This was my fifth lesson with Rob and my lesson with Cindy present. I started by asking how he felt. He said that he was a little tired. I next asked if he had sung at all throughout the day. He said that he hadn't. I next asked him how the rest of his body felt. He said that his legs and back were hurting because he just started a mountain biking class that day. I told him that this is understandable, that having good posture when singing will be standing in a way that will ensure that his muscles are either released or doing minimum work, and that this kind of body alignment will ensure that we don't add to the slight pain or discomfort that he was having at the time. We then did some things to get released. I asked him to pretend that he had just woken up from a long nap and that he was going to yawn and stretch. We did a couple of yawn stretches and then I asked him to pretend that he is in a class, knows the answer to a question, and really wants the teacher to call on him. After that we took our hands and massaged the back of our neck and the tops of our shoulders. Next I asked him to let his neck fall forward onto his chest and just let it move from side to side. After moving his neck gently back and forth a few times I asked him to slowly bring his neck up into a balanced position. Then I asked him if he could just take a minute to find an appropriate singing posture. I informed him that walking backwards for a few steps is often a good way to bring his back into balance. I also reminded him that the knees are to be balanced not locked or bent. After he found his posture I asked him how he felt. He said his position felt relaxed and not forced. I told him that I was happy to hear this. Next, we did some things to loosen up the jaw. First we made a chewing motion with our jaw. After doing that for a little while I told him that we would be adding pitch to the motion. We did a series of of three 5-tone scales with each set starting on scale degree 5. We did our first set with F3 being the top pitch of the exercise. In the next set we moved down to E. Next we moved back up to F. I then moved up another half step to F-sharp. Next we made one more move up to G and did a set there. After that I asked him how that felt. He said that his jaw felt nice and loose. I said that this exercise is a good thing to remember if there is ever a time when he is having trouble with jaw bracing. I also told him that it is important to remember that the position of our head-neck joint plays a big part in determining our jaw's ability to be released--If the head is in a balanced position, the jaw will be able to just release to a nice, open position whenever we need it to. He said that his jaw feels a lot better than it did recently when he was having some jaw pains, which he said are gone now. For our next vocalize I asked him to find the released jaw position that he had found when we were doing our 'speak like a vampire' exercise in a previous lesson. Then I asked him to round his lips around that jaw position as if he were going to say the letter 'w.' Next, I told him that we were going to pretend that we were casper the friendly ghost. I encouraged him to have a pleasant look on his face as we performed the exercise because having a pleasant look on the face makes it more likely that a pleasant sound will come out. We made some ghost like noises. At first I felt like he was carrying the weight in his voice to an unnecessary height so I reminded him that he should feel free to let the voice flip into falsetto. I felt like it improved a lot once he made that adjustment. After letting him move his voice around for awhile we stopped and I asked him if he could make the sound even more spooky as if he were going to scare someone out of the house. He responded by taking the sound to a much higher pitch than he had previously. After that I asked him if the exercise felt tense at all. He said that it didn't and that all the movement he was causing in his voice felt free and easy even though there was a noticeable click in the voice when it switched between registers. I told him that this is an okay sensation to have just as long as the whole vocalize feels uninhibited. I went on to tell him that if he feels things grabbing when he is ascends higher, he should feel free to go into falsetto. He then added that recently he has been listening to the Sounds--a band that has a female singer. He said that he has been able to hit some pretty high notes while singing along. He went on to say that as he has been singing he has noticed that the timbre has been something that wasn't quite falsetto, but was something that seemed to have a falsetto component. I asked him for clarification by asking if he would describe the tone as a mix between falsetto and head voice. He said that this was a good description of his feelings. I told him that this was good because in the end we want a tone that sounds like full voice but always has at least somewhat of a feeling of falsetto in it. I also told him that this is the reason that we do exercises in the head voice/falsetto range because the muscle that is responsible for pitch change can be easily exercised. We continued by doing another vocalize. We sang descending arpeggios on the word 'lay.' We started on Bb 3. Before we started singing I told him that I wanted to start in a range that felt very comfortable for him and that I wanted him to pay close attention to how his body felt during the exercise, i.e. to be aware of any tension in his body. We did one rep starting on Bb. Then, we moved up a half step, then down a whole step, then down one more half step. After those reps I asked him how those felt. He said that he felt good and that he liked singing in that range. I told him that I did notice that his jaw seemed to be a little tight as he was singing. I told him that he didn't need that bracing in his jaw and that he should just let his jaw fall to a nice, open position because he was certainly capable of singing that vowel with an open jaw. I asked him after that to remember the feeling that he had when singing those notes. We went up to C-sharp 3 and did a rep there. We moved up to D, then up another half step. After that I asked him how those repetitions felt. He said that they felt okay, but that they didn't feel as god as the previous set did. I told him that this is a normal thing to feel. I explained that beginning singers usually have an anxiety about singing high notes and think that they need to do something extra in order to reach high notes. Because of this they have a lot of tension in their body when they sing high. I told him that this tension is not only unnecessary, but also it is detrimental to the sound. I continued by saying that the muscles responsible for pitch change are tiny. Therefore, there isn't going to be a big muscular event when we change pitch--all we need to do is think the new pitch and ask for it to happen. After that, I asked if that made sense. He said it did. Next I told him that I want him to feel comfortable with not sounding good because I would rather have him sing without tension. We did the exercise once again, starting on Bb 3. Before he sang the pattern on this pitch I asked him to remember how it feels. After that rep I jumped up to Eb and reminded him to just ask for the higher pitch. Then I moved up a half step. Neither of us like the way that rep sounded, so we went back down to Bb. After that I jumped back up to Eb reminding him to just ask for higher pitch. After singing the pattern on that note I moved up to E. After that he commented that he went into falsetto for that last repetition. I told him that this was fine. I then asked him how it felt. He said that it felt less tense than it had the first time he sang it. I told him that this was the reaction I wanted because if the voice wants to flip into falsetto, who are we to say that it is wrong? After that we took a look at some music. I took a second to find a piece that I felt would fit Rob. We decided on Simple Gifts. I asked him if he knew how to read music. He said that he had some experience with it. I told him that I wanted to take a minute to talk with him about how to learn music effectively. I told him that if we try to pay attention to everything at once then we are likely to do things that introduce tension into our bodies. I told him that if we break a song up into chunks and focus on individual aspects of the song we can eventually master all components of a song without encouraging unnecessary tension in the body. I told him that I wanted to focus mostly on learning the rhythm first. We started by separating the music into chunks of several measures. We then took certain chunks and sang through the chunks on 'ta' on a consistent, comfortable pitch. I sang along with him the first time to help him get accustomed to the rhythm of the song. After that I had him go through the first chunk by himself. After that I asked him if he had any questions about it. He said he didn't. So, we went through the first phrase again to make sure that he really had it down. After that I asked him if he felt comfortable with that first phrase. He said that he mostly was but first wanted to clear up one note value. I confirmed that a whole note tied to a half note receives six counts in this song's time signature. After we cleared that up we moved on to the next chunk. I again sang with him the first time through to help him get the rhythm in his head. After that I asked him to do it by himself. After that I asked him if he had any problems with it. He didn't, so we moved on to the next chunk. once again I sang through the phrase with him the first time. He had a little more trouble with the rhythm in this chunk. So we went back to the specific places where he was having trouble and went over them a few times. When he had some trouble he asked me a few questions about the rhythm. He improved with each repetition. Once he felt more comfortable with the phrase I stopped and told him that this is an effective way for him learn the song because chunking helps us focus directly on the places where we have the most trouble. Before we ended our lesson I asked him if he had any questions. He replied that he didn't have any at the moment.
I think I did pretty well with teaching this lesson. I think I can still do a better job with the amount I talk in the lesson, but I think I did a better job keeping my talking down in this lesson. I still did a good amount of talking, but I feel like what I said during this lesson was a lot more relevant than some of the things I've said in past lessons. I also was really pleased with the reaction I got from Rob when we did certain vocalizes. I think the ghost vocalize is a really successful one for him and I think he seemed to understand the think-let-trust philosophy well. There are still some steps that he needs to take to really free up his voice. There is still some bracing in his neck, some inconsistency in his posture and also some tightness in his jaw. I think I want to continue to work on those things as I work with him over his next few lessons. As far as the song preparation is concerned, I think I could have challenged Rob a lot more. There were some rhythms that were more difficult for him, but in most cases he wasn't having any trouble at all. I think I should've known before he started singing which parts he was going to have trouble with and switched my focus there earlier.
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