Laurie always starts the lesson out by saying "How is your voice today?" I love that because it forces me to think about where I am at. I came prepared, I had a weeks worth of dedicated practice and had warmed up well before then. I told her that my voice felt good by my body was a little bit tight, especially through my shoulders. She had my lay on the exercise ball however I felt comfortable and wow...the tension dissolved. All I could think about was my breath and I could feel it low in my body. Everything relaxed. What a great way to start a lesson! During warmups I felt my breath begin to be shallow again so Laurie had me hold the ball and laugh like Santa! It really helped a lot to think of my breath like that big ball. Laurie's warmups really help me to get into a settled place, I get energized while also feeling relaxed.
Next, we worked on Silent Noon. We worked on freeing up my sound. It was very pinched and forced. First we approached it by speaking the text with our heads tilted back. This helped to release the jaw. Then we talked about having rounder tones and focusing on the vowels. We took section by section and spoke it and then sang it. The big change happened when Laurie had me put my thumb in my mouth between by top and bottom teeth. That created much needed space in the back of my mouth, letting my sound "round" up and spin a lot more. It felt free! We would try small chunks starting with my thumb in my mouth and then I would slowly take it out and try to maintain the space. We sang through the whole piece at the end (so I could record it for this class) and Laurie told me that she thoughts that the bits that we worked with the thumb in my mouth we better than the bits we did not. I am anxious to hear it and see if I can hear the distinction.
She really wants me to focus on an open throat, which encapsulates everything we are working on: released jaw, space between my teeth and low rich breaths. She made a lot of suggestions that I am going to apply this week to all my pieces.
New Vocalizes:
-Show (slide) me
-Shh Shah
-We descending ah ascending
-Shoe descending
-Shoe (dumping and floating)
-So (slide) So-So-So-So
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