A. Angeles is a young Mexican girl that I first met in LDV a couple years ago. ( I think she's about 24 or so) I know you have to be a decent singer and be able to read music at a reasonable level in order to be in LDV. So I'm guessing she is a decent musician.
B. 1) I noticed that she kind of hunches forward when she sings, bringing the shoulders forward, crunching the chest and diaphragm down.
2.) She has a very pleasant alto voice. It is light, and sounds very free and has a rich tone quality.
3.) She only sang a song from the hymnal and I could tell that she was nervous, so I felt that this performance wasn't very expressive or prepared. So I can't really judge her on her performance quality just yet.
C. The goal that she expressed that she has for herself is to gain stage performance confidence, and the ability to control her nerves. She feels she tightens up and gets so nervous that she can't sing in front of people.
After I listened and watched her sing her hymn for me, the main concern I had for Angeles was her breathing/posture. I explained a little bit about how important it is to have a good posture in order to sing well. I went through some motions to explain how our posture should be while we sing. I corrected her slouch in the shoulders and chest, and explained that a good posture allows us to be free and loose, but at the same time prepared to sing. So then I had her sing the first phrase of the hymn on one breath, and she made it through the phrase while maintaining the integrity and the beauty in her voice. We continued through the first verse of the hymn in this fashion until we had completed the whole hymn. She continued to respond well to my instructions and I was actually surprised at how well she did. So then I decided to see if we could go through the entire first verse without stopping, while trying to maintain proper posture and breath support/technique. After the first phrase of the hymn I noticed that she returned back to her original posture and way of breathing. She struggled to get through the second phrase and had to stop because she was out of breath and somewhat fatigued. We went back to the first verse again, and after reminding her of posture and expanding the ribs, breathing down from the stomach, she returned to her improved singing and breathing. I asked her if she could feel or hear a difference in her singing when I had helped her be prepared in her breath. She responded that she did and that she was happy with the outcome. By then the time had flown and that was the end of the lesson.
Overral I was actually very pleased with how the lesson went. I was kinda nervous the night before, I was wondering if I would be able to identify problems and be able to explain very simply how to improve and correct mistakes. But once we actually got going in the lesson everything kind of came naturally and I was able to identify her problems and come up with ways for her to improve. I think she responds better to quick visual cues rather than long drawn out verbal instruction, (kind of the same way I do) I will continue to try and use physical examples rather than drawn out verbal instructions. However this is only the first lesson so I will try to be very attentive to how she responds to different variations of teaching. One thing I know I can improve on is relaying my message in the most simple way. I feel like at times I would just keep jabbering and in doing so I would confuse her a little bit with what I wanted her to do. So basically I have to work on my communication skills.
Hi Jake. It sounds like you were able to offer some effective guidance on breathing and posture to Angeles. Did you give her any specific 'take aways' or instructions for practice this week? I would also like to see some more specifics concerning her approach to vocal sound. Perhaps you should also test her range, so that you can observe her challenges at the extremes of her range. Remember that McKinney suggests that we do a very thorough assessment of the singing at first hearing, and write down what we notice upon first hearing, so that we do not later ascribe what is really a vocal fault to just their unique sound. So, i would suggest doing a more thorough exploration of her vocal potential and her current ability through a number of vocalizes, designed to locate her current level of ability. That way you can have a plan for the future that includes real specifics.
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