This was my third lesson with Anna. I started by asking how her voice feels. She said it feels good. I also asked her if she had sung at all that day. She replied that she had only sung a little on her own. I next asked her about what part she sings in choir. I know that she sings alto, so I just asked what part she sings when there is an alto split. She replied that the music is usually 3 part for soprano1 soprano 2 and alto, so she is always singing the very bottom part. We started by doing a few exercises to release our body. I asked her to do the 'teacher! teacher!' stretch with both arms. Next we did a set of 5 toaster stretches. Next we did some things to loosen our neck. We did the same stretch we did in our last lesson. I asked her to imagine that she felt as if she was about to nod off to sleep and let her head gently fall forward. We then let our head fall from left to right and back a few times. Next we did some exercises to release our jaw. I asked her to try and loosen up her jaw a little and then gently put her hand on her jaw and try to move it with her hand up and down side-to-side and in a circular motion. Next I had her do a short vocalize to loosen up her jaw a little bit more. We started on D and sang a descending/ascending 5-tone scale pattern. She sang the vocalize on a closed mouth hum while making an exaggerated chewing motion. We repeated the patter 3 times and then took it down a half step. Then we took it back up D. After that we did one more cycle with Eb being the top note. After that I asked her how it felt. She said it felt good. After that I told her that we were going to modify the exercise a little bit to make it more difficult. I asked her to let her jaw assume a relaxed, loose position. We sang the same pattern using the words 'guy' and 'lie.' I asked her to maintain the chewing mechanism as she sang, but to tone it down and make it more of a micro movement. We started again on D, went down a half step, then jumped up to Eb, then back down to D. I asked her afterwards how it felt and she said it felt fine. I told her that it sounded good. The vowel definition wasn't wonderful, but her jaw was loose and I found that more important at the time. Next, I told her that we would talk a little more about breathing since we didn't have much time to talk about it in our previous lesson. I asked if she had any questions about the aspects of breathing that we covered in her last lesson. She said that her choir teacher tells her to breathe through her nose rather than her mouth. She wondered if we could practice that. I told her that we could work on getting a quiet breath, because it can be off-putting when you hear a very gaspy breath in a performance. I told her that we don't want that because it sounds odd and we don't need it because there is no need to force the air into our lungs if we are in the proper position. I asked her then to assume good singing posture. We took some breaths as if we were preparing to sing. We mimicked the breath gesture with our hands as I did in Rob's lesson earlier in the week. We took a breath in through the nose and expelled the air through our mouth. Anna had mentioned previously that she had trouble always getting in inaudible breath through her nose. I pointed out to her how natural and easy it felt for her to breath in through her nose and out through her mouth when we did this exercise. I also pointed out that breathing through the nose and having a natural-feeling, inaudible breath is mostly a matter of awareness and just thinking about how and where the breath should happen before we actually have to breathe. I mentioned that our best time for singing comes on the gesture of inhale. Next we talked about where we should feel the breath happening in our body. I had her stand up straight, take a few normal breaths in preparation for singing and take notice of where the expansion is happening. In the first couple of breaths she took, there was a lot of expansion in the shoulders, but as we took more breaths, the expansion slowly moved further down. To try to get the expansion to happen in the right place I had Anna sit down on the piano bench. I told her that we can practice getting a breath without shoulder involvement by breathing in a position that takes shoulders out of the equation like sitting down with our elbows on our knees. In this position I had her to the breathing exercise again. This time I didn't do the exercise with her so that I could monitor the expansion in her body. She took 5 breaths and then I asked her where the expansion was taking place. She said that she felt like it was lower. I replied that it was. It was a little higher than I would like still, but it was about in the lower back. Next we tried the exercise in the rag doll position. I asked her again where the expansion was happening. She replied that it was happening in the lower back. I agreed with her. Next we moved onto singing. I asked her to assume a good singing posture. I then explained what register I wanted her to perform these vocalizes in. I asked her to talk to me as if she were a small child. I asked her to tell me what she did today in that voice. She told me that she went to work, read a book, etc. I replied in my falsetto voice and had a short conversation with her. Then I told her that we would do some vocalizes in that voice so that we can help her practice her upper register without hurting her. I asked her to pretend that she had just had a long day at work and school and that she had just sat down on the couch and let out a nice sigh of relief. She did so. We did it a few times. Next, I asked her to include a yawn. I told her that yawning is very close to singing and helps us find easy access to the upper register of our voice in a way that feels natural and uninhibited. Next we did a few sirens. We started the exercise by yawning into the siren. I gave Anna some direction with my hand to tell her when I wanted her to move her voice up or down. I asked her to imagine that her voice is like the track of a roller coaster. She did a couple of sirens and did very well. I asked her how it felt when she does that. She said that it felt normal and that they do that exercise a lot in choir. I told her that it is a very good exercise because she was exercising the high part of her voice without hurting herself, which is very important for low voice types who don't get practice in their upper register in speech or in choir. Next, we did some exercises to help her practice the transition from the upper register to the lower register. I told her that we were going to sing some descending scales. I asked her to sing the top note of the scale in her head voice and then slowly transition to something that was more like her speaking voice. I tried my best to demonstrate what I wanted. We started on Bb. Then I moved to B. Next I moved to C. Then I asked her how it feels so far. She said that she could tell where the break point is. I told her that that's fine because it didn't sound glitchy. I asked her to sing the pattern a few more time, but this time I directed her to find that released jaw posture that we had earlier. We started on A. Throughout this exercise we sang the scale on [a]. I made quite a few mistakes playing the scale because I was looking at her rather than at the piano. I noticed that the jaw was wanting to close a little bit, so I reminded her that I want the jaw to stay loose and free. We moved up in half steps until we got to C sharp. Next I changed the exercise to challenge her a little more. I asked her first of all to have a more pleasant, animated look on her face when she sings. I asked her to maintain the purity of the vowel as well. We started on D. Then we moved to Eb and finally to E. I asked her how it felt. She said it felt fine. Next I told her I wanted her to do the siren exercise into the top note of the scale. I tried to demonstrate it, but then discovered that it was probably too difficult, so I cam up with another idea. Instead we sang an ascending scale on [i]. Before I had her sing the ascending scale I played the descending portion of the scale and asked her to visualize herself singing that part of the scale with the freest possible sound she could imagine. I told her that this would be good preparation for her to sing the ascending scale because she would start in a good position both physically and mentally and would hopefully be less tempted to squeeze to reach the top note of the scale. We started on D. We moved up one half step and then another. I asked her how the scale felt and she said it felt free and not harmful. I asked her if she noticed any difference between the descending and ascending scales. She said that she didn't feel like there was much of a difference. I told her that was good because that probably means that pantomiming the descending part of the scale helped her not tense up on the ascending portion of the scale. Before we ended our lesson I asked her if she had any questions for me. She said no.
I think I made some good discoveries in this lesson and overall it was a lot better than my last lesson with Anna. I felt like we were much more productive and that I was able to accomplish what I wanted even though I was talking less than I did in the last lesson. I think the descending exercises are working well for her, but I really liked what I heard and saw when I had her pantomime a descending scale before singing an ascending scale. She didn't seem to have any trouble getting up to the notes and they all sounded healthy and less breathy than they are normally. That's definitely an exercise I'll do with her in the future. I also really liked the siren exercise we did. She was able to get to some really high notes with that exercise and it all sounded so full and free. I think I will use that more in the future as a tool to help her exercise her upper register and also as a tool to build her confidence. I think it would be helpful if I paid more attention next time we did the exercise so that I can tell her specifically what note she got to. I think it would really surprise her to know and would therefore build her confidence in her upper register. One thing that I think I will change in the future is the vowel I have her sing exercises on. Later on in this lesson I realized that it would probably be more helpful for her to have more exercises on bright vowels. I also realize now that it would be more helpful and more healthy for her if I had her sing those exercises starting with [b] or something like that. I also want to do some more exercises with her that will help loosen up her jaw because there is still a tendency with her to close her jaw too much for certain vowels. I think doing more exercises on [i] will help that as well.
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