This lesson was broken into two days. We only did half an hour on the 3rd, and so we did another half hour on the 6th.
The first half hour we did a few exercises. I wasn't feeling like my voice was coming out. It felt kind of hoarse and trapped. Cindy did an exercise to help release my tongue - [hngnm uiuiui a] 5----4321. I like this exercise because it's hard to do well. The goal is to keep the jaw open and released on [u] and [i] and through the descending [a]. I was also working on the sensation that there is no back to my throat - That there is only open space behind and above my tongue. This is really hard for me to do, since I have some tension in the nasopharynx. It's really clear whether or not you've done it correctly when you open up to [u] after the nasal consonants. Tricky! I still do this one every day.
Then we did the [a] 1-----81-----81----- exercise. You jump up an octave for just an instant. I hate this exercise. The goal is to do it without the larynx rising. When I practice it on my own, I have very little success. When I do it in lessons I get about 60% less movement. Which is good. But not good enough. I do this one every day as well. I start with the 5453525154535251 yodle, and then go into the 1------81, but it's still not working well. Oh well! Gotta keep trying. I started getting really frustrated and impatient in my lesson though.
Cindy went to another, easier exercise to make me feel better. We did "[so] what?" 8531. The "what" occurs on the tonic at the end but is to be spoken, not sung. I really like this one. Cindy challenged me to try brighter vowels as well, because they're harder? Don't know why. I've been doing this one a lot! I don't feel like the bright vowels are very much harder. They're a little harder to transition through in the low range ESPECIALLY if you keep your jaw released the whole way down. Good exercise!
After that I invited Taylee in and we worked on our duet from the opera. Taylee and I both have a nasopharynx constriction issue, so I'm really glad we worked on it together! In order to get used to moving our bodies around without interfering with the breathing mechanism, we sat and wiggled our appendages while singing. Once we could do that without trouble, we stood and did the choreography. That was really helpful. Then we blew snot on targets to try and open up the upper throat area. That really helped to! I now have a clearer idea of how to effectively practice opera stuff.
On our lesson on the 6th I asked Cindy if we could work on high notes. We spent the whole lesson doing high warm ups. I feel like I made some important discoveries. The sound of high notes is very different inside your head than outside it. Which SUCKS. But what can you do? Cindy was really pleased that my larynx wasn't rising for the high stuff. I honestly couldn't tell what was happening. Singing high was not comfortable, but that might be because I'm just not used to it, because Cindy couldn't hear or see any tension. The sound was still pretty thin, but Cindy said that I just need to go up there every day and it will strengthen over time. So that's good news! We applied the warm ups to one of my pieces. I was trying to find that feeling where an incredible amount of space opens up behind and above the larynx. I haven't really figured that out yet, but I'm getting there. Really high [ng]s helped me too. I think that with some experimenting, I can figure this out. Which is a big step for me. Before this lesson I was just afraid to go up there because I was sure something bad would happen and I would just build bad habits. So now I'm feeling better about that! I've been singing up there a little each day, and it's getting a little easier each time.
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