Gavin 3/7/14
We started with the stting down and
leaning over exercise, to practice breathing in the lower back. I asked him to imagine that breath
actually comes in through nostrils on his lower back. When I do that, I feel that the torso just expands itself,
and I don’t feel air even entering my body. I told him to feel breath as if it was something that drops
in and expands (like a mushroom cloud, his suggestion haha) I clarified that
when standing, the lower back won’t expand as much as when he was sitting.
I had him lean over in a standing
position in order to get his hand dangling. I told him I didn’t care about straight legs, but the
priority was getting he shoulders and head in line, dangling. Then I had him
sing in that position, [baa] on 54321.
We started on D4 and went down from there. His head was moving on each pitch still, so I showed him that
his head needs to dangle and hang randomly as he sings. He tried again, and I had to keep
reminding him to dangle, and as I did, his voice sounded a bit more free to me. Every repetition I had to remind him to
keep dangling his head.
We transitioned to standing up, and
I asked him to keep bobbling his head.
He was still tensing the neck muscles. So, I showed him what I was seeing from him, and then what I
wanted, which was having neck muscles like a baby; they can’t control which way
their head flops because they don’t have the strength yet. Some of his attempts were slightly more
released, but not all. Standing up
was definitely harder for him than hanging over. I told him that I liked the sound better when his neck was
released, and I asked him he felt anything different. He noticed that his sound was better when he was upside
down, and it felt easier to get a good sound. Great!
Then we changed the exercise to
[baaaa i] 54321, and I told him the challenge of the exercise was keep the jaw
the same shape on both vowels. I
showed him a couple examples of what I was asking for, and then he tried. He was keeping it the same shape, but
it was held tensely. So I told him
he was doing a good job at keeping it in the same place like I asked, but I
wanted it to be dropped into the same place, not held. I used the analogy of being shocked. His neck was still so tense, it was
hard to tell if any benefit was happening from this exercise. I asked what he needed to do to make
sure the jaw didn’t change for the vowel, and he said that the tongue needed to
go higher in the mouth. That was
exactly what I wanted him to understand!
I then proceeded to explain that vowels are created by the tongue
only. The jaw knows only one
vowel: [a].
We tried another exercise: [ba i a
i a] on 53421. That was harder for
him to achieve than the previous exercise. He asked if I wanted him to keep his jaw still, and I told
him that sounded like a very tense instruction. I asked him to let his jaw fall and rest. We kept going, and it was still tense. I reminded him to release fully from
the [ba]. He had some mild
successful in some places, and I should have remembered to point out those
little places, but I didn’t.
We tried [jajajajaja] 54321. I told him to pretend that he just got
his wisdom teeth out and had tons of gauze in his mouth; the stupider you
sound, the better. He scoops so
hard to the top pitch, and I pointed it out, and he got rid of it. We he didn’t scoop, it was much more
released, but the jaw was still pretty engaged; it technically stayed in the same
place, but it was held there. But
this exercise was probably the best option of the ones we tried.
And that was it!
Reaction:
In listening back, I realize that there is more tension than
I realized. His neck, shoulders,
and jaw are having a really hard time relaxing. I can hear little glimpses of what he’ll sound like when he’s
finally released, and it’s cool! I
wonder, how long to harp on that before he gets bored? I’m worried we won’t do enough
singing. But, I don’t want him to
sing with tension anymore, because it’s not beneficial at all…
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