Warm Ups:
"hway" 8---7654321-3-5-8---7654321-3-5-8----7654321
I was managing to keep the top pretty buoyant, but my voice was having trouble navigating the range differences. Cindy changed the warm up to "hwoah" This sounded much more open for my voice. Then she did [o] on the top changing to [a] as I descended. Rather than changing suddenly between vowels Cindy wanted me to morph the vowel slowly as I descended so that my sound would stay forward. I tried to bring more of the cry sound into my voice, but I was struggling to keep the sound from going nasal. Cindy reminded me to keep the back really open. She wanted my molars to be separated and my pharynx to be clear back out of the way. She says she can't even find the back wall of her pharynx. My voice was really struggling really hard to figure out the sound in the low range. Cindy told me to play with vowel change - lip rounded to open - in register adjustment
[u i u i u i u i] 5544332211
Cindy said that "louder" feels like falling, not pressing or driving. [u] is the preperatory gesture and [i] is the opening. It feels delicate, robust, delicate, robust. I can hear a lot of extra noise in my sound, and I'm thinking it's probably phlegm. By the end of this exercise we were able to bring a lot of forward resonance into my chest voice. Cindy reminded me that it took her years to develop that sound and that it will take a long time for me to develop it. Another good exercise for this is [vi ve vi ve vi] all on one note, and moving downward chromatically. The goal is to try not to change the vowel change imperceptibly.
[a a e e o o e e a] 1 3 5 8 3 8 5 3 1. Two in a row. We are trying to get the same space in the [a] and the [o]. It sounds really weird. It's really very difficult! Cindy was trying to get me not to worry about the sound at all and not to try to control the sound. The only goal was to keep the same space through the range.I am also noticing that my [e] sounds like [i] a little bit... I realize that I have been constricting for a very long time to control my sound, and now that Cindy is taking it away it sounds very bad! This is one of those things where the correction makes you sound worse. This is hard! It started to sound much better as we went along though.
Next we did [a] 1----81-----81--81--81. I was trying to get the sound to flip up the octave without changing the space. Cindy said to allow the sound on the higher note to sound completely different than the low note, but to keep the space. Like the note came from a different universe. The thing to watch for is laryngeal jumping.
I need the space of the low range in the high range. I am supporting with my neck muscles the sound at the top. 1538531 "stay" 3 octaves is another good exercise for this space thing.
Then we talked french for a while. I had learned the meaning of the french words which helped a ton. Cindy told me to go watch pepe le pew youtube videos so I can get the right color in the sound. I had the right phoneme, but not the right allophones.
After my accompanist got there we decided to sing through "I send my heart up to thee." Cindy let me sing through the whole thing - haltingly, because I kept forgetting notes. The second run through Cindy told me to focus on two things: where the bottom of the breath gesture is/abdominal release, and the second in between breathing and singing. It was really hard for me to find release. I definitely need to work on that. The next run through Cindy told me to try approaching the sound as if everything were down two octaves. The change in my sound was instantaneous! I really liked that difference. It felt much more comfortable as well. The next time through Cindy told me to experiment with letting my voice be very different on the top and bottom. Cindy noted that it didn't sound that different, and actually sounded much more exciting. She said that we don't care if notes are different, just if they are disconnected... That's deep. I still don't get that. But it was working for my sound. Cindy told me how low notes feel like this great roaring thing and the high notes sound like a whispy little thing, but the space for them is the same. I didn't really understand anything she was saying, but I tried. The next time through the back of the throat was not open enough. Make a big space, sing a small sound at the very top of it.
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