I completely forgot to record this lesson. I'm not going to pretend that I can remember everything that was said verbatim, so I'll do my best to summarize what happened.
I asked Steve how he was feeling. He said he still had a lot of congestion, but felt completely over his cold over than that. I told him that congestion can last weeks after the other cold symptoms are gone. I told him he should take mucinex, but he was already taking it so I told him to drink tons of water.
I asked him how he was feeling physically other than that. He said he felt fine. I asked him specifically if he felt tension anywhere in his body. He said no, but also admitted that he often doesn't notice tension until it is released because he's so used to it. He said that's what usually happens when Dr. Nickleson addresses tension in their lessons. I decided to do just a few stretches.
We stretched up to the ceiling and then rotated our shoulders forward and back. It became immediately apparent that Steve was extremely stiff and tense. I had him lean against the wall and roll his head from side to side. He noticed that the left side was more tense than the right. I was glad he was showing some awareness of what was happening in his body. When I was finished stretching my neck I stood up. Steve stayed where he was and continued to stretch. I commented that I appreciated that he was willing to wait till he was ready and told him that I want my students to always take their time and listen to themselves - and if I try to rush him he should ignore me. Then I had him hold his arms out and rotate them to the side while planting his feet, he groaned loudly and said he felt some muscles over his ribs freaking out. That was when I realized we needed to spend some extra time on stretching. I decided to teach him the yoga back stretches I've been doing. Cat and calf stretch, and a host of other stretches. We went through all of them and then hung like rag dolls for a while before slowly rolling up. Then we did the rotating arm stretch again and, fortunately, Steve didn't feel the same discomfort as before. I wrote down all the exercises and advised him to do them daily. I told him that it would help in percussion as much as for voice and that he really should consider doing these frequently to improve his playing. I hope I impressed upon him how important this is.
Then we went over to the piano. I asked him to stand in the most "poised" and prepared stance he could imagine for singing. Initially he stood stiffly, holding his neck and arms awkwardly. Before I could even address it, Steve shook it out and tried again. The second attempt was really quite good. I asked him where his skull attaches to his spine. He pointed to the very back of his neck at the base of his skull (which is what EVERYONE does). When I told him that was incorrect he asked if it was more in the middle of his head! I said yes indeed! I'm impressed he guessed that. I showed him how to locate his A-O joint and invited him to find that balanced position for the head. I told him how when I find it if feels like my head lost 10 pounds. He found the balance. I asked him if it felt different from before. He said yes. Then I had him do the toaster thing to get his shoulders back. I asked him if that felt different. He said yes, and that he felt weird sticking his chest out like that. I told him that keeping his sternum up was necessary to enable the breathing mechanism to function properly. He said that made sense. : )
We did warm ups. I had him start with light [u] sighs. Steve really impresses me here, because he often goes extremely high with the sigh [u]s. I can tell that he doesn't know how high he's going, and I believe the sound to be very free and effortless. We did several of these. Then we did some yawns so I could see how his jaw movement is. It looked pretty strained. I asked him if his jaw felt loose and comfortable, and he said no. I told him that we would address that in more depth soon, but for now to just release it and let it be open and relaxed. After a few yawns we did a chewy yawn. His jaw tension will have to be addressed soon. I just felt like I had spent so much time working on the same physical stuff and we needed a change of pace. So I moved on to an [ingingingingiiii] 54321 exercise. I realized pretty quickly that this one was a little too complicated for Steve right now. He wasn't able to let go of the [ng] to get a clear [i]. Sometimes I forget that the warm ups we do every day are actually kind of hard. After doing a few of them so that it didn't look like a mistake I switched to [ni ne na no nu]. First we just spoke it conversationally. Steve got into it and we had some fun. Then I had him speak it on a specific pitch (D3). As soon as pitch became a factor, Steve lost that speechlike quality and created a pressed, froggy sound. I asked him if he could have it be more speechlike, just on that pitch, and not for it to be like singing. We did it a few more times on different pitches (all in speaking range). When he didn't really stop "singing," I explained how our speaking voices are less entangled than our singing. He seemed to understand that because he agreed readily. I commented that we can speak all day and not feel too warn out, but we certainly can't sing all day. I explained that a big part of learning to sing healthy was making our singing closer to speech as far as the vocal mechanism went. He seemed to be on board with that idea. I also told him that eventually, singing became less entangled than speech, but that I hadn't gotten there yet and would tell him what it was like when I did. : )
After that he started letting his [ni ne na no nu] be more speechlike. After a bunch more of those on different pitches spanning from B2 to E3, I wasnted to experiment with some beeps. I wasn't sure yet whether he would be hypo or hyperfunctional. I mean, the only time I heard him sing he was sick... Either way I wasn't sure yet. So I started with [bip]. We did a 13531 pattern. I started at D3 and went down a few steps. Then up to E3 and back down. I switched between [bi] and [ba]. I didn't notice a huge difference between them. Soon I think Steve will be more comfortable and I'll be able to observe him more closely, but I don't want to scare him while he's still getting used to singing with me. Then we did [so]"what." I've been using that a lot lately! I like it a lot for me. And it seams to be pretty good for students so far.
Anyway I noticed at this point that Steve was angled away from me but was turning his head to look at me. I told him to face me so he didn't have to turn his head. He said he didn't like seeing himself in the mirror. I told him that I understood and used to hate looking in the mirror, but that you get used to it. I told him I wouldn't make him do it right then. He said "fine I'll just look in the mirror," but I could tell he was uncomfortable with it. I don't think I'll have him use the large mirror. If there are times I think it would be helpful, I'll grab a small mirror for him so he can focus on just his jaw or whatever. He's a good looking guy! But people are strange sometimes.
Anyway we did [so]"what" 8531 starting on D major again. I just really like starting there. I don't know why. I guess because it's not too high and not too low. Anyway we did a few of those. I noticed that he was scooping up to notes and carrying a lot of weight up with him. I commented on what i was hearing. I instructed Steve to do some sigh [u]s to remember what that felt like. Then I had him to the exercise again. It helped a little but I could still hear a lot of difference between the two tones. We tried to start in a sigh and then go straight into the exercise, but it was too hard (for both of us). So I had him to sigh, exercise, sigh, exercise, sigh, exercise. I asked Steve if he felt or heard a difference between the two. He said not really, but he was focusing so hard on the exercise that he couldn't really tell. I laughed and said that was probably a good thing! I told him how with singing the harder you tried to control what your voice was doing it got worse. The harder you try the worse things get! The voice can't be bullied or forced. Anyway I told him that the sigh was helping to bring the exercise to a lighter place, but that I thought he could still connect them better.
We were almost out of time here so we looked at the music options I had brought for him. He didn't like most of it (can't blame him. I need a better music library.) But he liked the theme from MASH because he's a big MASH fan. So we decided to do that one and he's going to pick a jazz tune he wants to learn and text it to me so I can figure out how to play it.
So that's my lesson with Steve!
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I really enjoyed this lesson. I feel like I got some important and helpful information across and I think Steve did some good work. He's got a nice voice, and he's attentive and smart. It was just a good time! I think my goal for next lesson, and for all my students actually, is to let them sing more. I tend to plan too much verbal instruction and don't let them just SING more. All the information I give them is good and helpful, but I think it could be more specific and effective if I listen more and talk less. That will save us a lot of time I think, and will help them progress faster!
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