like a vampire and say something like "I vant to suck your blood" in order to get used to the feeling of having a free, released jaw. Next we moved onto singing. I told her that I wanted to start with a vocalize that can help her further release tension in her jaw. We sang a descending 5-tone scale with a closed-mouth chew. I mentioned to her before she started that I wasn't so concerned about whether or not she sang each pitch accurately, but rather I was mostly concerned with her just covering the range of those notes. We sang the descending scale, ascended, descended, ascended, and descended again. We started low in her range. We did the exercise three times. Then I noticed that she was only chewing a little. I stopped and explained that she doesn't need to be afraid to make the chewing motion rather exaggerated. I told her that she should imagine that she is cow chewing it's cud. We did the exercise three more times. This time I was much more pleased with the chewing motion. Throughout the course of this exercise we remained in a comfortable range at E-flat or below. I told her that in the future I could show her more vocalizes that will help her release tension in her jaw. We continued our vocalization by doing some speech-like vocalizes. I reiterated the fact that speaking is very similar to singing. I told her that we need to get comfortable enough with singing to the point where it feels as comfortable as speech. I told her that this can be very difficult especially for women because they don't have as wide a speaking range as men do. I told her that what we need to do is exercise the low voice so that she can get used to the easy released feeling that her speaking voice has, do some exercises that can help her use her upper range in a tension-free way and then combine those two qualities to obtain a nice, balanced tone. So, we did some more speaking exercises today. I had her speak the vowels [ni, ne, na, no, nu]. I first asked her to speak those syllables as if she were having a casual conversation. Next I asked her to repeat them pretending that she was trying to explain a concept to me that I was having trouble understanding. She repeated the syllables, increasing the intensity, raising the inflection, and lowering the tempo at which she spoke. I then asked her to whisper it. After that I asked her to say the syllables as if she were trying to communicate an important message to me from the other end of a hallway. She increased the intensity of her voice and raised her inflection again. I mentioned that what she just did was very similar to singing. I mentioned that there are only a few components that we need to add to that sound in order to make that exercise actual singing. I talked about how projection, as she had just demonstrated is one of those key components. The next component, I explained, is adding some sort of consistency to the sound i.e. making sure that each syllable has the same amount of feeling and intensity as well as the same duration. I asked to her repeat the syllables again, trying to make each one equal to all the others. I demonstrated what I wanted. The first time she did it I did it with her. She was having trouble making each syllable the same duration. So I started to conduct her as she said the syllables. We repeated the syllables twice. Next, I asked her how she felt she did. She said she felt like she did a good job accomplishing the task. I agreed. So, I asked her if she could do it once without me conducting. She did it again, but she was keeping rhythm with her foot. I asked her to do again without tapping her foot. She did. I then explained that I wanted her to do that just so she could further develop an internal sense of rhythm. I next explained that once all of those other components are present, we just need to add consistent pitch to the exercise to make it true singing. I played a B-flat below middle C on the piano. I continued talking to her, raising the inflection of my voice so that it's frequency was near that of the note I played on the piano. I pointed out to her that although I'm not really singing I am speaking in the vicinity of that pitch. I asked her if she could try speaking in the general area of the note. She started to, but was doing it an octave up. I told her that I wanted this to be done in comfortable speaking range and had her move down the octave. She repeated the syllables [ni, ne, na, no, nu], but essentially sung them. I explained to her that I first just wanted her to speak them with an inflection that was close to the pitch. She did the exercise again this time retaining a more speech-like quality. I was really impressed with how close she was to the pitch the whole time. We moved up a half step and repeated the syllables. I mentioned to her how close that sound was to singing. I told her that in the future that we will do some exercises like that that will help us make a smooth transition from speaking to singing. I asked if everything I said was making sense. She said yes. I then realized that we didn't have much time left in our lesson. I mentioned that I had wanted to talk more with her about breathing, but would only have time to talk a little about it today. I talked to her about the purpose of breathing for singing. I explained that it is different than the breathing we do when we exercise. I explained that it's not about getting as much oxygen into our body as fast as possible, but rather it's about getting the most we possibly can out of one cycle of inhalation and exhalation. I then explained the big role that posture plays in good breath gesture. I asked her to assume the posture that she thinks would be the best posture for singing. She stood up straight, with her arms at her side and with her chest open. I told her that what she did was good and that I was really impressed with her posture. She commented that she knows that said posture is probably what she should be in when she sings, but that she is unsure whether that is actually the posture that she assumes when she sings. I told her that it is very important that we are aware of what posture we use when we sing. I told her that whether or not she locks her knees when she sings is up to her because some people do encounter problems because of that and others don't. I then told her that an important thing to remember regarding posture is that the key word is 'released' not 'relaxed.' I told her again that singing is much like a sport and she should have the released, but ready posture just like an olympic diver. I elaborated on that by saying that our chest needs to be open much like it would be if we were in a superhero-style stance. I then did a few things just to analyze her breathing. I asked her to take the breath that she would take before an entrance in choir. I asked her before she took the breath to notice where the expansion in her body happened. She took the breath and remarked that she felt expansion in her chest mostly. I commented that I noticed expansion there and that I also noticed some in the shoulders. I told her that her breathing for singing will be more effective when the expansion takes place chiefly in her lower back. I expanded on that by saying that the expansion in our lungs that happens when we breathe is like the filling of a balloon--If the expansion is happening closer to the opening in the balloon, there is less potential for it to be filled completely. Before we ended our lesson I asked if she had any questions. She said no. I told her that we would cover breathing and posture more next time because that is something that I wanted to do more this lesson, but didn't have time to.
I'm kind of disappointed with the way I planned this lesson. Overall, I think it was okay and I think all the things I had planned were good things, but I just planned too much. One of my goals was to talk with her about breathing and posture, but I didn't have time to do it as much as I would have liked to. I'm glad that I talked to her about finding a state of release and gave her some things that she can use to find that place in the future, but I think I probably spent too much time on it. I think the vocalizes that we did were successful for her and I would like to do more of those vocalizes in the future, but there were also other things that I wanted to do as far as vocalizes are concerned. I really wanted to do some more exercises to help get her used to singing in her upper register, but I didn't end up having time for that today. For my next lesson I definitely want to do some of those kinds of vocalizes. I also want to do some things that will help me found out how she does with register adjustment. Overall, I think I need to improve in the planning aspect of these lessons and also in the delivery of my teaching. I noticed today that I'm talking a lot. I'm kind of upset at myself for that, but I'm glad that I became aware of it sooner rather than later. I think in the future I'm just going to try harder to have a better approach to my teaching. I think so far I've been worried a lot about running out of things to do so I've been over-planning and having a sort of check-off-the-boxes approach. I think I need to have a more curious, explorative, and adventurous attitude as a teacher.
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