Sam Meredith Lesson Summary 2/25

I felt well prepared for my lesson today. I warmed up well before I came to Cindy's office and I had been practicing my pieces for NATS pretty diligently in the preceding week. Cindy started by asking me what I wanted her to do for me in vocalization. I told her that I wanted to work on breath coordination and also on keeping tension away in the back of the tongue. We started with a 5-tone pattern where we changed from [u] to [o] and finally to [a]. I a descending and ascending 5-tone scale on [ju] then changed to [jo], did a descending and ascending scale and then sang one more descending scale on [ja]. In the beginning I was having problems with my jaw getting stuck in the same position throughout the exercise, even though the space needed to increase. Cindy then modified the exercise so that I could practice a good transition from head to chest voice. So, we continued singing the exercise, starting in a falsetto tone, transitioning to chest voice for the bottom note and then going back to a falsetto quality starting on scale degree 2. I was still having some problems getting my mouth unstuck. We went along the keyboard in a descending pattern until we arrived at Bb. Cindy pointed out that it is good for me to practice in falsetto in that range so that when I sing notes in that range there is more of a mixed quality rather than a sound that is dominated purely by chest voice, making it difficult to transition. She later added that probably 90% of my vocalization each day should consist of exercises where I'm required to make a smooth transition between registers. She asked me to practice for the next month to practice with the idea that it's not so much about the sound that comes out, but rather it's about the onset and about the mindset that the tone can be lighter than I may think it needs to be. Next we did a descending arpeggio exercise. Scale degrees 8, 5, and 3 were sung on 'bp' in falsetto and scale degree one was sung in full voice on 'ba.' Again we descended to a fairly low point on the keyboard. She pointed out that it can be very helpful for baritones to delay the transition back to full voice as long as possible. Next we did a vocalize on the phrase 'how are you?'. We sang that phrase over the course of some descending and ascending 5-tone scales again having four notes sung in a lighter, more falsetto quality and the bottom note of the scale sung with a more robust timbre. It was really difficult at times to get from chest voice back into head voice. Cindy pointed out that this is probably because my thyroaryntenoid muscles is a little bit of a bully and doesn't want to let the cricothyroid contract to aid in the production of notes so low. Next we modified the vocalize so that I sang [wa], using the 'w' as a transitional syllable at the top and bottom of each scale. As we continued to do this exercise it became progressively easier to make the transition between the two different registers. Next we sang the syllable [mim] in a pattern where we sang 1, 5, 5, 5, 1, 5, 5, 5, 1, 3, 5, 3, 1. We concentrated on making the 5th scale degree in each exercise consistent even after I had come down to the bottom note of the scale. It was fairly difficult to accomplish at first. Eventually we came to the conclusion that to fix the problem I just need to make the transition to a lighter quality on the first note of the ascending portion of the exercise (scale degree 3) in order to be well prepared to sing scale degree 5. Next we did an exercise where I alternated between jumps from scale degree 5 to scale degree 1 and from scale degree 5 to scale degree 8. We sang the vocalize on [a] and I started each exercise with an [h] as well just so I can have a more well coordinated onset. The jump down was meant to be the model behavior to inform the behavior on the upward jump. After doing the exercise a couple of times Cindy asked me if I could have a more alive look in my face as I sang to keep a more open feeling internally. Next we did an exercise on the syllable [jo]. We sang descending 5-tone scales, re-articulating the syllable with each new note. At first I was trying to articulate the vowel by moving my jaw, but Cindy promptly stopped me and encouraged me to let my tongue do the work of articulation. Next we did some 9-note scales. We did a set of two consecutively. The first 4 notes were sung on [i], the next four on [e], the next four on [a], and the next four on [o]. On scale degree 1 I switched back to [i] and then sang another scale with the bottom note this time being sung on [u]. There was a temptation to depress the tongue for [a], which was creating some problems. Other than that I was having problems keeping my head balanced. We stopped for a little bit to discuss the fact that I don't need to do anything with my muscles to keep my head balanced. Cindy later told me to use rising diphthongs in my practice. Next we moved onto working on my repertoire. We spent some more time today gong over the pieces that I will sing for NATS on Saturday. We started by making sure that we had legal copies of all the songs I was planning on singing. We were able to find copies of 'si tra i ceppi' and 'sleep', but we were unable to find a good copy of 'wohl denk ich oft.' So we had to go with plan B and find a copy of 'beau soir' so I could sing that for the competition instead. The version we found was actually in a lower key than I had sung it last semester. By the time we had everything figured out we didn't have much time left, so we just went over 'beau soir' for a few minutes. I didn't really have any challenges with tension or anything because it was in a lower, more comfortable key, but the expression of the piece was struggling slightly. I struggle to express emotion when I sing in a legitimate and believable way. So, Cindy encouraged me to write down an action verb for each phrase in the piece so that I have something in mind that will help me direct my thoughts and alter my interpretation of the piece accordingly. My goal is to complete that exercise before the competition Saturday and also vocalize in a way that will help me become more accustomed to having a lighter mechanism in my voice all the time.