Evaluation: Sam Wright, Male, 23/24?
Physical attributes: posture was pretty good. The shoulders were bowed forward which kind of figures since he's a bass player and is used to bending over a bass. He also didn't know what to do with his arms. They were just sort of crossed or folded or doing something. Sam's breathing was very much in his shoulders. I had a hard time telling tension because I felt weird checking Sam out. I'll have to get more data next time.
Vocal attributes: Sam's tone is twangy, full, and pretty pinched from A3 up. His intonation was great. no problems there. There was no vibrato present in his singing on this first lesson.
Performance attributes: Well honestly he didn't really know his piece as well as he should have considering he wrote it, but that could be in part because of my weird piano playing. He sang very stylistically in a kind of alternative rock way. I really liked it actually!
Goals: Sam's goals are to clean up his sound and work on healthy singing techniques, and to broaden his range "a few steps in each direction."
Lesson Transcript:
Sam and I chatted a bit. And then I told him that I had some questions for him about his musical background.
Me: What music do you listen to?
Sam: It's more what I don't listen to. I don't listen to country, much pop, grunge rock, new jazz - newer than 1975.
Me: You are really selective! What kind of music do you like to sing?
Sam: Just to sing? Um. Probably rock, not really jazz, sort of jazz, blue grass. Classical sometimes. Singing at church.
Me: That's probably easiest to start with. I'm not gunna lie, I have no idea how to teach you to sing rock. No idea.
Sam: Ya I figured.
Me: I can teach you how to sing in general and you can go run with it and take what I teach you to rock if you want but...
Sam: Ya I figured you would want to help me in classical areas.
Me: Ya and it doesn't have to be classical, it can be jazz or musical theatre or church stuff. That would be a better starting place, but rock is not the most technically healthy way to sing. Do you play any other instruments?
Sam: Bass, mandolin, guitar, harmonica, violin on occasion, hand drums, some percussion, flute.
Me: Which one have you played the longest?
Sam: Bass.
Me: That's really great that will help prepare you to sing. We often tell young students to start in piano or strings. So that's great! Have you ever sung in choir?
Sam: Ya! I was in Choral two years ago.
Me: How did you like it?
Sam: It was fun. It was with Dr. Huff. We did all the Dr. Huff songs. The pop numbers from the 80's, they were fun songs. He liked to do things that old people liked to listen to.
Me: I'm really glad you had a good experience. And I'm guessing you've been in lots of music ensembles in High School and Middle School?
Sam: Ya.
Me: What do you want to do with your voice in life?
Sam: Use it?
Me: Haha ya, so like more casual, like you like to sing, it's a hobby.
Sam: Ya and it'd be better if I was more technically clean.
Me: Ya, cool. So this question is a little bizarre, but how much do you use your speaking voice throughout the day?
Sam: I'd say out of a typical 16 hour day I'll use it for 13 hours of stuff. (This is completely false, but I understand that he means he talks a lot.)
Me: Uh huh. Does your voice get tired?
Sam: Only when I've been yelling or speaking loudly. Well not even that, because I know about projection and stuff because I used to work a tour guiding job. But only on certain days, I feel like it got more tired this last week. That's the first time in years I've felt really tired. It doesn't usually get tired.
Me: Ya you just gotta pick your battles. And understand that if you over use your voice, you need to rest it for a while so that it can recover. Um what do you like about your voice?
Sam: When I am singing right, in the lower range I get kind of an elastic kind of vibrato. When everything's set up and relaxed I get a kind of wavery vibrato and I know it's not pleasing to everyone, but it's unique so I think I like that. Besides that I have a terrible range, so I don't like that.
Me: In which direction? Up? Down? Both?
Sam: I'd say both I can't get quite as low or high as I'd like to. If I could get like... 3 more notes in either direction I'd feel so much better.
Me: Ok well we'll work on it! If you could sing like anyone in the world who would you like to sing like?
Sam: That's a silly question! I don't really want to sing like anyone. I want to have the gesture of Aaron Gillespy with the tone of David Crowner with the presence of Jeremy King.
Me: Wow you had to make that really complicated! Ok well that gives me an idea of what we're working with here. So now that we're done with all THAT let's SING! Do you want to warm up a bit or do you want to just go for it?
Sam: Well I've been singing already today... well no lets warm up.
Me: Ok! Stand for me young man! Let's see... can you do this with your lips? (lip trill)
Sam: Ya
We do 5 note descending lip trills starting on A3 and going down to Bflat 2. Then up to B flat 3 and down to G3, then up again to C4 and down to A3. Some had great presence in his voice which I was really happy about. The lip trilling was difficult for him to sustain, but overall not bad! I was surprised at how easy the C4 was for him.
Me: Very good! Most people cannot do the lip trill thing so you must be just special that way! Ok now we're going to a descending sigh.
I demonstrate a descending sigh with an arm stretch added in. Sam started very low. I asked him to start higher without pushing anything. He started a little higher but I noticed he was avoiding his falsetto range.
Me: Do you sing in your falsetto often?
Sam: Only when I'm joking around.
Me: K you've gotta open your mind to the falsetto my friend, you gotta open your mind! Because only when you exercise the falsetto will you be able to build up strength in the upper register, and then when you start to blend that register gap and mix in your head voice will you be able to bring in a consistent tone. But you have to start with the falsetto. So start the sigh in falsetto and then descend into chest voice.
Then it went a lot better. He started much higher and navigated his way down really well. There was a blip between falsetto and head voice. But I explained that over time it would go away. We did a few more.
Me: Ok now we're going to try some beeps.
We did beeps on 13531. I jumped around a lot. I went as high as D4 and as low as A flat 2. Sam sounded really good! Really precise and a very consistent tone.
Me: This sounds really great Sam!!! I'm really impressed this is going to be so much fun.
I explain to him that the beep exercise helps to develop a cleaner onset and cleaner intonation.
Me: This is great Sam! Want to sing now?
Sam: Ya ok.
Me: Do you want me to play?
This is a piece that Sam wrote himself. It's really nice! I fumbled around trying to play it for a while and wasted a lot of time. In my defense he wrote it in the wrong time signature! So I tried to muddle through and help support Sam's voice. The song was really lovely! I honestly loved it. It was in a really high register. His voice pinched up on the top range, somewhere around B flat 3. my larynx hurts listening to it. The larynx was riding up there. He has a really cool tone though. Lower than B flat 2 his voice got gravely and less focused.
Me: Sam this is the coolest song! Oh my gosh we will have to get you sounding so good on this because it is so cool!!! I really like the tone of your voice, you have a nice natural timbre. Obviously your very musical! What do you like about singing it?
Sam: I like the metric modulations a lot I think they're really cool. I also wrote it for my range so it works well for me.
Me: What parts do you not like as much?
Sam: I hate that I can't have a clean sound on that low A (A2) I want it to sound like the rest of my voice, it's like pretty edgy up there but then I get down and I just feel like I can't get that. Like you know, the edge in the voice. And I don't like that I can't ever hit that D (D4).
Me: That's because you aren't mixing it with falsetto Sam! Open your mind!
Sam: Ok ok.
Me: It takes time, it really does. And until then it's going to feel funky, but you gotta do it. Ask any of the voice dudes you know and they will tell you it all starts with falsetto. For now while you practice it I would transpose it down a couple steps. Just that section, so you can practice the intervalic distance and the vowels you know what I mean?
Sam: Uh huh.
Me: Just so you don't practice a bad habit on that note. Because if you always practice it at that pitch and you're always reaching then you're gunna learn... like you're going to put it in your muscle memory if you know what I mean.
Sam: Ok.
Me: So ya dude! This is going to really fun I'm so excited! Right so I need to find you some repertoire. Because I think this is song is like... it's my personal goal now to get this freakin awesome. But I want to start with something... that exercises different things, and something a little more accessible for where you are right now and build up to it.
Sam: Ya definitely.
Me: So the thing for me is going to be finding you new repertoire. Do you have some songs in mind that you want to sing?
Sam: Classically? Not really.
Me: Nothing in jazz either?
Sam: We could do something like "Somewhere over the rainbow." And the one from Willy Wonka?
Me: I'll see if I can find em! I'll bring some other pieces that I think would suit you well and you can just kind of pick and choose from them does that sound good?
Sam: Ya.
Me: Sweet! Yay! Yayyyy I'm ending three minutes early... do you want some more stuff?
Sam: That is fine! I need to practice trumpet stuff.
While he's packing up his stuff I get in some good parting shots.
Me: When you're warming up what kind of warm ups do you do?
Sam: Um usually I do a humm that stretches up an octave and then down an octave. Or I do [a] 13531 and then go down chromatically. I'll do that at the piano, stuff like that.
Me: Ok great. Ok 3 things! One - I want you to add into that warm up one that includes falsetto, and I know you don't want to, but one that's really good is you start in falsetto somewhere up above where your chest voice cuts out, and then slide down into chest voice.
Then I demonstrate a slide starting in a high light tone and sliding down into my chest voice. Sam does it back. He was going really low into a vocal fry at the end so I told him to just go down about an octave. After he started getting the hang of that I told him that the next step would be to go down and then back up, and down and up and down and up, keeping the falsetto light and the lower voice weighty.
Me: As you work on this your voice is going to learn how to navigate between falsetto and head voice, and start to mix. It's going to be a wonderful thing. Second thing! If you're doing [a] 13531 mess around with consonants. [ma] [ba] just mess with it and see what brings your voice more forward. You've got a good ear and I know you can figure it out. And number three! Oh shoot what was number three? Dammit Sam! There was another thing I was gunna say! Oh! Low voice! Yes yes yes yes yes. I have been having trouble with my low register too and I've just had trouble pushing it out and Cindy said a lot of that could just be tiredness.
Sam: Oh ok.
Me: Ya like she said when she's tired her low voice vanishes before her high range so just be patient with yourself! Hydrate! Hydrate!
Sam: Yes! I've been doing a lot of that lately.
Me: Awesome! Sounds good man!
And then we proceeded to chat and scheduled the next lesson.
Reactions:
Well I just think I am so hilarious. I have been cracking up listening to myself. I feel like this lesson went pretty well. I'm frustrated with my inability to think on my feet and communicate musical ideas to Sam, but then again I am very new at this. I think it's going alright! My greatest quality as a teacher so far is that I am so excited and genuinely impressed with my students abilities. I think that I can see good things where others might dismiss them and I think that I can use that to my advantage as a teacher. I also noticed that I speak in vocal fry a lot more with my male student than with my female student. Odd! I tend to get really quite when I'm not completely convinced that what I'm saying is accurate, which is really funny. For my next lesson I want to get Sam a slew of new music and discuss posture and breathing with him. I also want to find some warm ups that will really dig deep into his voice! I really want to figure it out. One challenge I don't know what to do about is expanding his low range... I know all about high. But I feel like low is completely different I don't know how it can be expanded if indeed it can. Help me Cindy! To be more effective in my next lesson I will need to act more professional, speak with conviction, and not be afraid to explore Sam's voice.
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