So I forgot to turn on my recording until after I asked my first question, but I can tell I asked about choir. She talked about how she was in the Women's choir, and that she was singing alto. She didn't seem to thrilled about being an alto.
Me: What kind of style of music do you like to sing?
K: I've done modern and classical
Me: You took lessons before coming here, right?
K: Yes.
Me: And how long were you taking them for?
K: Two years.
Me: What kind of songs did you work on?
K: I did a lot of musical songs.
Me: Okay, how long into your life do you want to sing for?
K: I think it would be nice if I could like sing to my kids for bed and not kill them with my voice. I think I always want to sing because it is a great way of expressing yourself.
Me: Good! I like that! You play violin, do you play any other instrument/
K: Sometimes I play the guitar, and sometimes the piano, but just tiny pieces.
Me: Okay, so how good is your sight reading and stuff like that? On any instrument, not necesarrily singing.
K: Not very good... I try but...
Me: You do know, though, which line of the staff is C and things like that right?
K: Yeah
Me: So it's just not a really developed skill?
K: Yeah
Me: That's ok, that's just fine. Do you have any performance experience with any instrument/voice?
K: Does in front of my family count?
Me: yeah. So just around the house then?
K: Yeah
Me: So then no formal settings, like a recital?
K: No, not really.
Me: What are things that you like about your voice?
K: I don't know... Sometimes it sounds really good, but sometimes it doesn't.... I don't know, I never think of that.
Me: Okay, well then what is something you would like to improve on then?
K: I don't sing alto.
Me: You would like to improve your higher range then?
K: Yeah, I told Mr. Seare that I don't like alto, and he still put me as an alto. I don't like to sing deep because the parts are so boring. It's like the same note the whole time.
Me: I know you're not super involved in a million things, but what is a typical day for you.
K: Well I get up and get ready for school, I read scriptures with the family, I go to ballroom practice with Taessia in the mornings before school, then I have school. After I come home and do homework and just do things around the house.
Me: Well I know you must talk a lot living with my mom and dad. Hahaha So do you shower in the morning before you go upstairs for scriptures?
K: Usually.
Me: A really great place to warm-up the voice is in the shower. If that is one of the first things you do in a day, it's a great way to ease into using your voice. Do you think you would be willing to try some lip buzzes each morning while you shower?
K: Sure that would be fine.
This next part of the lesson was tricky. She didn't have any music to bring of the songs she was working on in Germany, or even knew well for that matter. I would have just had her sing a hymn or a nursery rhyme, but she's not American so she didn't know anything like American lullabies or something that would be commonly known here. I think we finally found a hymn that she knew, luckily. After hearing her sing, I decided that she had some misconceptions about where breath goes and what it does for you when singing. She seemed pretty fixated on getting her belly to bulge out, which I'm guessing her last teacher told her to do. Also she was very breathy, and had zero energy in her lower body. So for the remainder of the lesson, we talked about getting the body properly balanced, and we worked on some breathing techniques that helped her to be less conscious about it and fix some of her poor conceptions about it.
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