Student: April A.
Date of Lesson: 1/28/14
Brief Overview of lesson: I began the lesson with asking how her voice/body felt and how her practice went. She said that her voice/body felt great and that she was singing in the shower this morning, and that she had practiced the breathing exercise I gave her. We then began stretching/releasing our bodies in forward fold, letting the head hang and feeling the release in the neck. I also asked to make an evaluation of how her breath was in this position. I asked her to feel the breath expanding the lower back. She said she felt it and I told her that we want that sensation to happening when we breath for singing. While we were doing this I also explained that when we are released we aren't relaxed -- we still have energy in our body.
Next I asked April to stand up, and act as if she is taking a breath to begin singing. When she did I noticed that her chest was rising. I then said, alright, now I would like you to try that again, but notice where you feel your breath in your body. She did the same breath again, and said that she felt it in her upper chest and stomach. I said, "okay, I did notice that you had some high breathing, which is normal for everyday breathing, but for singing we don't want to see the shoulders or the chest rise." We can do this by thinking of our breath in a down & out sensation.
{Warm-ups and vocalization is under the Vocalizes header}
We then finished the lesson by looking at my music books, and trying to find a selection for her to learn and practice the things we've been working on with. We chose "Candle on the Water".
Vocalizes:
I began the warm-up section of our lesson by having her yawn and stretch to release her mouth and jaw. We did a good number of these, and it elicited a real yawn from April. Then I asked her to add a sigh to her yawn. Her initial sigh was very low, so I asked to her move from high to low. She did a few of these. And I felt like she became a little more comfortable as we went on.
I then began our matching pitch exercise to see how she reacted to the sound of my voice. I asked her to think the pitch I sang, provide the air, and then trust that pitch would come. She did a good job of matching the pitch to my own voice on the word "ship". Every one was correct. The timbre of her voice was very breathy, and her jaw closed again. So I stopped and asked her to let her jaw just hang and try it again. The sound was really constricted. So I tried another to see if it sounded the same, and it sounded better.
We then asked her to think the pitch and trust that it will come with her providing the air as I played on the piano a 5 note descending scale on "Thhe". I began on C5 and moved randomly up and down the keyboard. It was better, and more released, however, most of the time her 5-4 matched the notes, and then her 3-2-1 weren't distinguishable. We did a few, and sometimes she matched pitch and sometimes she didn't. I stopped her after because I noticed that her breath wasn't so great so I asked her to feel like she had a third leg in between her legs and to imagine when she inhaled the the air was filling the third leg. We then began at D5 and tried another at B4 and then I stopped her again, and asked her if she felt it deeper. She said no, and that her stomach was hurting. But then she clarified that she felt how the breath was deeper when she was down in forward fold, but she was unsure how to do that standing. I said, "Okay, sometimes when I'm breathing deeply with release, I feel like I'm breathing from my 'hoo-hah'." She said, "You aren't going to show these tapes to anyone are you?". I laughed and said, "No, I won't! You aren't going to breath down there, obviously, but imagine that openness down there and allowing the air to feel as if it is moving that low when you breathe.
Next, I asked to her pretend that she is at her cupboard in the kitchen and that she is going to make some really great indian food, but she can't decide which spice in her cupboard she wants to use, so she makes the sound that we make when we aren't sure. She then produced a primal sound that was a realistic "hmm...". I then asked her to make that sound, and then pick a random spice, and then sing "me" on 5-4-3-2-1. Imagine the feeling you had when you spoke when you sing "me". I began on C5 and I played that note while she said "hmm....cumin" and then continued to sing. There was a huge difference between the two. We tried another one "hmm....garlic" and then she was completely off pitch. I played it again and ask her, "do you hear the difference between what you just sang and what I played?" She said yeah, but that she was focusing on her stomach. In an effort to get her to stop focusing on her stomach I had her pretend to be a monkey, running around the room, and I did it with her. I think that really helped her to relax.
I asked her to raise her hand and pretend as if she knew the answer and was trying to get the teacher's attention. We then continued on "me" starting on E5. It felt like her breath was much lower when she had the extra energy. I asked her if she noticed that and she said yes. I went down to A4 she didn't match pitch. I down to G4 she didn't match again. I stopped and asked her if she noticed that she wasn't matching the pitch. She said yes, and then I asked her if it was because she was scared, or nervous to sing that high, and she said that she just feels that when she sings that high her voice constricts. In the practice room it sounded as if she just wasn't sure how to transition to her head voice, because she either sings on pitch most of the time in her lower range, and then when I do higher vocalizes her voice sounds so breathy that it doesn't have a distinguishable pitch. So I tried to do an explanation of chest and head voice, by saying that our chest voice is the voice that we often speak in, where as the head voice is what we use in our high range. If we bring our chest voice up too high, it makes it uncomfortable to sing. So we went back to the 5-4-3-2-1. We started at B4, and she did a good job. Then we did another at D5 and it was successful. We did more repetitions, and she just wasn't matching pitch at all. I then stopped, "So at this point, you know that sometimes you're doing it right, and sometimes you aren't. But you had some success on matching pitch in your upper range. So this week I want you to remember to continue thinking the pitch and providing the air and trusting that it will come. And also just be confident in yourself and your singing."
Assessment of student: April has a hard time wanting to go into the head voice and when she gets it it is extremely breathy. I think I need to focus more on speech-like sirens to familiarize her singing with her speech. The neck and jaw were very tight throughout the lesson. When we spoke about breathing from her "hoo-hah" she seemed to understand how the sensation of the breath should feel and the vocalizes were much more consistent in terms of matching pitch. Overall I think she still feels a little nervous hearing the sound her voice, and needs more energy. I'm sure that the way her stomach was feeling throughout the lesson also played a factor.
Goals for future implementation: When I am talking about the head voice I will say, "when we go up we loosen and lighten our voice". Or when trying to find her head voice I will ask her to make a child-like sound. I would also like to implement specific vocalizes like the siren, "whooo are you?", and "wow!". A chewy hum might also be effective with releasing the jaw. I would like to make her feel more comfortable in our lessons. I did learn that if I just played the top note in a triad rather than playing the whole triad her pitch matching was much better.
How will you modify your teaching based off of what you learned from the lesson? I need to be more specific in terms of praise so that she knows what to continue doing. I need to use more visual comparisons and ask her to imagine a picture in her mind instead of doing so much explaining. Overall, I need to have a better awareness of everything around me. I did notice that I had much more energy in this lesson, which was nice to hear in the recording compared to our last lesson. However, I did notice that I spent too much time on one vocalize. Also, I need to work on not spoon feeding answers.
Questions for Cindy: I know that I should probably continue to sing with her to help her match pitch and give her the support so that she feels confident, but I want to not sing so that I can hear what needs to be fixed. Also, why is her ability to match pitch so sporadic throughout all the warm-ups? And what can I do to make it so that it is consistent throughout all of her vocalizes?
Takeaways for the student:
1. Think-let-trust to elicit pitch
2. Release your body with an upright posture.
3. Breathe from your "hoo-hah".
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