Shalayna G. LS 1

Lesson Summary :

 First lesson after the summer break was quite interesting. Although I had sung and practiced over the break, I found myself not being able to error detect my 

“old” habits. When I first opened up my mouth to sing a scale on the “e” vowel my mouth did the exact opposite of what it was suppose to do; it was closed. What shocked me the most was that I didn’t even notice what I was doing nor did anything in my brain go off like the “warning warning failure approaching” moment that Cindy refers to. As I continued to vocalize my body did feel a bit tense. I think mostly because I was taking vocal lessons again trying to remember everything that I was taught from the previous semesters. I didn’t feel completely comfortable with the way my voice was sounding until about the end of our warms and even then I felt like there was some hard work ahead of me. I tried to focus on one technical aspect at time while I was in my lesson and that was breathing. When I feel like I start a vocalizing exercise wrong, I often like to stop and catch my breath so I can feel the balloon type breathing rather than the bucket.

As we looked through the musical selection I realized I didn’t know it as well as I had thought; especially when it came to having enough breath to complete the different phrases. We used chunking as way to see how the breath felt through the phrases before and after completing them. The first few times I got the same result. Although I never fully reached a 100%, I did feel a slight accomplishment when reaching the end of my phrases. While working on my breathing the structure of the music started to make sense as a whole.

During my practice this week, I have been focusing on my mouth being apart especially on the [e] vowel. While walking or taking a shower I listen to the music in my head while making the “shh” sound to see where my breathing is and how my body feels at the end of the phrases.