Sarah Brenay - Voice Lesson - 1/27/14

Warm ups:
Lip buzz ascending an octave and then coming back down. Trying to get into the heavy sound on the low end and then releasing for the high end. We found that my larynx wanted to ride up with the pitch and tried to fix that by asking for it to say low. I had some success there. Cindy challenged me to do 2 octaves ascending. Cindy imagines she is swallowing her fist as she ascends. This helps deconstruct the larynx and keep it low.
Next we did "Shy" in a 5432123454321 pattern. I notice as I listen that my vowel changed from [ai] to a schwa. The next one went better. Cindy told me to yawn while I said it. This helped me glide more smoothly without controlling the sound. The dipthong is there to draw the sound forward. I am supposed to feel a sensation that my voice is at the roof of my mouth.
Next we did [bi bi bi bi] 54321. We jumped around all over the piano but it was too easy for me! So we didn't spend much time on it.
We moved on to [a i a i] 8531. Still yawning and very legato. I had a really hard time shifting between the vowels without closing my mouth. The sound became very dark. Cindy reminded me to keep the space open without letting the sound retract back into my throat. The [a]s sound like schwas to me. Cindy told me to start with a [ba ba ba ba] short staccato on the initial pitch, and then begin the exercise. It still sounds like a schwa to me. The [ba] is helping a lot with focus and does make the vowel a little better. Cindy told me to pant in my nose before the exercise began. This changed my sound a lot! It was much brighter and more vibrant. The tone is brighter in the bottom notes. The tongue needs to travel really far when the mouth is open to this extent. Cindy told me to only nose pant this week. We did a [v] sliding up to the 8, then an [l] then a [r]. I didn't like any of these. Cindy decided to leave it be for a moment.
We did a [hwai] 87654321. She told me to elongate the [hw]. My abdomen was popping in on onsets, creating too much air force and causing a diffusion of sound. We tried to stop that from happening. My body was not supposed to change from the unvoiced [hw] sound to the vocalizing.
[pri pri pri pri pri] with a lip trill. 54321. The [i] needs to stay high and bright all the way down. Cindy noticed that my face was falling as I descended so we tried to grin really broadly as we sang. The rolled [r] began to sink and become breathy as we sent. This shows that I'm not staying released and I am pushing the air. The airflow should not change. The articulators come apart, but the vowel should not change in any other way.
[pla pla pla] 54321. I had to speak it for a while in order to get the sound forward.
[vi ve vi ve vi] sustained on one note. We added the sensation of smelling, letting air come very slowly into my body. This brought the sound much more forward. It takes me a long time to bring in the air this way. For now.
Oh my gosh we did so much warming up.
Next we explored the low notes. We made a light [u] whispy, buzzy sound and took it down as low as we could. That was weird. The throat must be really loose. Cindy said to keep the teeth apart. She said to do that for a few minutes every day.
132435465768798 [ni ne na ne etc.] I was really mucousy so Cindy told me to humm it all out. I was really pinched at the top of the scale. Cindy told me to think of increasing the sense of internal space. This means thinking downward as the pitch goes up and releasing the back wall of the throat. We tried to add more stretch space in the back. I took deeper slower breaths and then focused on stretch in the back. We also have to turn our faces on. My nose was too closed up and I sounded like a had a cold. I tried to fix it but didn't have much success. We expanded the exercise to go two octaves which crashed and burned. Not good.
Cindy, if you're reading this... this is an overwhelming amount of information!
Then we started doing some music. We sang through Alma Mia. I wanted to throw something back and forth with Cindy so that I didn't think to hard the first time through. She grabbed the blow up ball. BUT it didn't work very well because I kept my neck stiff while I caught and threw. So instead Cindy had me walk around the room looking for something. I was keeping my mouth too closed so Cindy had me focus on keeping a released jaw. She had me push my nose up while I breathed and it helped my tone a ton!!! Wow. Big change. We tried to get my cheeks up and my jaw down by making a Red Skelton face. Cindy me sing as phrase on [ne]. This requires my tongue to travel a distance from the upper palate to the lower palate. We did [i] next. I will know that I have the right shape and formant if the sound is easy, intelligible, and efficient! Cindy said to practice on [i] and go through the rests without stopping until I felt uncomfortable.
I commented that I was worried about my singing in choir. We sang a little bit of a choral piece and she advised me to keep my mouth open with my tongue tip lower in the front of the mouth. Singing on [bla] helps monitor.
Then we went over the ornamentations in Alma Mia and adjusted where necessary.