Mariah Lesson Summary 10/3

Mariah Lesson Summary 10/3
I felt fairly prepared for my lesson this week, but I think I could have warmed up a little longer before coming so we could jump into working on my songs sooner.
We talked about my song analysis forms for Clair de Lune and the Last Rose of Summer at the beginning of my lesson and she had some suggestions for those. We also talked a little bit about my masterclass and applying what I learned there to my singing. We worked on some new exercises and she had me try to keep my jaw from moving on the ya-ih exercise. When working on an oo exercise, Laurie had me think about my mouth placement and shape it like I was cooling hot chocolate. She also had me move my hand in a kind of roller coaster movement to help have a more continuous movement of breath. We went into a yo-yo oo from there. On the snort breath with the me oh oh ee exercise, she had me think about making the notes connected. Listening to the recording, I could hear when I took fast snort breaths the sound wasn't as good but when I slowed down the sound really improved. As I did the mah exercise, she really emphasized having me think about the sound dripping out of my mouth and releasing my jaw. We also talked about going to the extremes with my warm-ups to help stretch my range. On the sirens, I had a hard time connecting the sound so I need to work on those more in my practice after I've warmed up a little bit. We then went on to work on "The Last Rose of the Summer." Listening to it, I feel like I did pretty well but I still could drop my jaw more on the ee vowel. Laurie had me practice singing it without consonants on the phrase I was having a hard time with and she told me to keep the sense that all of my vowels are lined up vertically. Then I sang the phrase lower on an "ng" sound to help my body stay constant. When I pulled out my tongue and sang the vowels, the ee vowels started to really improve. When we went to the higher pitch though, my high note on the ee vowel wasn't as good bud when I bent my knees on the high note it was a little easier. Laurie also talked to me about taking deep rib-cage breaths. I can feel the lower breaths more when I'm bent over and have my hand on my back.
Some important things I learned were paying attention to body support and feeling full low breaths. I also learned that I'm not very good at sirens so that will be great to work on those and get better with them. I need to remember to lower the song when I need to and work my way back up to the higher pitch. Also, I can work more on thinking about vertically-aligned vowels.
My goals for my next lesson are to have "This Little Rose" memorized and the song analysis form completed. Also, I would like to have D'un Genio and Music for a While learned.
New Vocalizes
uhh "oh no don't go"
ya-ih ya-ih ya-ih ya-ih ya
me oh oh ee
prreh (5x)
ee ahh ee sirens with body movement