LaeKin Burgess Austin Lesson Report #5 for 4/21

We started with some plop plop plop on 531 beginning on c4 and sequencing downward. After a little of this we did the same thing on 1531 arpeggiating downward. Then we started lip trills starting on b3 and, again, sequencing downward before leaping up about a 5th. I noticed an immediate slump of the shoulders and collapse of the ribcage after every breath even though the breaths themselves looked pretty decent. To keep him from immediately collapsing on the breath we started ZZZAH on 87654321.  I asked for an extended Z sound and asked him to pay attention the the buoyant, down and out feeling we got with that sound and try to carry that into the rest of the exercise. I still felt like Austin was being pretty rigid so I asked him to think about each breath was a renewal and complete release of any tension or rigidity we might have picked up in the previous phrase. We continued the Zah exercise but the octave became more like a slide. I felt like Austin was carrying his modal voice all the way up to the top note so I gave him permission for the top note to be produced differently from the lower notes. From here we moved on to his song. We tried panting before each phrase but this caused more effort in the upper body than in the lower so we tried a three quick breath intake before each phrase. This wasn't very effective either. I reminded him of the suspension we felt on the Zah exercise so we did a few of those and then applied it to the song. I had him start every phrase with Zzzzah. This seemed to help a little more than our other efforts.  He seemed overly concerned about his rib cage. I told him if he has a good low breath and good posture the expansion of the rib cage would be pretty much taken care of. I told him to just keep feeling that buoyant energy. I think his struggles during this lesson were coming from not having a complete release of the abdominals which was inhibiting a good breath connection. This is what I instructed him to work on this week by placing himself in positions where he could find complete release and by working on his alignment so his breath could be low and energized.