Jake Spjute Paul Lesson Record/Reactions 1-31

(we just had this lesson yesterday because he missed last friday)


We began with some neck stretches just to get relaxed. neck rolls both directions 3 times each. Then I had him do some descending lip trills on a pentatonic scale. He had trouble being able to get a steady stream of air to come out through his trill. I told him to try and push his lips together a little bit to help with that. He kind of got the hang of it, but then when he tried to make a hum with it he lost the trill completely. So I decided to do some descending pentatonic scales on an "a" nice and easy, relaxed.
I started on C4 and we descended to A3. I reminded him about breathing posture and head posture, because I saw his head tilting up most of the time.
The next exercise we did was two ascending pentatonic scales on "i"
he continued to tilt his head up, something I had not noticed him doing in his previous lessons. So I asked him if he could monitor that and correct it. His "i" vowel was very spread out and thin, even to the point where it began to sound pushed. So I asked him if he could separate his molars and remember to "smell the rose" and there was a nice improvement in his sound, it was more open and rich than it was before. We started the scales on D3 and ascended up to Eb4. I noticed that he kind of had a zombie face when he was singing... (sound familiar Cindy?? haha) so I asked him if he could be more happy when he was singing. He obliged and it brightened the tone up a little bit so that was good.
We then started to work on his song. He chose a spanish hymn out of the hymn book, abide with me. (accompaname) So I played as well as I could, and he sang through the whole first verse. It sounded very nice and I was really pleased. I decided to work on the hymn phrase by phrase. I wanted him to try and sing the first phrase in one breath, because it was pretty short, and I knew he could do it if he breathed correctly. So I reminded him of the "rose" again and it improved. I asked him how it felt and he said it felt really good, relaxed and easy. So we kept working on each phrase like that with good breath preparation and control.