Sam Meredith Lesson Summary 3/22

I felt well-prepared for my lesson today. I was well-rested, I had been practicing extensively in the previous week and I was warmed up and ready to go. We started with a vocalize doing turns in thirds over the course of scale degree 5 to scale degree 1 alternating between the syllables [vi] and [ve]. After a few repetitions Cindy encouraged me to give the sound a more buoyant feeling by loosening up my A-O joint. Once I was aware that the joint was being held in place rather than being allowed to balance, the sound improved. Next we worked on adding a more specific intention in my eyes as I sang. Cindy next commented that the repetitions where I started with my mouth closed are better. I guess in other cases I was so intent on making my jaw be open that I was forcing it to be open before I even sang. Next we did a vocalize singing the word 'shy' on a descending arpeggio. After a few repetitions Cindy encouraged me to think a pitch for the 'sh' in the word. As I started to think of 'sh' on a pitch just above the pitch where I was actually going to have to start singing it seemed to free things up. Cindy told me to continue vocalizing on words that require me to begin with a closed mouth. Next we worked on some music. We took a look at 'troppa briga a prender moglie.' After we went through the first few phrases Cindy told me that she wanted to do it again and identify each time where there was engagement from an unnecessary muscle that was also present in the vocalize we had done previously. To get rid of this sensation we just left out a couple of notes that were giving me trouble making the transition to high notes so that I could maintain more of a sensation of falling into the high notes. This seemed to help a bit and should be something that I implement into my practice on this song and all of the other songs in my rep. Later on in the song I had some trouble making the transition to some high Es. Cindy said that I would feel more secure about those notes if I didn't let my teeth close for the preceding Ns and Ms. Once I was able to do that and once I was able to more fully focus on approaching high notes from above, the sound of the song improved quite a lot. As we continued to sing, however, some of the problems returned at various times. Another thing we did to help facilitate approach from above was to allow for more space between notes. This seemed to help. Cindy said that adding the space was probably helping me feel like I was starting again with each new notes. She said that in the end the goal is to have that same feeling without the sound actually stopping. I really just need get to the point where I can start note and just let it spin so that I can have the energy needed to move onto the next note. Another thing in this song that was giving me problems was the word 'si.' I have to sing that  word a lot in this aria in a lot of places where there are potential registration problems. In a lot of cases there was some bad nasality in the sound. So, to encourage a feeling of more space between the molars and a more direct vowel sound, we turned the word into a vocalize. We alternated between [si] and [se] and sang descending 5-tone scales. To decrease tongue tension we added a cat purr sound at the beginning of the scale. This seemed to help. Next, to help me navigate the last page of the aria Cindy played the melody in two different octaves that were rather far away from each other. She told me that I should think of the pitches being high, but the consonants being low. After that we worked a little bit on 'the golden willow tree.' We continued with the same exercise on this song. There was some shoulder tension when I sang this song, so Cindy asked me to imagine that I was sending my shoulders out to the walls. The next problem we encountered was bracing for high notes. Cindy told me to just not be worried about glitches and pantomime if I can't reach certain notes just yet. My take-aways for the lesson were to remember to fall into high notes from the top by not trying to set myself up for them on previous notes, pantomiming so I can avoid practicing with constriction.