Thankfully, she had been practicing, so that was a load off my mind. To start off I had her flop over to release her shoulders and neck (I made sure she had bent legs and that he neck was completely released). Really quickly I had her do the aborigine squat.
*Starting in FM, "A B C D-thee", speaking the letters and singing thee on 5-4-3-2-1.*
Next I had her hum (hum of indecision) and then tell me about her day a sentence at a time. This helped with getting more of the speech-like presence. We moved back into "thee" but I had her imagine the "teacher pick me" feeling and to take her time thinking the first not. She did really well once she started to get the note really clearly in her mind before she started singing, which I made known to her. (I remember giving this lesson after I had read my lesson comments telling me to be more positive).
Next we did the "who's new blue shoes". I had her shake her head in a slow no as a destraction. It worked ok except she was pulling her tongue back again. I then told her to imagine that she was babysitting and one of the kids was being naughty and she was confronting them. I had her point forward on "who's" and this combined with the babysitting thing helped focus the sound a lot more. As the lesson went on, I tried not only to be more positive but to be more specific with what I liked. This made ALL the difference in the lesson. She understood exactly what I wanted and what needed to be done to get there. Plus the happiness in the overall mood was really beneficial in keeping the sound more buoyant. She even got to the point where she would recognize if she had taken a good preparatory breath and if she'd raised her larynx with the breath. It was so cool to see her finally understanding things on her own with out me having to tell her! I few times I had to remind her of a few things such as the difference between being ready (like a diver) and over relaxing in an attempt to have the dump moments. I did a lot of asking her to tell me what things felt like and and if they felt better or worse than before. SO MUCH AWARENESS WAS HAPPENING!! IT WAS AWESOME!!!
As she was singing her song, she was getting very involved and was "trying" and "making" a lot of the sound. I wanted to have her sing all the way through the song in order to know what needed attention. After she finished I had her tell me good things that she noticed (because there were good things--especially since the last time I had heard her). What she said was good, but a little bit on the "interesting side". So we talked about what she said and how it was partially correct, and what some of the feelings probably actually meant. While she was singing I wrote down a few things that needed some attention. First I mentioned that her tempo was dragging a little bit and that it needed more of a bouncy, rebound feeling. I had her start again and it made a ton of difference! Next we talked about intention behind the music. I talked about how she needed to have a reason to be doing what the composer had written. She got a little bit in her own head, so I had her count the tiles on the wall. This helped a lot! Technique wise she would "breath fart" a lot and she would go sharp a ton from trying to wring out the sound. I had her lay on the ground and suddenly she had a beautiful released sound! This lesson had so many positive outcomes! I felt, for the first time, that my teaching was beneficial and not just.... blah.
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