We began the lesson just by talking a little bit and I especially wanted to talk about his choir experience in high school, what part he sings, that type of stuff. So he sings in the sophomore choir and the men's choir, and he sings tenor 1.
I had him sing a descending scale starting from A3 going down. The guy went clear down to a Db2!! And it wasn't vocal fry or anything like that, it had a nice warm tone to it. I couldn't believe they had him singing tenor over there. Then again, the new high school teacher over there is quite awful, from what I've heard from my other cousins that go there... Anyway, he's definitely a BASS.
we then started an ascending scale on an "a"
He asked if I wanted falsetto, and I said just sing whatever you feel feels right and whatever comes out comes out. So we started and I noticed that his middle range and upper range was much weaker than his low notes. I was very surprised by this because he told me they have him sing tenor I. He then told me that he's been singing tenor since the 8th grade. I could see that maybe because his voice hadn't matured yet.. But there is no way he should be singing tenor.... What the heck.
So I probably should have done this before we started singing, but next we did some stretches. Rotating the neck I around in circles slowly in both directions, and bending over and letting the back and neck hang naturally while taking some deep breaths. After that he told me that he liked those stretches and I said I did too.
Before we began to sing again, I wanted to correct his posture. I didn't want to correct anything before this because I just wanted to hear his voice and see where he was at. He had a nervous looking posture, kind of hunched over and he had his hands clasped behind his back. So I talked about body alignment and how having a good alignment will help your voice be more healthy, clear, and free. We then did three quick scales on an "a" vowel. I stopped him on the third because I wanted him to make a more tall and pure "a" vowel. He kind of had mix of "uh" and a bright "ah" if that makes sense... It was a very immature sounding "a" maybe that explains it better. But he did improve on the pure vowel idea I have him.
At this point I also noticed that he was jutting his jaw forward and up. So I stopped again and pointed that out to him. I told him that when the jaw goes up and out like that it causes tension and it would effect the freeness and color of his tone. I displayed an aligned jaw, telling him to keep his top teeth parallel with the floor.
The parallel idea worked really well for him, and he was able to monitor himself throughout the rest of the scales.
He said that it felt really weird to have his chin/head in that position, and that he felt it would be easier to sing higher and have more energy. I tried to explain again how that head position would be detrimental to his sound and timbre, and that that position also causes tension, that he probably doesn't feel now, but would eventually feel in the future.
I decided to see if we could apply these concepts in a song that he knew. So I grabbed the hymnal and I asked him to sing his favorite hymn. We went through it once and then the time was out for the
Lesson. I asked him if he could name two things that he would take away from the lesson and apply into his singing at school, he said that he would remember to have a better posture and to not tilt his chin up. Couldn't have asked for a better response!
While I'm home we'll continue to have a few more lessons, and we'll be able to keep working on stuff. Great first lesson, I can tell where he is at vocally, and technically, and he was able to make improvements in this first lesson, which is really Cool.
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