Transcription
The start of the lesson is a bunch of silliness! Quotes from the office and a discussion of TV shows. In the midst of this section I asked Emma how she was feeling. She told me she was feeling a lot of back tension from karate. I asked her to massage her back a little bit and then we lay down on the floor.
S: How has your practicing been?
E: Really good I practiced like an hour ago.
S: Ya? What were you working on?
E: Gollum's Song. It's the first time I've been over it in a while.
S: I'm excited about that one! I wanted to work on this one today!
E: I know I'm really excited about it too!
S: Happy day! Well let's just do some like (sigh) you know that sound when you're like "ummm I don't know."
E: "Ummmmm"
(We do this ummmm I don't know back and forth a little bit.)
S: So you feel how that sound feels like nothings happening? "Ummmm"
E: "Ummm"
S: So that's a really great sound to build our singing off of because it's so efficient and so released you know what I'm saying? So what I want you to do is "ummmmmmm [ba]" 32123212321. Well actually I think we'll do ummmmm [b] 321. We're going to go straight from the um into the singing and try to change nothing.
(We started C major 321 then went up a half step, then down to Bb major. Then I changed to a 531 pattern in B major. I jumped around a fair bit. Emmas tone was really great on the primal uh, but became breathy when she sang.)
S: So what difference do you feel between the "umm" and the singing?
E: ....um I don't know!
S: It's ok lets do some more.
E: I'm thinking to hard!
S: It's ok it's ok! And now we want to just assess. Just let your body do what it does and then assess what's going on ok?
(We do a few more.)
S: What do you think?
E: Ok well the first time I noticed I was like going blehhhaa! And then I though it more and the second and third time were better.
S: Ok good, good. Now let's try a variation on this so we can make the singing more like the [a]. Let's do "uhhhh" then slide it up and down.
(we did a couple of these. We started on primal "uhhh" and then slid up about a minor 3rd and then down about a 5th. I was trying to get her to connect the sounds. It worked better than the 321 and 531 patterns - probably because she's sung so many of those patterns with constriction.)
S: What does that feel like?
E: It feels good.
S: Ya? Ok good! Now lets do... What do I want to do? "ummm" [ba] 8531.
(I started on a Bb arpeggio. Her tone is still really breathy when she is singing. There is no pause between the "umm" and the singing, but she is still changing things. We went as low as F# and she had no trouble with it! Cool.)
S: Wow you're singin low today! Just feelin the low! Ok let's do some light [u] sighs. So we're just going to do [uwa].
(I model a light [u] going down and ending in an [a] in the chest range. We do a couple of these. Emma feels silly doing it but does well. She's getting good at that stuff. We did a few until I heard some airy escaping before the onset.)
S: So that last time I feel like I heard a bit of air coming out before the sound -
E: Ya cuz I was doing like the going up instead of coming down. I remembered that as soon as I did it.
S: Ya oh gosh you are too smart. Good work lets do some more!
(we do another one which sounded much better.)
S: That sounded nice, it sounded much more sigh like! good work let's do some more.
(we do one more)
S: This time before you start freeze like your frozen in time. ( I model what it would look like to freeze just as I was about to begin the sigh.) Just pause and think about it. You're about to sing, and then let it come out. Ready?
(we try one and Emma's onset was much more immediate, but I worry might also have had a glottal stop, not a big one.)
S: Ya so that was a much better onset. Let's do a couple more.
(We do two more. I sing very softly when we do these so that I can hear her. I think she gets more tense when I am completely silent, so I usual sing with her for a while.)
E: Ya I see what you mean! It like (she snaps) kicks in faster instead of like gaaah (airy vomit sound).
S: Instead of like (I model with air in the tone at the onset).
E: ya!
S: So it's more like (I model without air in the tone.)
E: Ya! That's cool.
S: Why do you think that works?
E: Because it's already engaged, and then all it needs is you to push the air past.
S: that's right that's right, so you're thinking it already, and so your body knows what it's doing and then you just let the air take the sound out right? Let's just do two more! Ready?
(we do two more)
S: nice! Now I want to experiment with this beautiful instrument here ( I flourish a piece of paper).
E: Oh my.
S: Haha you want to sit up for me? (she was still lying on the floor at this point.)
E: I'll stop lounging. We have lounging lessons.
S: We do! And they're wonderful! I usually spend the first 15 minutes of my practice lying down, just because my body is so tense you know and I just don't want to sing with it. So let me demonstrate for you my beautiful paper tone. (I blow with rounded lips into the paper. I am very very good at this.) Pretty good right?
E: Yes! I do this with grass.
S: Perfect! Ok you want to play the other side, you know for the sake of hygiene.
(Emma jokingly flourishes the paper as well and sits in comically formal posture with the paper.)
S: Excellent, very good that is the proper paper technique.
(She blows. It sounds really good. It's not quite as strong as mine. I show her the [u] sound without the paper and instruct her to keep her lips nice and round. We do a 54321 pattern.)
S: Beautiful tone, you were born to be a paper player.
(We do some more jumping around a bit spanning between G3 and D5. When I went higher I felt like she was pushing up for the note.)
S: Do you feel like that last one came in from above or below?
E: I don't know...
S: Let's do some more.
(We do some more.)
S: So we're thinking the pitch before we sing it.
(we do a few more. Then I change the pattern to 8531358531. She does pretty well with this. There's some uncertainty in the mid range, but I mostly just wanted to get her voice moving so that was ok with me.)
S: Good job my dear girl, good job!
E: So what's the purpose of that? What does it tell you?
S: It kind of function the same as a lip trill or a rolled r or a [v]. It gets the air flowing and it's a good way to monitor whether we're getting our air to flow in the right way, because if we're not we're not going to get that busy sound. So it's really clear to us that, oh that didn't sound the same, my air isn't quite getting there.
E: Oh I see!
S: Ya and it also distracts the brain from thinking 'aaah oh now I have to sing and I have to make it sound pretty!' you know? so it keeps us from tensing up and pinching.
E: Ya because it's just like I have to blow air to make this thing vibrate.
S: Right! but it's the same thing as if we were to sing all of this on [u], it's the same as singing but it's pretending not. It's tricking our minds! It's all a big mind game, singing is.
E: It really is.
S: Alright so lets do some... remember last time when we just thought the top note and then came in?
E: yes..
S: Ya it's hard! but this time it's going to be easier because we're just going to think the top note and then just slide down instead of hitting every pitch of the scale. (I model) So we're starting to phonate on the 7th scale degree and then slide down to 1.
(I do a few with her but she's very tentative.)
S: Do you see what I'm doing?
E: I do... but it's hard!
S: It is hard! But I'm not as worried about the exact pitches you're singing as I am about you thinking the pitch and then allowing your voice to come in. Think the top pitch, and then allow your voice to come in below that. Ya? Ok.
(We try some more. It takes quite a few for her to start feeling comfortable with it. We do A major first and then go down by halfstep to G. Then I go back up to Eb major and down by half step to Bb.)
S: I know it's weird.
(we do a few more.) But you know what I'm seeing when you do that? When you think the pitch first and then phonate, your larynx is in a low position and you look relaxed, and it doesn't sound like it's pinching up, right?
E: Ya because you're thinking about the note under it and not going 'aaaa scramble!'
S: Ya exactly! So ya let's do ( I model 54321 with a silent 5 in a dotted rhythm so that there's till a pull down from 5. We start on Bb M and go down. I noticed that her sound was very breathy and her [u] wasn't doing that buzzy wall-e sound.)
S: Can I get more of that wall-e sound?
E: I'm trying but it's not working today!
S: Do you want to try a [v]?
E: Ya
(We do some more)
S: It's harder lower too.
(We do some more. I never go higher than C5 and I don't go lower than A3. She has a visible nervous reaction when we go up to B4 or C5.)
S: Bravo! Bravo my dear.
E: I don't know why the wall-e sound isn't working today. Because I could do it before and now I've forgotten.
S: Hmm. I'm trying to think why that would be, it could be that your mouth is dryer or your lips are tight. (I model a few [u]s and Emma starts to get it.) There you go now you've got it. But the [v] works just as well. Do you mind standing here so I can see you? (I put her over at the edge of the piano and have her face forward so I can see her from the side a little bit.)
S: Can you to this (I do the tongue out raspberry blowing sound).
E: Haha I can do it as long as I'm not looking at you I can.
(We do 531, but only a few of them. I realized that it was really just doing the same thing we'd been doing for the past ten minutes so I switched to [bi bi bi] 531. I stay in basically the same range as before. In the higher range, from Bb4 to around F4 her [i] is pretty breathy. I'm noticing that the less I do on the piano, the more independently she is singing, and the stronger her tone becomes. I don't know if she is pushing for more sound or not though. We go up and do some more. Then I decide to do some minor triads which Emma thought was cool.)
E: That's so weird! Because when we were doing major and you would mess up and do minor I would think - hey I could do that! But now I have to think really hard to keep it minor.
S: Ya you have to focus! Let's see if we can do diminished!
(We do some diminished chords. I think this was really good for Emma. She was focusing really hard. Then we do augmented.)
S: Remember you want to think the pitch before you sing it.
(She messed up and got embarrassed but I reminded her she can retry the [bi] as many times as she needs to. )
E: My beep is broken!
S: You're beepers broken Emma. It's broken. You're totally fine! Don't worry if it doesn't do what you want the first time.
(When she makes mistakes and tries again she gets more and more tense. We do a few more augmented.)
S: Haha I'm just throwing some crazy stuff at you today! Why not?
E: Why not?
S: Ya so but you know sometimes when you were doing some of those beeps you were taking your chest voice up there and that's when it gets all tight.
E: Ya I know..
S: But you weren't doing it most the time, right?
E: Ya those were just.. they were too high. I would try to do it without that and I couldn't hit it.
S: Of course it's not too high! It's not too high! Just do this (we do some light sighs. I show her that in the sighs she's singing F5.) That's not too high you are perfectly capable of doing it! So you don't you tell me it's too high Emma! Now we are going to do some sight reading! Our first lesson we said we wanted to do that and I totally forgot.
E: It's ok! We have a lot to work on...
S: Oh whatever. You're doing awesome. Now I'm trying to decide whether we should use solfege or numbers. Are you familiar with solfege?
E: Well I hear Sam doing it a lot so I kind of know about it.
S: Right. I feel like numbers will be faster. So let's see, this first exercise is in D major.
(We go up and down the scale singing the number of each scale degree 123456787654321. Then we did the first exercise in my old sight singing workbook. I sang with her the whole time. I wasn't planning on doing that, but I figured that singing with me would be helpful to her tone production. I feel like we instinctively blend with the person singing beside us, and often that can have a positive effect for a poor singer - or a negative effect for the better singer. Anyway so I sang the first exercise with her. The second exercise I sing very softly, and tried to stay behind her a little bit. She was struggling so I had her go through and just name the notes verbally before trying to sing them. "11117122222123..." etc. She did really well after that. We went on to the third exercise. listening back I can hear a lot of kermit the frog sound in her voice. What is that? Isn't that just tongue tension? Well now I know! When she was having trouble getting larger intervals I told her it was ok to walk up to it by step. This helped her a bit. We did two more exercises. The last two involved more leaps than stepwise intervals. She did really well!)
S: Perfect! Good job! Wow look at you this is going to be easy for you. Do you want me to keep bringing this back so we can work on it a little bit in each lesson?
E: Ya these are fun, they're pretty challenging!
S: Ya they are and they get nasty! So we have got plenty of fun ahead of us. Alright now let's go to your repertoire. I brought my copy so now we both have our own... awesome! Ok shall I just give you two measures?
E: Ya that's fine.
(We go through Gullom's song. I can hear a lot of tongue tension - I think that's what it is - in her tone. The "r"s are really American too. The vowels are extremely bright. Dipthongs change halfway through the note too. Anything in the upper range is really breathy.)
S: Nice. Nice my friend. Tell me two things you love about this and one thing you don't.
E: I love the key, the range. I think it's very nice. It's like perfect for me! Um um um. I don't know! I was happy that I mostly had good breathing spots where I remembered where to breath. There was a part where I was trying to do chest voice and it felt too high and it felt icky and it felt like I was straining. So I just, ya.
S: Well cool good stuff! I think that this song is really good for you. For your range, for your tone, it just really suits your voice well AND by the way that low F# sounded awesome!
E: Thank you! I was like I hit it!
S: Ya it sounds great!
E: It's a tricky jump, octaves are hard to hear it's like you always want to do a fifth and you think it's an octave and like no it wasn't!
S: Seriously but that was perfect! And it's certainly not going to be hard for you, the range. I can tell you're making some good progress with this one. But ya I'm hearing what you're saying about bringing the chest voice higher. So that's something we DON'T want to do. What we want to do is to... you gotta... ok let the voice be breathy for a while. And it's not a big deal, it's not. The thing is your voice is going to take some time to build up that muscle, and that's what Cindy was talking about in class - when she first started she thought UGh this is so breathy! And her teacher just said 'I don't care. It just takes time.' We want that, not the chest voice higher. And there were also some diction things I wanted to talk about. How much time do we have?
E: It is... 4:28.. we are way over time.
S: Way over time Ummmm do you want to spend a little extra time and talk about this more?
E: I don't mind.
S: Ok I don't mind at all! So what I want you to do when you're practicing this is start from the high note and go down. so you'll take the higher note in these phrases, say this one? (I play a measure, starting with the highest note and going backward so that the pitch descends. I have her [u] down the line. Then I have her do [bi] down the line. I ask her to do [fi] to see what would happen, but it sounded the same as [bi])
S: Nice ok, this will help you figure out "oh this is the sound I need at the top, this is the sound I'm going for" so that you're not carrying that heaviness upward, you know what I mean? So practice from the top to the bottom, and now we're going to tack this highest note onto the beginning of the phrase. (I play the G before the phrase, and then we ascend up to it as written G-C-Eb-F-G. We did it on [u]. This is G4 by they way, it's not really high.)
S: The goal is that the first G and the last G should feel the same. Let's put the words back on it so it will be "love where once was love."
(Emma sings it.)
S: so what did you think?
E: It felt different.
S: It felt different when you got to G again?
E: Ya.
S: Ok so that would be a sign that you're taking that heavier sound and bringing it higher. And that is what we do not want to do, so then in that case I would take it back again and start from top to bottom. (We sing it on [u] and then [la] and then do it on words again.)
S: So was that better?
E: Ya actually, the second one felt better than the first!
S: Really? Wow nice! Another thing that helps is that you sing the first pitch and then keep thinking that pitch as you sing the lower notes (I sing the line while playing the G continuously.) But you're just kind of holding that note and thinking that's the note I want to aim towards.
E: Ok cool I love practicing in tiny little chunks.
S: Good that's the way to practice!
E: My students don't believe me on that yet. But they're little children.
S: Well they need to. They'll learn. But you're smart enough to get there so let's do it!
E: I will!
(We go to a chunk that is higher, Bb4 to G4. I have her [u] between them for a while.
S: That sounds good. Let's do [ba] Bb-G Bb-G. (We do a few of these. Then I suggest we do [ba]Bb "these(G) tears(Bb)" I give her few tries.)
S: So which felt better, the [ba] or the tears?
E: The [ba].
S: So then we'll do it again! (We go back to [u] sliding down from Bb to G. Then we do [u]Bb "these tears.") Good, it's sounding clearer!
E: Ok.
S: And you can apply this to your other pieces as well.
(Chit chat and silliness ensues and this is the end of the lesson.)
Reaction
Well. The most important thing I can do for Emma now is locate her constricted area(s) and help her release. I can tell from her sound that the breathiness is caused at least in part by tension, I THINK it the tongue, but I am not certain. What I need to do is make a tension checklist, including possible areas of tension, how to test those areas to locate the problem, and how to fix the problem when I find it. Cindy, I need your help with this! Here's what I can come up with now.
Area: Tongue
Test: Have them sing [ni ne na no nu] and see if their tongue is staying down near the front teeth. Or have them hold the tip of their tongue and see if it tugs when they sing a certain vowel or pitch.
Fix: Describe the released posture of the tongue. Help them find it using "ing." Do exercises with "ing." Talk like a person who is deaf or a korean person... (wow how horribly rude are we? but it works.)
Area: Jaw
Test: Watch for jutting or sideways movement. Have student watch in a mirror. Have them monitor themselves with a hand.
Fix: Massage, move jaw with hands. Tilt head back and allow jaw to release. Chew. Yawn.
Area: Larynx
Test: Watch and see if it moves up. Have student watch/feel with hand.
Fix: Silent 8s. Simply asking the body if it can do it another way. Thinking the note, then singing. Coming in from above. Sensation of yawning, sneezing, or drinking water.
Area: Pharynx
Test: No idea
Fix: No idea. Maybe pantomiming drinking water to find openness.
Area: Breathing muscles
Test: Watch for release of abdominals and expansion of ribs. Watch for suspension.
Fix: Have them lay down. Have them squat and feel the back moving. Do breathing exercises with hisses.
Ok now this is what I will start working on next time, but my tests and fixes need refinement! Cindy! I don't know enough! PLEASE help!
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