We started out this lesson by talking about my voice student and what I can do best to help her stay released on high notes.
First warm up we did was to find release. We stretched up as we inhaled and then released our bodies as we exhaled. After the onset of exhale, we phonated on an [u] down four times in intervals of 5ths. This was tricky! And I nice change form always doing triadic harmony. Cindy reminded me to keep this in a head voice like feeling all the way down. After a few repetitions Cindy had me stop doing the stretches. It was really hard for me to find a released onset when I took away the physical movement. (I should have visualized it! Rats. I always remember later.)
Then we did [gai lai gai lai] 5432123454321. I had a really hard time with this one because my voice was really raspy and unresponsive. Cindy had me hold the [g] for a moment before releasing it. I kept ducking my head and not balancing my a-o joint.
[mi mai mi mai mi] 123454321. We switched to 54321 pretty quickly. I was having a really hard time emotionally because my voice was so fuzzy. Cindy reminded me to let my voice be bad if it wanted to and it was fine! She gave me some instructions for creating more space in my mouth. She had me really exaggerate the space in my mouth. It felt really funny to me, but Cindy said that it was about right. : ) My voice had a hard time coping with the new space for a while. But I can tell on the recording that it sounds better! It's more released and more sound is coming out. Even though my vowels are a little funky, it sounds like the space is pointing me in a good direction. Next Cindy had my put my sound right into my nose. This helped me keep the sound from shifting back in the lower register. I need to get my head voice lower so that I have options in my lower range.
[nja nje njo] 123456789876543212345678987654321. Switch syllables every 4 notes. I was having trouble getting back to the vowel because I was closing down during the [nj]. We changed the workout to 135313531. Then 54321. It took me a lot of work to get my [o] to pop out. My tongue was hardening on the sides. 12345432123454321. I had to be reminded to pull the corners in for the [o] more. I can tell that my voice was getting pushy there at the end. Cindy told me to spend a little bit of time up there every day, but not to dwell in high note land.
She suggested other exercises. [yo yo yo yo yo] [sho sho sho sho] 54321.
The sound was flipping over to a higher place by the end of this work.
We went through Amy Beach's "I send my heart up to thee." First we just went through it. I notice that at first it's very shaky. I'm not dead on some pitches. My singing is very sausagy. The high notes are pretty artificial. The low is very different from the high. Vowels aren't very clear. The second time through Cindy asked if I could be more generous with my space. There is a great improvement this time through with tone consistency. Cindy asked me what I thought about it. I said that my sound was falling back. Cindy reminded me to keep my tongue up in that [ing] position. It was a struggle for me, but reminded me that I don't need to move my tongue very far for different vowels. We talked about how you need to make more space around the tongue, and not depress the tongue. We snorted a bit. After that it sounded much better! We had a lot of trouble with the higher notes. I have to completely release everything and release my tongue. It sounded better, but still not comfy. Cindy told me to put the sound straight into the nose. I tried and it felt much better. I'll have to do that for a while in practice. Yay for the nose!
We worked on french for a few minutes. Since I was just learning the syllable sounds and not learning the actual words, Cindy sent me away abashed. : )
No comments:
Post a Comment