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First we stretched and chatted about life and music. Then we discussed the in class warm ups. She felt good about the experience, and learned a lot. We reviewed some of the breathing concepts by going through the exercises.
First we did some yawn stretches. Then we did the squat to release the back muscles. Then we did some slow inhalation like we were smelling something faint. Then we did some shocked breaths and compared the two styles of breathing. Emma agreed that the shocked breaths felt tense and gaspy. I stood next to her and we looked in the mirror. When I do the shocked breath my body expands like a balloon, but Emma's shoulders and chest raise. I guessed it was either a posture thing or a concept thing. So I had her check her posture and try again. That helped a little. I explained how I feel my breaths like a balloon swelling outwards from the middle of my body. This imagery helped her out more.
Once we had that going, we did some sustained hisses to work on exhale. Emma was doing really well at this. I noticed that her body did not seam natural or comfortable so I had her wiggle around to shake out the tension and try again. We did some very quiet hisses.
After a few of those we switched to [u]. The kind that is not a pure [u], but has some constriction in the lips to make a vibrating sound. It's like a mix between [u] and [v]. I told her we should make up a name for that sound and after doing some thinking Emma decided it sounded like the robot Wall-e. It's called the Wall-e sound now. We did some descending sighs on Wall-e, then 54321, then 8531. After that I decided to try 13531. Did not work well. As soon as she went up to A4 she felt very pinched. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't notice, and she stopped singing and told me it felt bad. Good student! Bad teacher! So I decided we weren't quite ready for ascending wall-e.
After some releasing sighs, we did silent 5s. This is an adaptation of silent 8s. I think that doing a full octave scale without starting on the tonic is pretty tricky for beginners, so I do a five note descending pattern. Cindy helped me design it. The trick is to do a dotted rhythm so that 5 feels stronger than 4. Otherwise it would defeat the purpose of making the top note silent. Emma did really well with this, but I'm not convinced that her larynx is as released as it could be. I did a few full octaves with her just to see how she would handle it. It was very difficult for her! I sang with her and tried to play along on the piano (unsuccessfully). I realized I had better practice playing it more before trying it with her again and we moved on.
We did some [bi bi bi bi bi] 54321 exercises after that. Then 13531. She handled this much better than she handled the [u] sound. I reminded her
After these we went on to her repertoire. She wanted to sing "She's Like the Swallow" again. I wanted to apply some breathing technique so I had her make the hiss sound while I played the accompaniment and melody for each phrase, just on the first section. I did this so she could feel how much air would be needed for each phrase, how slowly it would need to be released, and where she would need to take breaths. She made it through each phrase without difficulty. Once, she even forgot to breath at the end of a phrase and made it through half of the next one! After doing this I had her go through each phrase on Wall-e [u]. This was much more difficult and I could hear that airy tone back again. I decided to switch to singing on [bi bi bi bi]. This helped a little but I could tell her voice was still not as clear as it could be. I alternated between [bi] and [ba] to see if that made a difference. Then we sang on words. It sounded pretty airy. I decided to take it one phrase at a time. We sang on Wall-e [u], then on [bi], then on words. This worked a good deal better. It still wasn't completely clear, but it was a lot more focused than before. We continued on in this way until we got to a measure where the [bi]s weren't hitting the right pitches. I stopped and asked Emma which notes she felt good about and which notes she didn't like. She said the low range sounded good but she wasn't sure about the notes in the measure with the descending line. Good student! Good self awareness! I told her that I was hearing the same thing, and we stopped and sang that measure on [bi] a few times, then on the words. This fixed her problem with the pitches. Once we got to the end of the first section I asked her if she wanted to sing the rest of the song since we hadn't gotten through it yet. She said she wanted to, so we went straight through. Oddly, I noticed that her diction was very different in the first section than in the rest. I think that focusing on those phrases one at a time made her try harder or something... Who knows!
We were out of time at that point but I wanted to figure out how to get her tone to clear up. I wondered if maybe "singing in her nose" would help her like it helped me. I had her sing [ing ing ing ing ing]. It helped, but I still think I'm missing something. I asked her to sing the melody on [ing]. I know that there's a better way to help her, but I can't figure it out. It was somewhat successful, but I know there's more. I explained to her that the nasalized consonant [n] made her vowels brighter and more focused, and kept them from falling back into her throat. I feel bad that I don't know a more technical explanation for what was happening.
Reactions:
I'm really worried about her airy tone because I don't want her to hurt her voice! But I'm not quite sure what to do now. Her voice is so airy and thin above F4. She really doesn't like the sound either and I think it is discouraging her from practicing. I have been trying different things but nothing is working as well as I'd like. I think the problem is that I am too nervous in the moment to properly diagnose the problem and experiment with solutions. I am honestly really uncomfortable looking directly at her while she sings. I don't know if this is just me or if I'm getting a vibe from her that makes me think she'd be uncomfortable. Either way I need to overcome my unwillingness to watch my student closely. I won't be able to help her until I figure out what's wrong.
This lesson was also difficult because I was in a really funny mood. I think it negatively affected the energy level of the lesson. Goes to show you can't bring your own problems into a lesson.
In short. Worried about airy tone. In need of new exercises and advice.
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