This was my fourth lesson with Rob. I started by asking how his voice felt. He said it felt good. Next I asked him how the rest of his body felt. He said that he felt tired and that his back was a little sore. I told him that this shouldn't be too much of a problem, but I told him I would be conscientious of it during our lesson. We first found a state of release. We started with the 'teacher, teacher!' stretch. Next, we did a couple of yawn stretches. Before we did our next exercise I reminded him that we don't need to use our shoulders for breathing. Next we did an exercise to release the shoulders by raising our shoulders, while simultaneously taking a deep breath followed by a release of the shoulders accompanied by a quick exhalation. After doing that a few times I asked him how that felt. He commented that it was releasing the tension he had there. Next we loosened the jaw my mimicking a chewing motion. I asked him to pretend that he was a cow chewing it's cud. After doing that for a little I asked him how it felt. He said it felt good. He then asked me a question about the jaw. He said that when he tries to open his jaw really wide he feels a pop in his jaw. I clarified and asked if he would say that it feels like the jaw is unhinging so that it can open more. I feel that happen too when I try to really open my jaw wide. He asked if that was a problem and I told him that it is normal (is it normal?). I went on to tell him that although we do want to have an open jaw when we sing, we don't want it to be forced open, so opening the jaw to the point where that unhinging sensation takes place is unnecessary. Next we did some exercises to release the neck. I asked him to let his head fall forward as if he was falling asleep. We moved our necks gently from side to side. Next I had him return his head to a balanced position and imitate a bobble head doll. I told him that the movement should feel free and that he could imagine he is drawing and infinity symbol with the tip of his nose. I asked him how that movement felt. He said that it felt good and felt different from the movement we were doing previously. He said that the previous movement felt like a stretch, whereas this movement felt free and easy. Next we did a review of proper singing posture. First I asked him to position himself as if he were going to sing. Next I asked him to specifically place his neck in a position that he thinks would be good for singing. Next I asked him to think specifically about his shoulders. Next I asked him to stand perpendicular to the mirror and look into it so that he could take a moment to look at the position of his neck, shoulders, and back. Next, I asked him to close his eyes and told him that we would be doing the same thing, but this time I would be directing him a little differently and allowing him to change his body alignment if he felt he needed to in order to be in harmony with what I was going to tell him. He closed his eyes and I started by telling him that the joint responsible for bearing the weight of his skull is directly in the center of his head. Next, I told him that when we stand in correct posture, the muscles in our shoulders simply rest on our skeleton. After that, I told him that the weight-bearing portion of his spine lies right in the middle of his body. I gave him one last direction by saying that the knee joints can take one of three positions: locked, bent, or balanced. Next I asked him to open his eyes and look again in the mirror. I asked him what he noticed about the posture that he was in. He said that he liked the way it felt and looked better than the way his previous posture felt and looked. He said the posture that he was in then felt and looked more relaxed even though he thought that he already was in a relaxed position before. Next I asked him if he could point out some specific improvements. He said that his shoulders feel like they are in a more natural position, his belly isn't pushed out because his back is in a better position, and his knees don't feel locked and tense like before. I complimented him for his astute observations. I told him that in addition to the things he pointed out, his neck joint came into better balanced once he had properly mapped it's location. Before his head was jutted forward slightly, but as a result of this exercise it released back into a more balanced position. I told him that it is very important to balance our neck joint before we sing because balance in all our other joints stems from there. Next we moved onto some vocalizes. We started with some trilled R's and did them in a siren-like pattern. I told him beforehand that I don't care about how it sounds, I just want it to feel and sound free. I asked him how it felt. He said that it felt interesting because he was concentrating just on letting his voice move freely and not on how it sounded. He commented that he was very aware of the break in his voice between his full voice and falsetto voice (I had told him before we started that he should feel free to go into falsetto if he needed to). I asked him as a clarification if the exercise at least felt free. He replied that it did. Next I asked him to sing some 5-tone descending scales on the syllable [bi] in his falsetto voice. We started on C4 (singing down to F3). I moved up 5 half-steps, repeating the scale with each half-step. I then stopped and just asked Rob how he felt his posture was. He replied that it was not good. I asked him why he felt that way. He said that he was back on his heels and that his shoulders were too forward. I told him that it probably started because his head was jutting forward and causing his body to do other things in order to find balance. I told him that he should continue to be aware of his posture and look very closely at his posture each time he sings and notices a sound that is undesirable. We started to do the vocalize again. This time I started on Eb5, the bottom note of the scale being Ab4. I moved up 6 half steps. After doing the exercise on those 6 notes I asked him if that set of vocalizes felt better. He said he felt better about his posture in that set. I agreed. I still, however, felt like there was some tension in the shoulders as he sang. We did another set, but this time I asked him to assume the rag doll pose. We started on E5. I moved up 4 half steps. After that I asked him if he felt like there was any improvement. He said that the higher notes in the scale felt easier. He said he thought it was because in that posture he is unable to see what notes I'm playing on the piano. I told him that this was a possible reason for the improvement and that another possible reason for the improvement was the fact that in that posture he wasn't able to allow tension to come into his shoulders. I told him that there was some movement in his shoulders upon inhale that probably caused the tension. I told him to be aware of that especially in the upper range and told him that things like the rag doll position can let us know whether shoulder tension was the problem. I closed the lesson by asking him if he had any questions. He replied that he had none.
Overall I'm really pleased with this lesson. I'm really glad that I had the idea to do some of the body mapping exercises with Rob. They helped him a lot I think. He already has quite the knack for inclusive awareness, so I figured that this would be an effective practice for him. I really hope that the exercise will make him more independent in identifying postural problems. I think if he continues to use his high level of awareness to identify his problems then he will be able to make great progress. I still want him to be more aware of the position of his A-O joint, but I'm confident in his ability to develop more awareness in that area. I think my next hurdle with Rob is to just really help him understand that he doesn't need (and doesn't want to) feel big muscle contractions when he makes big interval leaps or sings higher in his range.
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