Luke Shepherd Lesson Summary 11/4/2013

Cindy and I began with warm-ups that aimed at immediately using head space and opening up. After finding that space successfully we did those 'negative' warm ups on phrases "never, never, no" as well as "please, don't leave" to work on connecting the sigh with the head space and stringing all the line together with constant airflow. I've noticed in my own singing that I allow words to break up my airflow so I have to start all over with every new word I sing, but these exercises particularly help me to keep the air flowing and connected through the whole phrase while still renewing the words "never" and "no". I LOVE this exercise! We spent time figuring out vocalizes that I could use during my practice to help me reach all my F# leaps in Der Nussbaum and designed them so I could practice each of the leaps on the right words. I'm going to practice the heck out of those so that they are the easiest parts of that song. We also spent a great deal of time deconstructing Is My Team Ploughing from my Butterworth song cycle. We kept the principles we had practiced about airflow and head space and applied them to the song as well as discussed the gear shifts that happen in the text. It's a hard shift going from the dead man to his lively friend and back and forth. Portraying that in vocal color as well as intent with each phrase is proving to be quite a challenge. I will need to spend more time this week solidifying what each of those phrases needs to say and how I feel singing them.