Emily F. Sarah F. supervised lesson summary 2/20

Emily F. Sarah F. supervised lesson summary 2/20: I began by asking Sarah about her day in choir and discovered that her larynx gets raised and she probably has tongue and jaw tension in choir. We talked about the location of the lungs. We did some sighs, some [hu]. I asked her to do the hum of indecision, then speaking with projection. We moved onto [hu] on 54321. I saw a lot of jaw and neck tension so I asked her to bobble-head, toaster shoulders. Bobble-heading didn't work very well for her. Toaster shoulders were sort of helpful, but she doesn't let them release very well, so we'll have to refine that. I asked her to do a small [ss]. She was doing a lot of shoulder breathing, so I stopped to address that. After trying a couple of low breaths, I noticed that she had difficulty with her whole body so I asked her to sit. We worked on breathing for a couple minutes. We went back to sigh on [si] [sa] [si] then on 54321. I asked her to hum-chew. That seemed challenging for her. I periodically asked her to silent scream to release her jaw. I asked her to [mm a] on 1358531, then [nn a], [nn i], [nn u]. I asked her to do a staccato repeated [bi], then [ni]. I felt like she was getting swallowed, so I asked for a "nyah nyah" kind of sound with the [ni]. I saw a lot of body tension and discomfort, so I asked her for toaster shoulders, then to do a half-squat. I asked what was different and she didn't know. I asked her for [bi bi] on 13531. I asked for a [mm u], then [nn u] on 8531. We started her hymn, and she sang through the chorus. I noticed a hollow, ungrounded kind of sound, and a lot of jaw management and tension. I asked her to silent scream, do a quiet primal "uh", side to side bobble-head. I had her [hu] the melody, and that wasn't helpful. Sarah said that the high notes were feeling problematic, so I put the music down for a minute and did some high sighs, just to see how high she could sing. I moved onto arpeggio with lip trill opening to [a] on 8. Lip trill was breath fart-y, lip trill with tongue was too difficult, and rolled [r] was awkward for her, so I just asked her to do a simple [bap bap bap ba] on the arpeggio. I reminded her to have a "stupid" jaw on the top note. This seemed like a good exercise for her, if a little shaky and new. We got to a comfortable G5. I asked her to sing the chorus again on [za]. Sarah said that the high notes were hard and without power. I tried to get her to explain what she was feeling but she couldn't put it into words. I told her that she can sing quieter on the higher notes because it's still heard, and told her about how it's harder to sing ascending lines, of which the chorus is mostly comprised. I asked her to sing the chorus on [nu] with a gentle tongue flip to articulate. This seemed to work well for her. I think the combination of the low larynx [u] and the [n] for the articulation to prevent tongue bunching was good. I asked her to do the same on [no]. This seemed to be good to release her jaw more.
Lesson reactions: Cindy, I was SO nervous in front of you with your jury face! I felt like I was moving very slowly and I was indecisive, and I forgot lots of stuff. Listening back to the lesson made me realize that I probably don't give enough iterations of some exercises, I get somewhat impatient with Sarah's inability to identify what she feels, and some of my instructions don't help with what I want. Obviously my piano skills are lacking, and that is one of my biggest handicaps. If I was able to move through vocalizes and the range easily I'd get a lot more done, but I'm working on it! On the positive side, I'm trying hard to identify when Sarah does something well and help her discover what that feels like. I feel like I can recognize what's going on fairly well, and can sometimes find ways to help address it. I feel like with practice at teaching I'll get better, and that I'm not a complete disaster, just slow right now. Thank you for all your feedback, Cindy. It's very helpful.