Saturday, October 19, 2013

Sarah Brenay - Lesson - 10/17/13

My lesson today was a little rough because I was feeling a little sick. My throat was pretty tight and I kept getting light headed. We did the nam nem nim nom num exercise, which I have improved on since last week. That went pretty well. I'm still having inconsistencies with jaw and mouth shape, but this exercise is helping a lot. After that, we did another exercise directed at that same technique. a ee ii a----i going up an arpeggio and then descending by step. We altered it by putting a "b" at the beginning of each vowel so that I could get the onset better. Good stuff to work on this week!

We worked on the rhythms in "Nana" and I made great progress with that, at least mentally. I was over thinking it. It's important to remember that I'm reading Spanish folk songs in a very Western European notation style. To capture the feeling of the Spanish music, I need to delay until just before the beat for embellishment, rather than singing the exact pitch. Cindy reminded me that it's a lullaby and should feel very natural. If it's causing me a lot of trouble, I'm probably doing it wrong. That was really helpful for me. Then we sang through "The Year's at the Spring." I actually felt good about my progress on that one! I had been practicing getting to the vowel right away and not letting the consonants affect the shape. I think it was sounding pretty good! And since Cindy didn't say anything about it (which she usually would I think) I assume it's headed in the right direction. We spent time working on the high note in the piece. Unfortunately, I didn't completely understand the exercise she was having me do, so it wasn't very successful.

For next week I want to memorize two more pieces and work on the runs in Nasce al Bosco every day. 

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