Saturday, October 12, 2013

Sarah Brenay - Lesson - 10.11.13

This time in lessons we focused mainly on tone production in the higher register, pitch renewal, and pig diction.

We did a great warm up where you "blow out a candle" and then add pitch, descending in a two octave arpeggio. It really changed the way I prepare for high notes. The onset is much better with this lighter, unforced tone, and there is little to no tension. It's going to take a lot of practice to be able to apply it as well as I'd like, but here's to new discoveries!

Cindy taught me this incredible exercise that I'm really excited about. You say "nam nem nim nom num" all on the same pitch, elongating the "mmm" and staying on a humm. The point is to keep a consistent pitch for each vowel and humm. I could not believe how difficult this exercise was. My vowels are so inconsistent in pitch! Wow. Really wow. I was only able to do a passable run through when Cindy hummed the correct pitch on a drone through the exercise. Incredible exercise for exposing vowel formation inconsistencies.

When we sang through the Manuel de Falla pieces we focused entirely on getting the consonants out of the way of the vowels. I tend to let the consonant bleed into the vowel or vise versa, like closing to an "l" early when saying "al." It made an incredible difference in my sound! But again, it's going to take a whole lot of work to make it a skill. Lots of work to be done!

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