This was my third lesson with Rob. I started by asking Rob how his voice feels. He said it felt okay, that he has felt like he has had a sickness coming on, but he hasn't actually gotten sick. He commented that he has a lot of mucus in his throat. I told him that having too much mucus can be a problem for the vocal mechanism, but we need to be careful how we medicate ourselves when we have mucus because some medicines will get rid of too much of the mucus and will make his larynx dry. We started the lesson by getting released. I had him stand up, bend his knees, and bend over into the rag doll pose. I asked him to swing lightly from side to side. I asked him how his shoulders, arms, and neck feel when he does that. He described the feeling as a healthy stretch. Next we did some things to loosen our jaw. I told him that we want to think of the jaw as a separate appendage that is attached to the head, but moves independently of the rest of the skull. I asked him to mimic the loose jaw of a vampire and say the words 'I want to suck your blood.' He did it once, but I still wasn't getting the openness in the jaw that I wanted so I instructed him to do it again allowing his jaw to open as much as was comfortable with the articulation of each new word. He repeated it along with me once and then did it once again on his own. I felt like the jaw position was improved in those two repetitions. I asked him how his jaw felt when he did that. He said that he felt like it was reaching the full point of its extension. I told him that we do want to have the feeling that our jaw is as open as it could be without having any tension. I also told him that it is helpful to realize that when the jaw opens it moves both down and back. I told him that thinking of that movement helps me achieve a comfortable, open jaw posture. Next I had him find that good jaw position by saying the first part of the exercise and then freeze (I should have used a better word there) on the [a] in the word 'vant.' Once he had a loose, open jaw I had him put his hand on his chin and try to move his jaw from side to side, up and down, and in small circles. He commented that the jaw was very resistant. I asked him if it was getting any easier as we continued the exercise and he said that it was. I told him that we just need to take that time before we sing to loosen the jaw and train it to be as free as it needs to be for proper singing. Next we did some vocalization to get the jaw more loosened up. We did a closed mouth chew and sang a 5-tone pattern. I started the vocalize with the top note of the pattern being E, moved up to F, then to G. Next I moved back to E then to F-sharp, and then to G. I asked him then if his jaw felt a little looser after that. He said that it did and that he felt like that is a helpful vocalize. Next I explained that although we don't want our jaw to move that much during actual singing we do want to it to be free enough to the point where we could move it if we needed to. So, we continued by doing a vocalize that still included movement of the jaw, just in a less extreme way. So, we did the pirate vocalize. I asked him to maintain a small movement of the jaw. I did turns in 3rd up to scale degree 6 for the vocalize and started on Bb. Then I moved up to C, then down to B, then back to C, then to Db, then to D, and back to C. I asked him afterwords how it felt. He said it felt more exposed to sing with that open jaw. He said that he also noticed how the sound changes when he has his jaw open--i.e. it's a fuller, richer tone. I asked him next if he could do the vocalize with an even less exaggerated movement of the jaw. I again started in C. Then I went to Bb asking him if he could minimize the movement even more. Then I moved back up to C. Then we stopped and I asked him how it felt. He said it felt good and I told him that I agreed that that was his best repetition of the exercise. Next we did an exercise to give his head voice more practice. We started by having a short conversation in a Julia Chile like voice. I asked him how work was and he said it was exhausting. I asked him what school he works at etc. Next we moved into singing. I asked him to sing descending 5-tone scales on [bu]. We started with C being the top note of the scale. We moved up a half step, then down a half step, down another half step, up a whole step, and then jumped back up to C. I continued to move up from there until I reached E and then I went down a half step. Next I moved up a whole step, then a half step, up another whole step, then down two more half steps making the final scale from G4 down to C4. I asked him how those vocalizes felt. He said it felt easy. I then asked him if he could sing the vocalize with the same free, open jaw position we had achieved before. I told him that it will be tempting to sing the exercise with a closed jaw because that is the position our jaw normally takes when we speak the vowel [u]. I directed him to find the vampire jaw and then just round his lips around it in order to make the [u] sound happen. He demonstrated this well before we again began to vocalize. We again sang the pattern, this time beginning on A4. I moved up a half step, then down a half step, down a whole step, up a whole step, and down a whole step. I asked him how it felt. He commented that he had to reset his jaw with each repetition. I asked him if he noticed any change in the sound between our first set of vocalizes and this one. He said that the sound felt less contained. I agreed with that statement. I told him that I liked how he maintained the good jaw position, while also maintaining the purity of the vowel. I asked him to remember that he can sing every vowel with the same free jaw and the same healthy space in the back, the only thing he needs to change is the shape of the lips and the position of the tongue. I compared the mechanism to a play-dough factory where the input is always the same, but the output is changed depending on what filter is put on the front of the machine. He said that he heard from his sister when she was taking voice that she had to perform really exaggerated mouth movements. He said that he liked the idea of having a mouth that is open naturally and not forced open. We continued vocalizing. I told him that we would do an exercise that would help him improve his skills in finding a good jaw position immediately even after his mouth was closed. On E3 I had him sing [nim, nem, nam, nom, num]. I asked him to hum the pitch on the [n] and [m], but to let his jaw come down to its free open position to articulate each vowel. He performed the exercise. He didn't sing the vowels in the original order and he pointed that out. I told him that I wasn't so concerned about the order of the vowels, but I was mostly concerned with him having a good experience transitioning to an open jaw position. We did the exercise together. I asked him to perform the exercise again and pick out the vowel that he felt was the most successful. He said that [nem] was the most successful. I said that I felt either that or the [nam] syllable was his best. I said that I liked those vowels the best because there was no hesitation from his jaw. I told him that this is the case probably because we have a more open jaw when we speak those vowels. We did the exercise again this time moving to the pitch F3. I told him that this is good exercise because it helps us teach our body that we can have the same free jaw for all vowels, the only thing that needs to change is the articulators. We did a few more vocalizes. I asked him to find his healthy jaw position. We sang some descending scales on the syllable [bi]. We started with A3 being the top note, moved up one half step, down a two half steps, after which I jumped up to C. Then I moved down a half step and then up to D4. There was a glitch in his voice when he sang that scale, so he asked if we could do that one again. I assented. We did the exercise once more on that pitch. I then asked him how that particular scale felt. He said that he felt that this was the height of his range. He then commented that he feels like he tends to close his jaw more on high notes. I agreed that this could be a problem for his upper range. I told him that it's a fairly natural reaction because we are so nervous to sing high notes, but in reality we need the healthy jaw position and back space more on high notes. I told him that it can be helpful to think of the space increasing for the higher notes. I told him next that there are also other factors that can affect the sound of our voice adversely when we sing in a higher range. I then asked him if he could assume the rag doll pose. I asked him to try singing the exercise in that position. I admonished him to maintain a free feeling while in that position. We started on B3 and moved up a half step. Next I moved down a whole step, then up two whole steps, down a half step, down a whole step, and up a half step. Next I asked if noticed any difference when he sang in that position. He said that the sound was more natural and relaxed. I replied that I felt the same way. I then told him that I had ascended to the same pitch that we ended the previous exercise with. I told him that the reason there was a difference was because there was no tension in his shoulders or neck in that position. He commented that it was harder to open his jaw when he was bent over in that position and I told him that that is to be expected. I told him that another thing he can do to relieve tension in the neck and shoulders is lay down on the floor with the knees bent and a few books under his head. I then asked if he had any questions. He replied that he had none. I told him that in the future we may do more practice in positions that help free up certain parts of our body, not because we are going to actually sing like that, but because we just want to teach our body that we don't need to tense in those areas to sound good.
I feel like this lesson went well overall. I'm really impressed with Rob's progress and with his natural inclusive awareness. He seems to notice things about his body much better than most people do. I wish that I had the same amount of inclusive awareness at the beginning of my study of voice. I think I've been doing pretty well at diagnosing Rob's problems, but I think I still need to get better at it. There are some things that he noticed that I didn't notice. I think my problem is that I'm concentrating more than just being aware. I suppose that is something that will get better with in time, but I think there are some things that I want to be more aware of in the future. For example, today I think I was paying special attention to his shoulders, but I think because of that I was paying enough attention to his jaw and to the rest of his body. Another thing I noticed about my teaching today is that I suck at playing those turns on the piano when I'm not looking at my hand. I want to play the right pitches, but I want to be paying more attention to the student and how their body is reacting to the exercise. Maybe that's just something I need to practice more. I also think I need to be more methodic in my selection of pitches to sing vocalizes on. I think there wasn't very much rhyme or reason to my movement throughout the keyboard today. I want the movement to be slightly random because I want to challenge Rob and not just move in predictable, ascending half steps, but I think the randomness of my vocalize patterns could be a more planned randomness. I think in the future I want to do more things that will help Rob improve his posture and get more used to the healthy jaw position that we found at times in our lesson today. I think it would be helpful if I did some exercises using [a] or [e] to help him get warmed up to that open, free feeling in the jaw and then switch to a vowel like [i] as a challenge once the jaw gets used to releasing more.
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