Emily F. masterclass 11/19

Emily F. masterclass 11/19:
Kaylee Ann Simmons: Kaylee has such a sweet timbre to her voice. I only wish it would come out more. It's like she has the sound, generates it, and as soon as it starts to come out of her mouth she tries to get it back in. I noticed her "strong-arm"ing her jaw on most of the vowels with the exception of "ah". The diction was ok, but when Cindy helped her with speaking through the text, everything was better. Cindy talked about having more personal, meaningful for nature-based songs. Yeah, that kind of song is really hard to have a good connection to! Cindy also said to speak the text ten times for every time you sing the text. That's a good reminder for me. 
Brooke Myers: Like I told you after class, I think this is the best I've heard you sing! It seemed more authentic to me than some of your other performances. The fact that you're sick made it easier for you to not try to control the outcome so much. A few things I noticed: you kind of led the song with your jaw, and the holding that you were doing with your jaw transferred to some body tension, particularly in your arms. On the bigger leaps especially, you clamped down or did lots of stabilizing with your jaw. (Story of my life!) When Cindy had you work on releasing your jaw, the sound improved. Good to remember that we really only need to close the jaw for a few consonant sounds. 
Bric Slade: At the beginning I could tell that you were focusing on keeping your jaw and neck loose, and that was good! The rest of your body, however, stayed pretty tense. When you got to the higher notes, the jaw tensed up. I could tell that you've spent some time with the text and meaning of your song--this time was one of the best I've seen you do, expression-wise. When Cindy had you reach on the chairs, there was more spin and resonance in your sound. She said to require more work of your rib cage and torso. And experiment to get the release you want without trying to control the outcome. 
Sarah Boucher: Your German was better today--good job! I noticed that you did do some "Swedish chef" lips a little bit too. I imagine trying to reconcile getting the German diction right and "simply speaking simply" is a challenge with this, because you want to have good diction and that might make you try to "do" too much? The pig tail exercise for the "r" was great, and I think will help your diction even more if you continue to work on it. It also helped you to have a more authentic sound when you focused on the individual vowel instead of the whole word. Your sound improved when you focused on speaking.