This was my first lesson with Rob who is a 22 year-old male and is my other student Anna's husband. He has played a few instruments briefly (piano and guitar) and sung in choirs occasionally in church. He has never taken private voice lessons. When I had Rob sing for me today his posture was fairly collapsed, his breathing involved a lot of shoulder movement and could sense some tension in the shoulders. As far as his actual voice is concerned he doesn't have any trouble matching pitch, which I was happy about. He does have some breathiness in his timbre especially when he sings higher notes. Overall he seemed pretty nervous when he was singing, which is understandable. He sang 'Nearer My God to Thee.' I played it in the key it was written in in the hymnbook (F major) and he asked me if we could sing it in a lower key. I tried my best to transpose it down a half step to E-flat. He was able to sing it more confidently at that point. When we talked about his goals for his study he mentioned that he wants to improve his upper register, learn how to breathe more appropriately for singing and gain more confidence.
I started the lesson by asking some questions and talking to Rob about his goals for his progress. First I asked him why he wants to improve at singing. He said that he loves to sing, but he doesn't dare to sing in front of anyone. He only sings in the car. He said he would love to feel confident and gain the ability to sing along with some of his favorite artists. He commented that he doesn't have any problem hearing the notes when he listens to them, but he can't always match them. I commented that I think that everyone to a certain degree likes to sing, but that not everyone has confidence with. I communicated to him my hopes that these lessons will help him be more confident. Next, we talked about his voice. I asked him what things he thinks he already does well as a singer. He said that he feels that as long as the note is in his comfortable range his singing has a pleasing tone. He went on to say that he is much less confident in his upper register. I commented that he does have a pleasant sounding speaking voice and that that ought to translate to a nice vocal sound. I asked him next if there were any specific aspects of singing that he would like to improve in other than singing high notes better. He said that he wants to improve his intonation and get better at matching pitch with the piano and other people. I commented that that is a normal struggle and that singing is really a lot more complicated than a lot of people think. I commented that he can develop that skill--it's just a matter of learning to concentrate and think the pitch clearly enough so that his voice can replicate it. I asked if there were any other things he wants to improve in. He said that he struggles singing softly in his upper register. He was wondering if he could sing quietly, but with full timbre. I told him that he can definitely develop that skill. I told him that when he gets more used to singing high notes and learns to sing them well he will be able to control the intensity of those notes better. I asked him next about his musical background. He said that he's played a lot of instruments a little bit--guitar, ukulele, piano, but that he's never really practiced enough to get very good. I asked if he can read music and he said yes. I told him that that would be a helpful skill for him when learning how to sing songs. I asked him next if he had any vocal problems or conditions that commonly affect his voice. He said that he does not. Next I asked him about his work. I had recently heard that he was going to take a job at a call center. He said that he had found a new job being a janitor at a school. I replied that I'm glad that he got a different job because the job at the call center could present problems for his voice. He then mentioned that his voice does hurt sometimes when he sings high notes. I told him that our goal was to learn to sing those notes with minimal side effects. I compared it to working out at the gym. If we do a good amount of reps, with a good amount of weight we can build our muscle without hurting ourselves. I closed the interview by asking if he had any more questions for me. He said no. I told him that he should feel free to ask me questions whenever he has them. Next we moved on to singing. I told him that we can talk about how he did afterwards and use that to make some goals. He told me that he could sing 'Nearer My God to Thee.' When he sang it was all very quiet. It was breathy slightly, but also seemed a little pushed. We got to the section where the melody ascends to some higher notes (middle C and the D above it) and it sounded a little bit more pushed, but the notes were coming out. He stopped and asked if we could start over because it was too high. I told him that i could try to play it in a different key. I tried my best to play it in E-flat. It did seem to be a lot more comfortable for him. The breathiness decreased quite a bit throughout the whole song and even the higher notes were a lot better. He commented that he just feels really uncomfortable singing high notes. I asked him what he liked about his performance. He said that he felt much more comfortable singing in the lower key, that he liked singing the lower notes and that he even enjoyed jumping up to the higher notes. I asked him if there was anything else he liked about it. He said no. I told him that I did notice that his timbre was very nice in the lower more comfortable range. I also complimented him on his ability to match pitch. I complimented him also on the fact that he maintained dynamic continuity throughout the piece even in the upper range. I then asked him what things he would like to improve on. He said that he was unsure about some notes just because he's been taught to sing the bass part for hymns like this, so sometimes he ends up singing the notes from the bass part or another part instead of the melody. I replied that that is normal and that it's just a sign of his body wanting to do what it's used to doing. We then talked about goals for our study together. We agreed that having more confidence in his voice would be a good long-term goal for him to have. Another goal we set was to increase his range. I told him that next time we could talk about breathing and also do some vocalizes that he can use to get more used to singing high notes. I then did a vocalize with him. I talked to him about falsetto voice and how it can be a useful thing to practice with because it still utilizes the vocal folds like regular singing, but is usually less entangled than normal singing. We sang a five-tone descending scale on [u]. We started on middle C. We went up three half steps and then I went back down to C. Then I went up to G. He didn't have any trouble matching pitches. I asked him afterwards how he felt. He said that he didn't like the sound as much, but it felt easy. I told him that that is good. I told him that the purpose of the exercise was to help get him used to that free, released feeling that we want when he is singing in his chest voice. I also told him that being comfortable with that falsetto-like feeling will help him make the transition from low to high. I told him that I would think of some things that we can do to help him feel more confident with his higher notes as time goes on.
Overall I think the lesson went pretty well. I think I learned some important things about Rob's voice which will greatly inform my decisions for his lessons in the future. I think that he has a lot of potential, but just needs some more confidence and some relief from the tension that is happening when he sings. I know that he can sing well in his upper range when he just rids his body of some of the tension that's hindering it. I think i want to do some things with him next time that will help him find a healthy state of release and feel more freedom in all parts of his voice. What are some good vocalizations I can do to help start him on the path to extending his range? I think I want to maybe have him do some things that will help him practice the transition from head voice to chest voice and vice versa. I also think that I'm going to be doing mainly descending exercises with him so that we can get rid of the tension he has and then do descending exercises so he doesn't feel the need to add any tension on the way up. I think I also want to have him do some 'bp' exercises to help his intonation and also help him find easy access to his upper range. I think I did a good job praising him in this lesson, but I think I need to do more of it. I was also looking at the piano too much when I accompanied him. I also think I told him too much about the vocal mechanism. I don't think it bored him or anything, but I just think that I need to be more succinct so that we can get more singing done in our lessons.
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