Sam Meredith Lesson Summary 1/21

I felt fairly well prepared for my lesson today. I was warmed up and ready to go, but I wish I had been able to practice more over the long weekend. I also felt like my jaw was a little tense at the beginning of the lesson. So, the first vocalize we did was designed to help eliminate that tension. Cindy had me hum within the pitch range of a 5-tone scale pretending that I was chewing something as I did. I think it helped loosed up my jaw a little and it's also an exercise that I think would work well for one of my voice students. Next we did the same exercise in a different way. This time I sang the pattern on the syllables [bej] and [dej], switching the syllable every other note. Although the whole exercise was done on pitches well within my range Cindy had me concentrate on making a good transition from chest voice to head voice. We talked about the how the transition to head voice needs to happen very quickly when singing ascending patterns. She encouraged me to think about it as a pyramid. When I am singing something descending the timbre needs to gradually gain more of a feeling of chest voice like I'm walking down the edge of a pyramid. When I'm going up, however, I need to go back to the middle of the pyramid and take the elevator to the top i.e. I need to make the transition to head voice before I even start sining towards the top of the scale. I was having trouble getting that transition down today, so when we sang further we stopped on the top and on the bottom of each set so I could think about making that transition. I think that's obviously an exercise that I need to do more of. Next we sang another vocalize with that same goal, this one on the pattern [u, i, u, i, u, i, u, i, u] on the notes 5 3 4 2 3 1 2 7 1 5 1. Next we did some ascending and descending scales. I took a nice deep breath before each scale using a sort of milkshake sipping mechanism and then started each scale with a sort of 'wh' sound and moved to an [e] vowel. We monitored my larynx's position as I performed the exercise because it has a tendency to elevate when I sing exercises like this one. I held my hand on my larynx so that I could monitor it and also encourage it to remain in a low position. I think it worked pretty well. Next we sang the words 'show me' on the notes 8 5 3 1. Here we monitored breathing patterns. My breaths were a little shallow and forced at first. Cindy encouraged me to just let the air in. I think that helped me a little bit, but I still need to get better at breathing. I need to be looking more for a feeling of expansion and release each time I breathe. Next we worked on some songs. We first looked at 'The Golden Willow Tree.' I wanted to try singing it sitting down on the piano bench with my elbows on my knees. I thought it would be a good way to get rid of tension in my neck. I think it worked fairly well. The problem I encountered, however, was tension in my jaw. So, Cindy had me continue singing with an open mouthed chew. It worked pretty well. It was really tempting to keep that chew going for higher notes. My head also returned to a locked position, so Cindy had me do a bobble head movement while I sang as well. it was really hard to do both things at once, but both things are definitely necessary. I want to continue practicing this song with these mechanisms so that I can find a good feeling of release when I sing it. After that we worked a little bit on 'wenn du zu den Blumen gehst.' We used similar tactics when singing this song. My goals for the near future are to monitor the tension in my neck and jaw and use the tools that I have now to get rid of it. I also want to be more aware of how I'm breathing and practice a good transition from chest voice to head voice.