Emily C., Ashli H., Lesson Record/Reactions, 2/3/14

Emily C., Ashli H., Lesson Record/Reactions, 2/3/14

Lesson Record:

• We started out the lesson with some really basic stretching; it’s not something I plan on doing for every single lesson, but I like to do it to help establish good singing posture. We reached for the sky, bent from side to side, flopped down like dolls, swung from side to side, and slowly brought ourselves back up. 
• I decided to bring up the “squatting” experimental position that we did in class the other day to help Ashli find where she’s supposed to be breathing when I say that she should have deep breaths. She said she could definitely feel it more in her back and ribcage without her shoulders moving, so that was successful. 
• Going off of that, I decided to move into breathing exercises, working on “shhh.” We breathed in for five counts and then say “shhh” on our exhale for five with a silent inhale at the end. She still had the problem of collapsing her chest though, so I told her to feel like as she’s exhaling, she should have the sensation that there’s always air inside of her, that air is always coming in. This sort of confused her though, so that wasn’t very effective. I decided to change the exercise by adding a breathe in for five, breathe out for five, then in for four, out for four, etc. I had her put her arms out in front of her in a hoop shape to help her visualize that the air is just there, and we are simply directing its flow. 
• Our first actual vocalize was on a lip trill starting on F major, but I quickly changed tactics because it was encouraging her to tighten her jaw, which is her biggest hurdle. I moved to “yawn” going down on 54321, placing extra emphasis on the beginning “y” sound. Her yawn sounds have improved since last time though, so I think she’s finally beginning to take what I tell her seriously (haha). Because her jaw was still being really stuck, I had her put her hands on either side of her face and let her jaw just hang open loosely, and it worked really well (problem is, the moment her hands left, the problem came back). 
• Now that she had the proper space and “looser” jaw, her tone was swallowed. So I tried to move it forward with a beginning “m” sound that’s extended and saying “mow” on the same 54321 exercise. This helped slightly, but I need to think of different ways to pull her tone forward. 
• I decided to move on to “ng” instead of “m” because she was tensing up in her throat, so she sang “ngahh” on 531. I didn’t do this for long either because her tone was just too tight sounding. (This is one thing I struggled with for almost the entire lesson today.) 
• SO. I decided to do the Oren Brown “use your fingers and pull your tongue out and sing [ae] as in “cat.” We sang it on 54321 again, and this time, I got a much better and freer sound. I kept telling her not to look at the keyboard because it freaks her out, and with her tongue out and not looking at the piano, she was able to extend her range quite a bit. As I suspected, it was because of the tongue and jaw tension that she has. 
• I told her she needs to have numb tongue and jaw; she’s too strung up in that area. Then we moved on to “mm” on 1358531 arpeggios, but I only did two before changing her sound to “ahh” because she was again, too tense. I told her that the sound is heavier on the bottom but lightens up as we go higher. Even after a couple tries of this, I changed the exercise to just 1358, not going back down, and singing on “yawn,” making her mimic an very real yawn “squeal” at the top of the arpeggio. 
• I had her speak in her little kid voice, and I did the whole “you just spoke a G5 with no problem whatsoever.” Once I told her that though, I think it freaked her out and her child voice just got tight and because useless. 
• I then moved on to 53421 starting on F major and jumping, singing [li le la lo lu], utilizing a swoopy speech and bounce motion on every other syllable. I told her to utilize the [l] sound in each sound to propel each syllable. I had to keep reminding her to add the yawn. After a bit, I had to stop playing the keyboard with her so she could do it at her own pace, and that was much more effective. 
• We worked a little bit on her piece, “A Change in Me” from the musical The Beauty and the Beast. She definitely had worked on the pitches of the music, but there was still some tightness that we had to remedy. So I immediately had her do the yawn motions on any place that has a leap, utilizing the consonant sounds (especially the nasal consonants) to accommodate the shift in head and chest voice. This was really effective, and she realized just how helpful the yawn sound was. When she utilized that technique, her tone was fuller and it was noticeably easier for her to reach the higher notes, and it didn’t sound “ridiculously yawn-like.” 

Lesson Reactions:

• I feel like my lessons with Ashli are much more disjointed than those with Amanda because there are problems that I try to fix with Ashli that I have to try several times before finding something that works out well. However, things are getting better because I’m getting more trust/compliance from her, so it’s getting easier to experiment with her. 
• The yawn motion so far is the most effective thing I’ve done with her. The swoopy speech and the bounce aren’t working as well as I’d like, but I think I just need to keep reminding her to do it and it’ll help. 
• I worry that she’s pressing her voice too much. There are moments when she has a freer sound, and I make sure to point those out, but the number of successes in comparison to the number of things that aren’t working out so well isn’t an even ratio, so it’s hard to tell her what she’s doing right. I make sure to ask her how her voice feels, and she says she feels great, but I sort of believe in the back of my mind that she’s pushing too hard. 
• The tongue grabbing thing was really effective in relaxing her jaw and clearing out the unnecessary tension. Now I have to think of how to get her to do that without actually grabbing her tongue….
• I forgot to address her breathing while she was singing today. I was more worried about her tension though. 
• Overall, I think the beginning of the lesson was a bit rough, but towards the end, she started to loosen up and apply the techniques from the vocalizes. Too bad we ran out of time.