Sam Meredith Lesson Summary 4/22

I felt well prepared for my lesson today. I had been trying really hard to apply the things that we talked about in my lesson last week and was well warmed up for my lesson. We continued where we left off last week, trying to do things that would help me form a good breath gesture that would allow me to start phonation with good pharyngeal space. We started by doing some descending arpeggios on 'choo.' Before I began that part of the vocalize, I pretended to sneeze to so that I could have that good breath gesture. We did a couple of repetitions of that before we changed the word to 'so.' Cindy encouraged me to try not to open my mouth very much when I sang so that I would stop trying to compensate for my lack of pharyngeal space with space in the mouth. We continued to use the 'about to sneeze' breath. We did a couple of repetitions of that. Next, we did a vocalize using a 564534231 pattern on the syllables [fi, fe, fa, fe, fi] switching syllables every other note. I tried my best to maintain that sneeze breath. It wasn't going very well at the beginning, so we went back and did the 'so' exercise a couple of times just to get a better sense of the right space. Cindy encouraged me as I sang to make sure that I don't let the sound fall out of it's good placement on [a]. After that we did turns in thirds over the course of a tenth on the word 'many.' I continued to have trouble with finding the high placement we wanted. When that was the case, we went back to 'so' again and did a few repetitions before transitioning directly back into 'many.' After a few more reps, we changed the exercise, so that I did three repetitions of 'so' before transitioning directly into 'many' without breathing after the third repetition. Throughout the exercise Cindy continued to encourage me to close my mouth. We discussed the fact that tongue tension may be the reason that I can't get the sound to be in the right place and that the tongue is released when the mouth is closed. After that we looked at some music. We started with 'wenn du zu den Blumen gehst.' We decided that we would try singing it with my mouth closed. After that Cindy asked me how I thought I did. I said that I was really surprised how easy it was to sing all of that with my mouth closed. I also said that I noticed a desire to open my mouth on open vowels, but that the closed vowels were a lot easier than I thought they would be. Cindy said that she did notice one small glitch in the performance, which was probably a result of the fact that my tongue is so accustomed to pushing down at that point that it tried to do so even when my mouth was closed. She asked me to sing the second verse one more time with my hand resting gently under my chin so that I could notice how things felt at a laryngeal level when I had the proper pharyngeal space. After we sang through the second verse again, she asked what I noticed. I said that I noticed that I could really feel that my mouth wanted to open and that my larynx also wanted to elevate. She asked me if I could cue something in my body that would get rid of that. I said I would try. We tried the verse again. I was still having trouble with the transition to high notes. Cindy told me that I need to start to bear down for the high note before it comes, not as it comes. We tried again. After that, she asked me to do the verse one more time with my mouth completely free to go wherever it wants to so that I could further make the connection that my mouth is just a hole in my face for shaping words, not the thing responsible for producing timbre. After singing through the second verse once again she asked me how it felt. I said that it felt pretty good, but there was still one place where the tone was running into the roof of my mouth. She said that this may have been the case, but it was still better than it has been in the past. She asked me to do it one more time with my mouth closed and just concentrate on the sound being really high. She also asked me to let the notes spin immediately rather than holding them. We went through the second verse again concentrating on letting it spin. There were some places where I was having some trouble letting the notes spin, so we went through those places again. Cindy told me that she doesn't want me to try adding in vibrato, but just be aware of the vibrato and realize that if it isn't there I'm bracing somehow. When my accompanist arrived we added in a few things musically such as breaths. After that we decided just to go through all of the songs that I was taking to juries to make sure that everything was in order. We started with 'wenn du zu den Blumen gehst.' As I sang Cindy instructed me to do some things to loosen up my shoulders. After that we talked about what things I need to do to make the song more expressive. Cindy told me that I just need some sort of specific intention to drive the emotion in the song. Next we sang 'der Mond hat eine schwere Klag erhoben.' Cindy stopped us after the first phrase and informed me that I was making a lot of unnecessary head movements as I sang. After we started again and went through the whole thing, Cindy told me that I need to sing each note in the song as if it were the beginning of a new phrase. We started to sing again. Cindy stopped me after the first phrase again and encouraged me to insert a breath in that phrase so that I wouldn't be so tight by the end. Next we did 'psyche.' I was having similar problems with this song--I was taking too long to get to the vowel. I think I want to incorporate a lot of the things that I did today into my lesson into my everyday practice. I really need to stop practicing gaspy breaths and practicing good breaths instead. I also need to look in the mirror more when I practice as well. I also really want to see what I can do with my mouth closed during practice. I think when I stop relying on pushing my jaw down and concentrate instead on given the sound a nice tube to move through with my pharynx, the sound will not be so flat and will have an easy, natural vibrato.