Sarah Boucher Group Practice Summary 10/1

Sarah Boucher Group Practice Summary 10/1 (Jared Daley was my partner)

Jared and I started off by discussing what we do to get started. It was interesting to compare how we prepare to sing, and to hear how different things work for different people. We weren't really sure where to begin so we started by discussing what we feel our biggest weaknesses are. I said breath and he said keeping his throat open. We started by attacking my issues with breath. Jared told me about something that works for him that he calls the "diva breath". It is breathing through your nose like you are smelling something (hahaha, which makes you look like a diva). This helped me to feel my whole body expanding with air. We also talked about suspension with this by thinking about breathing through the nose and the mouth at the same time. We applied this technique to one of my slower songs and I felt instant improvement. My breath was low, supported and low. Then we put it to a fast song, it took a few tries but I eventually was able to grasp it. I tried my best to give him some ideas to help his throat tension. We talked about breathing, primal sounds and visualization. He was very free and released, so we think it may be something mental when he performs! Then we spent a lot of time discussing a song cycle he is doing. I tried to probe him with a lot of questions to help him figure out who his character is and what his motives are. It was helpful to me to remember how specific we really need to be with our pieces, in order to get the emotions across. I hope it was helpful for him to have someone to bounce ideas off of!