Sam Meredith Anna O Lesson Record/Reactions for 1/16

This was my first lesson with Anna. She is a 21 year-old female. She has experience singing in choir, but has never had any private vocal instruction. After asking her a few questions I had Anna sing for me. She just sang one verse of a hymn she knows well and I accompanied her on the piano. Her posture was decent, but there are definitely some things that could improve. I think her shoulders were a little too forward making her posture slightly collapsed. the breathing wasn't bad, but there was a good amount of shoulder movement. There wasn't any very apparent tension in her body, but that will definitely be something that I'll keep an eye out for in future lessons. The intonation in her performance was pretty good. She didn't have any trouble matching the accompaniment and making a nice melodic line. The tone quality was something that needs some improvement. She has some breathiness in her singing voice especially in the higher part of her range. There wasn't any really vibrato, so that is also something that I want to work on in the future. I think I will need to work a little bit on performance strategies with her as well. There wasn't really any emotion in her face when she sang. To be fair I didn't tell her that I wanted that, but I still think that will be an area where she needs some work. She seemed pretty nervous to sing for me, which was expected, so I think it might be effective for me to do some things with her that will help her overcome her nerves. When we talked about her goals for our lessons Anna said that she wants to learn how to breath properly for singing and also wants to have a fuller timbre in her voice that includes vibrato. She also had a few goals regarding musicianship. I'll explain more about that in the next section of the post.

I started the lesson by asking some questions regarding Anna's goals for our lessons. I first asked why she is interested in music. She replied that music has always been a part of her life and that at a young age she would make up songs and sing them. I then asked her if there are any specific aspects of singing in which she would like to improve. She said that breathing is an area where she has never received any instruction. She also said that she wants to get better at reading music and improve especially at sight reading. I then asked her what things she likes about her voice. She responded that she has good intonation and is aware of when she is singing off-key. I praised her for that ability and told her that that skill will be very important if she wants to become a better sight reader. Next I asked about her previous music experience. She played the violin and piano in the past and took private lessons on both instruments. She has also sung in choir for several years and currently sings in the Women's choir here at USU. After that I asked if there were any things that her previous music teachers did that really bothered her. She said that she wished that past teachers had taught her how to read music better. I told her that the reason I asked that question was to ensure that I'm not teaching in a way that frustrates her or is unclear. I informed her that I want the lessons to be a positive experience for both her and me and that if there is every anything I say or do in a lesson that doesn't make sense or that she doesn't like she should tell me about it. Next I asked her what genre of music she would prefer to sing. She didn't have any specific preferences other than that she doesn't want to sing pop music. She seemed open to singing any kind of musical style. She asked me if I had any suggestions, but I told her that I wasn't really sure yet what kind of repertoire I would select for her. Next, we did some singing. She sang 'Abide with me 'tis Eventide' from the LDS hymnbook. I accompanied her on the piano. She sang one verse of the song. There was only one issue I had with intonation and that was when she didn't change pitch when the melody did. I think that was a problem of just not having learned the melody correctly rather than not being able to match pitch. The same problem occurred when we sang the song again at the end of the lesson as well. Her voice was fairly breathy at times and it was all pretty quiet. After she finished singing I asked her what she liked about her performance. She replied that she felt that her intonation was strong. I praised her for her ability to elicit pitches with good intonation. Next, I asked her if there was anything about the performance that she would like to improve. She said that she would like to add vibrato to her sound. She also noted that she isn't always sure when to breathe. Another comment that she made was that she was nervous and that she would like to alleviate that problem. The last comment she made regarded the timbre of her voice. She said that she wished her voice was louder at times. I tried to clarify what she meant by that. We concluded that what she really wanted was to have a fuller, richer tone. Next we moved onto a vocalize. We only had time for one. I had her sing the words "no, never, no!" on a descending arpeggio. I explained the purpose of the vocalize before having her sing it. I explained to her that her voice already has the ability to sing high notes with full, rich tone quality without harming her voice. I had her pretend that I was her mom and that she wanted to ask me what is for dinner. She asked me the question using the volume that she would use normally if she were conversing with her mother face to face. I then instructed her to pretend that her mom was in the next room and ask her the same question. She raised her voice slightly and projected her voice so that she could have been heard had her mom actually been in the next room. I explained that her voice was plenty loud at that point, wasn't breathy, and didn't sound like it was harmful at all. I then explained that singing with full timbre is much like that--the only thing we have to do is clear away all of the entanglements that would cause us either to not project or to project in a way that is harmful to the vocal mechanism. I said that this vocalize is designed to encourage full singing without any harmful side effects. Before she sang the vocalize I told her that it will be more effective when the words are first spoken with an emotional charge and then sung. I asked her to imagine that one of her ex-boyfriends called her and asked her to get back together (Anna is now happily married). She spoke the words. Then I played a pitch on the piano and asked her to sing the pattern. I started on C one octave above middle C. We did it a few times and I moved up in half-steps. When I got to about E-flat I realized that I probably should've started lower or at least started going down from middle C first, so I took it back down to C again and moved down. After a few repetitions I stopped and pointed out to her that she is capable of that fuller timbre on notes lower in her range just because she is more used to singing and speaking in that range. Then I told her that we were going to sing the vocalize again 5-times all on the same pitch and then talk about which repetition was most successful. The pitch I chose was B-flat. She did the vocalize 5 times. She said that she felt that the 4th one was the best. At the time I said that her last one was the best. After listening to the recording again, however, I would say that the 1st one was probably the best. After that there was a little bit of a drop off, but then steady improvement until the end of the set. After we finished we agreed that one of our goals moving forward will be to harness that full, primal sound in her voice. Next we talked about other goals we could have for future lessons. We agreed that learning proper breath gesture would be another good short-term goal. We then talked about possible long-term goals. We agreed that finding more confidence in her singing would be an appropriate long term goal. Just before the end of the lesson I had her sing the song one more time for me. I asked her to keep in her mind the things we talked about previously i.e. she already has the ability to sing with that full tone. After she sang I asked how she felt about that performance. She commented that she felt like her tone was a little fuller. I agreed. There was still some breathiness and she did have some trouble breathing, but the timbre was fuller and there was even some healthy vibrato. I then asked her if she had any questions. She didn't, but commented that she's excited to be taking voice lessons.

I am really excited to be teaching Anna. She has some musical experience, which I think will help a lot and she also seems really eager to learn. I was trying my best to anticipate what kind of goals she would want to set for her progress and sure enough some of the goals that I had in mind were some of the things that she wants to work on. I even feel pretty good about how I taught the lesson today. I think that I did a decent job of diagnosing what her problem was and prescribing some sort of solution. I think I also did a good job praising her and making the lesson an overall positive experience. There are a lot of things I think I need to improve on, though. I think first of all I need to get better at clearly and succinctly explaining what I want when I ask Anna to do things or to answer questions. There were just a lot of times when I started talking and by the end of the sentence I realized that what I said probably didn't make any sense so I had to add on another sentence or two so I could clarify what I was trying to say. I guess it's probably something that I will improve at with time, but I think when I improve in that area my lessons will be much more efficient because all that time I used to clarify my statements could have been used to do something more productive. I also need to improve the manner in which I have her sing vocalizes. I'm a man so obviously my range and my registers are a little bit different than hers. I've learned a few things recently, however, that I think will make my vocalization of Anna and of other female singers more effective. I need to help her get a more speech-like quality in her singing, so it would probably be helpful if I started lower on the keyboard when I vocalize her. That way I can help her get used to that bright quality and help her be more aware of how it needs to feel when she sings higher notes. With regards to that, I also need to get some more ideas for vocalizes that will help her brighten up her voice a little. I had her do the 'no, never, no!' exercise, but I haven't really been able to think of any other vocalizes that I could have her do that would achieve the same goal as that vocalize, but are at the same time different so as to give variety to our vocalization sessions. Another thing I need to start thinking about is repertoire selection. I'm not really sure what she should sing. She has sung before and sings pretty well, but this is her first experience with private voice lessons and solo singing. How can I tell what kind of repertoire is appropriate for her voice and for her skill level?