Student: April A.
Brief overview of lesson: I asked April how she was doing today, she said she was doing great. I asked her if she'd been singing today, she said that she had done some singing in the shower. So we began with some lip buzzes on 54321 I began at A4. I instructed her to have the lip buzzes be free and easy. She did quite a few, and I could see that she was struggling, so I stopped and I asked if everything was okay. She said that she didn't feel like she could get enough air in. I thought this might be because she is blowing out a lot of air, so I asked her to imagine while she was breathing in and while she was singing to imagine the air flowing freely. We tried another lip buzz, and it sounded more even in breath flow, and the sound was consistent, rather then stopping and starting.
Almost all of the lip buzzes matched pitch. The only time they stopped matching pitch was when she got to the tonic, and it just kind of dropped off. Although she was doing a fine job at pitch matching, so I went up to D5, and I said to think lighter at the top, and I went down in half-steps. She did a really great job in pitch matching.
She seemed really tired, so I told her she could sit on the piano bench, but I wanted her to remember that attitude of happiness, because it really helped her in her last lesson. She sat up, and looked like she was sitting upright.
I then introduced April to the dove sound exercise. I demonstrated it for her, and asked her to join in. I specified that we were to be making dove sounds and not singing. We did some without pitches starting in a high place and ending in a low place. I thought this might be a good idea to work on the shift through head and chest voice. She seemed to be doing pretty good, although I noticed that it sounded a bit swallowed at times. I then asked her to try it on a 531 scale pattern to see if she could figure out what she needed to do to get rid of the swallowed sound. We started on A4 and after the first repetition, April stopped me and said that she wanted to try saying "Hey, Mom!" in her child-like voice before starting each one. I was so happy to see a moment of development where she was becoming more aware of what was happening, and the fact that she remembered that sensation she felt when she spoke in the child-like voice would help her fix that. YAY! I was really happy with that discovery. So I started her again on A4 with her speaking before each repetition. We did four or five repetitions, and although I felt like the production of the dove sound was easier with the addition of the "Hey, Mom!", she wasn't matching pitch at all. This didn't help either, and after several repetitions, I stopped and asked if I could feel her larynx, and sure enough it was high and tight. I told her that we wanted to feel an openness in our body and throat, a certain release needs to happen. So we don't want it to feel tight or squeezy.
Now that I listen back to the recording, I hear that she was doing more singing the longer we were doing the exercise, and I think I could have cued her in a better way like saying "don't be singy, but make more of dove sound." I think this might have helped her to let go more than saying, "release and keep the larynx low", since she doesn't really have the awareness yet to do this. I think it may have also been more helpful to say something like, "we don't want to engage any extra help here.". I think reiterating the fact that she is making an animal sound, and not singing would help her be more connected to her breath and body, than saying something about releasing, just because she doesn't have that type of awareness yet.
After we talked about that, she matched pitch a little better, but I then noticed in the lesson that it was more singy than animal noise, so I corrected her to make a dove noise or sound, not a singy one. She then stopped me and asked me how my tongue was curled. I said that my tongue was not curled, but that it was released and the tip of it was resting on my bottom permanent retainer. Apparently she had been curling her tongue as if she were whistling to gather people together. After I corrected her tongue, she still was singy. She then asked me how I dampened the sound. I told her that I didn't really know how to explain the logistics of it, but that it was a lot easier if she thought of it as an animal sound, rather than singing. I also told her that my neck was completely released. I asked her to act like she was blowing a gentle stream of air out of a straw. We both pretended to blow out of a straw. I then asked her to pretend like she was sucking a gentle stream of air through the straw. I then asked her to blow out of the straw again, while maintaining the feeling she had when she pretended to gently suck through the straw. The sound seemed to get less singy, but it wasn't quite all the way there. Since I didn't really know how to explain it in a different way, I decided to move on since I had some other stuff planned, and I thought I might be able explain it in a different way next time.
I asked April to stand in an alert and happy posture, while she sang on an [u] 535153515351. I told her that it is going to be a little scary, because she is going to feel as if she can't sing the notes that fast, but if she just thinks the pitch, provides the air, and trusts that it will come, that it will. I started her at B7 and she again said, "Hey, Mom!" before each exercise. She did good a handful of repetitions specifically in the lower range, but around D5 and C5 she was struggling to match pitch. I cued her while she was singing by saying "light at the top" and "Child-like voice". These cues seemed to help a little, and she was matching better.
I then moved on to "abcd 'th'ee" 8531. I thought the speaking 'abcd' might help her keep that child-like speech while eliciting the pitch. I started her at C5, and on that repetition she had the speech-like quality that I wanted when saying abcd, but then she didn't maintain that same quality when singing the 8531. I cued her to have her singing feel like the speech felt like. This seemed to help, but after a few repetitions April said that her throat felt sore and tight. I told her that we could sing something else, but to make sure that it was light, and felt free from tension. She said she wanted to try the same exercise but lighter, so I played the top note again, and they seemed better, but I did notice that when I said lighter that her timbre got more breathy. So I'm not sure if lighter was a good word choice for her.
For the remainder of the lesson we worked on reading music with a hymnal she had brought. I told her to pick a song and that I first wanted her to learn how to play the melody. I then taught her some terminology like measure, rest, quarter and eighth notes. I also went over time signature. I told her about FACE and EGBDF to memorize the spaces and lines on the staff.
We then ended with our take-aways.
Assessment of student: I think that April is beginning to develop a better model, and awareness of what is going on. I am really happy with the suggestion she had to say "Hey, Mom!" in the child-like voice, because that shows that she remembers the free and easy sensation she has in her speaking voice, and now she is trying to implement that into her practice. I think that this will be a great tool for her to work on eliciting pitch, and pitch matching.
How will you modify your teaching based off of what you learned from the lesson? I did notice that I could do a better job at playing the descending scales more quickly, just because I think it will help April let go, and not grab or hold notes. Especially as she is learning to free the voice, and allowing the pitch to happen. I think I need to give cues that are dependent upon her current ability, because she may not know how to let go of her larynx, and let it be yet.
Questions for Cindy: How do I explain the dove sound in an effective way?
Takeaways for the student:
1. practice reading music-specifically associating pitch name with location on the piano and staff.
2. associating speech like voice with singing voice.
3. think let trust
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