This was my fourth lesson with Anna. I started by asking her how her voice feels. She said that everything felt fine. I asked her also about choir and she said that it was going well. We started by getting loose. I had her do an exercise to release her shoulders where I had her abduct her arms away from her body, turn her palms up and then let her arms fall back to her sides. We did that 5 times and then I asked her if she could feel a nice, healthy stretch in her shoulders and she said that she could. Next I had her get into the rag doll position. I instructed her to just let her arms and head hang there while she was in that posture. I noticed after a few seconds that her knees weren't bent, so I asked her to bend her knees. I asked her how her shoulders felt in that position. She said she didn't really feel anything in her shoulders. I replied that that is good because we are meant to feel like our shoulders aren't doing any work when we are in that position. I added that we are also meant to feel that kind of a sensation in our shoulders as we sing. As we were in that position I asked her to take a few breaths and just notice where the expansion in her body is happening. She replied that she felt it in her lower back. I agreed by saying that I saw that there was some expansion in her lower back when she was breathing. Before leaving that posture I briefly mentioned that this is a good posture to vocalize in because it can get us used to how our shoulders should feel when we sing. Next we did some singing. I asked her if she was familiar with the sounded that the seagulls in the movie "Finding Nemo" make. She replied that she was and did her best impression of the "mine" that the seagulls repeat in the movie. I pointed out to her after that where her jaw goes when she says that. I pointed out to her that it's nice and open, but not in a way that feels forced. So, I did a vocalize on that word in hopes that it would help her have more consistent jaw openness. We sang the word "mine" on a 5-tone scale descending and ascending repeated 3 times. We started on Eb4 as the top note. I then moved down a half step, then back up a half step, then up a whole step, then down a whole step. After that I asked her how the vocalize was feeling. She said it felt fine. I asked her if she she could make the 'm' and 'n' in 'mine' as audible as possible while still maintaining the open jaw position that she has when she is singing the vowel. We did a few more repetitions after that. We started on F sharp. Then I moved up a half-step, and up another half step. After that I asked her how she felt about those in comparison to the vocalizes we did before. She said that she felt like there was a tendency to keep the jaw closed when she focused on making the consonants come out a little more. I praised her for her awareness of that and told her how important it is to simply be aware of how our body is reacting in certain circumstances because we can't be perfect in everything immediately. The key, then, is to just be aware of all the things that need to change so we can devise a strategy to fix those problems. Before our next vocalize I explained that I want her to continue to have a nice, healthy jaw position like she had in the previous exercise. We sang turns in thirds over the course of scale degrees 1-6 on the word 'yikes.' We started on A3 (the bottom note of the exercise. After that I moved up a half step, then back down a half-step. After that I asked her if she could make the y more exaggerated. We started again on A3. Then, we moved up a whole step, and up another half-step. After that I asked if she liked that set better than the previous set. She said that she did a little bit, but that she felt like she maybe could've exaggerated the 'y' a little more. I told her that I felt like there was an improvement because the articulation of the 'y' puts her in a position where her jaw is relatively closed, but the vowel following it causes her to find a good jaw position right away. I told her that when she gets to the point where her jaw is opening to a good place more consistently, her singing will sound and feel more confident. Next we did some sirens. I suggested that she start low just so she can have an experience with making the transition from low to high smoothly. After doing a couple and having her go continually higher with each ensuing repetition I asked her how they felt. She said that they felt fine. I asked if anything hurt or felt tense when she went high and she replied no. I next tried an exercise just as an experiment. I asked her if she could do a siren comfortably up to a note that I played on the piano. I told her beforehand that I wanted her to concentrate on having the note feel free and released rather than on getting to the note. I first played Eb5. She got to that note fairly easily. Next I played F4. She scooped gradually up to the note, but then stopped. I told her at that point that she didn't need to stop if she felt like she could go higher, because I felt like stopping the way she did could cause her to tense up. She performed the exercise again going past F4 until she felt like she needed to come back down. The next note I played was Ab4. She got up to the note, but then got a little scared and stopped. I was afraid that that might happen. I told her that I didn't want her to squeeze and tense up like that and that is the reason why I wasn't sure from the very beginning if that was a good idea for a vocalize. I told her that maybe that one isn't the best one to do at this point. I did point out to her, however, that when she is doing an exercise like a siren she is able to sing a lot higher than she thought she was capable of. I also commented that sirens seem to be very easy and free sounding in her voice. As an interlude to or next exercise I asked her to remember the released jaw position that we found in some of our previous exercises today. Once she had accessed that jaw position, I asked her to articulate [i] for me with that same jaw. It was a little difficult for her at first, but after a couple of repetitions she was able to say the vowel more accurately. I told her that this is normal because we speak that vowel with a relatively closed jaw. I then clarified, that although we speak that vowel with a more closed mouth we can sing that vowel with the same space in the back of our throat and with the same released jaw that we sing all the other vowels with. I told her that making the vowel we sing sound like [i] even when we have an open jaw and a lot of space in our throat is merely a matter of having our tongue and our other articulators in the right position. I asked her to just arch her tongue so it touched the roof of her mouth. Then, we spoke the vowel a few more times. She improved with every repetition. Once she got the hang of it more, we did some scales. We started with a B scale. I asked her to sing a descending scale on [bi]. She sang the scale on B and then we moved down to Bb, and down to A. I asked her after that if she can sense a transition from a lighter quality in her voice to the more speech like sound. She replied that she could. I felt like the transition between the two registers, however, was rather abrupt, so I asked her if she could make it smoother and more gradual. We did another scale on Bb. Next we moved up to C. After that scale she said that she felt like she wasn't doing it right because she felt like she was trying to hold the whole scale in her head voice. I told her that we could modify the exercise to help her have a better experience with it. I had her turn around while I pulled her arms back behind her. She sang another descending C scale. After that we moved up another half step and sang a scale. I asked her which of the two scales she liked better. She said she like the second one better because it was fuller feeling. I agreed with her opinion for the same reason. I told her that I wasn't sure whether what I was doing was helping or not. I noticed some clavicular breathing in previous scales, so I thought pulling her arms back would get rid of that. Just out of curiosity as to whether my trick was actually working I had her do another scale. I did, however, have her change position. I asked her to assume the rag doll position once again before singing the singing the scale. We sang one more on Db and then one on D. I asked her how it felt. She said that it felt harder. I told her that there are some aspects in which singing is harder in that position, but I clarified that the reason I wanted her to sing in that position is because I wanted to see if her shoulders were the culprit in making the transition between registers and making her timbre overly breathy. I told her that I felt like the transition in the last scale was smoother and the sound was fuller in the last scale. I asked her if she had any questions before we ended our lesson. She said no.
I feel like it's a lot easier for me to teach Rob than it is for me to teach Anna. One reason is that Rob is a man--I just don't know as much about the female voice. Another reason is that Rob just seems to respond well to the things that I explain verbally and also responds well to the questions that I ask after vocalizes because he has a high level of natural inclusive awareness. Obviously, Anna learns just as well as Rob does, but I think I'm just going to have to modify my teaching style a little bit when I'm teaching Anna. I think overall I could cut down on the talking in my lessons, but I think that especially rings true for my lessons with Anna. I feel like I have a hard time sometimes helping her understand what it is I want when I ask her to do certain vocalizes. I think it would be more effective if I demonstrated the vocalize first and then after that briefly explained what I wanted her to focus on in that vocalize. That way she would probably understand the vocalize more quickly and would also be more well prepared to answer the inquiries that I often have after my students perform vocalizes.
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