Sarah Boucher Lesson Summary 10/11

Sarah Boucher Lesson Summary 10/11

I felt like this week was kind of a flop vocally, I had a lot of good intentions but felt like I was fighting my voice all week. I came to my lesson feeling like I hadn't made much progress. Laurie and I started as we always do by discussing "where my voice is at today". Based on what I said Laurie tailored the warm ups to help! It was lovely. I was forcing my breath and forcing my tone so we began with very basic warmups. She had me drone and do a lot of primal sounds to get my larynx low and to release my tension. Slowly the warmups got more complex. I did my warmups while sitting on the exercise ball so I could feel my breath lower. When my breath got tight Laurie would have be move my waist around like a hula hoop to release the tension. She had me pantomime for part of the the exercise and then sing, this helped me get on my breath and avoid "smacking" my chords together.

We worked on El Pano Moruno by de Falla. We talked about the character and Laurie gave me the assignment to really look at the piano introduction and put some descriptive text over it so that I set the scene up before I even sing. We also talked about breathing in character, and how that would help me have a better breath and onset. We took a section and layered it. First we just droned it while the melody played on the piano. Then we sang it on an "uh". This helped lower the larynx, release my neck tension and to create a connection with my breath. Then we spoke the words at a drone in that section and then finally sang the words. Starting with the basics and then working up to the words really helped me to create the sound that I wanted! I will be using this in practice this week and also intend to watch my jaw. I need to open wider to get more sound. Laurie keeps telling me that she has a sense that I have a lot more sound that wants to get out, so I am going to focus on that as well :) She also said something that really inspired me...."Rise to your greatness". How awesome and philosophical is that! Love her!