This was my seventh lesson with Rob. I started by
asking him how his voice feels. He said it felt fine, but he mentioned that he
was a little tired because he had just returned from his mountain biking class.
I asked him if he was sore at all. He said that he just felt exhausted, but not
sore. We got stretched out first by just letting our neck fall gently onto our
chests as if we fell asleep and gently moving it from side to side. After that
I asked if his neck felt alright. He said it did. I asked him then to bring his
neck into a balanced position along with his back, hips, knees, and ankles.
Next we stretched our shoulders using the 'teacher teacher' stretch. I asked
how that felt. He said good. Then we worked on our jaws by massaging the sides
of our face with the heels of our hands. Then I directed Rob to make a gentle
chewing motion. After that I asked him to try to gently manipulate his jaw with
his hand. After that we started vocalization. I asked him what his favorite
scent is. He said that clean laundry was his favorite fragrance. He said that
the combination of detergent and dryer sheets that he uses on his laundry gives
his laundry the perfect smell and that he smells every shirt after it gets out
of the wash. I then asked him if he could demonstrate what he does when he
smells his fresh shirts. I pretended to smell a clean piece of laundry. I asked
him to do it again and to give me a report of how the breath feels. He told me
that it feels different than it does when he breathes normally. I asked him to
describe the difference. He said that when he breathes normally he is simply
trying to take in air and that when he smells something he is really trying to
take in the aroma and as a result feels like there is a bigger space in his
nasal cavity than there is normally. I told him that this feeling of space is
something that we want to have when we are singing. We talked about how when we
breathe properly for singing we feel a big wide open space in our throat.
Before we went on to vocalization I instructed him to pretend to smell one of
his clean shirts, not by sucking in the air like a vacuum, but by simply
allowing the air to come in and then follow that inhalation with a sigh. We did
that a few times. After the first repetition I asked him if he could make the
sigh more feminine. I asked him after he was done if he could feel that
refreshing space and energy as he breathed in. He said yes. Next I told him
that I wanted to add some real pitches to the exercise. We vocalized on the
word 'shy' making it a descending arpeggio. We started with C4 as the top note
of the arpeggio. I moved down in half steps until he got to A3 at which point I
jumped back up to Eb4. From there I moved down in half steps until I got to B3.
As he was vocalizing I directed him to sniff the shirt and just feel all of the
tension melt away as he does so. After we were done I told him that I noticed
that on the repetitions where I felt like he had a really good sense of space
increasing as a result of the calm, unforced breath he was much more
successful. I asked him if he agreed with that statement and he said that he
did. He said that he noticed that it was a lot easier when he wasn't trying to
force the air in. I told him that forcing the air in just really doesn't make
sense because air will come in as fast as it needs to come in and that all we
need to do is create the space needed for the air to move freely. After that we
moved on to music. I asked him if he had any questions about things we did in
our previous lesson. He said no. I asked him if he was more comfortable with
the melody. He said that he was comfortable with the first part, but that there
was one part that he still wasn't comfortable with. I played it for him once on
the piano. After that I asked him if it made more sense now. He said yes. Next,
I told him that I wanted to sing through it and just concentrate on maintaining
the same healthy space that we found with our good breath gesture. I went to
the phrase that he said he was having the most trouble with. I gave him
four measures of rest and instructed him to pretend to smell the shirt during
those beats. We sang through the phrase. After that I told him that I felt like
it improved when he had that nice shirt-smelling breath. I then apologized for
not specifying what syllable I wanted him to sing the music on. He had just
ended up singing it on [na]. I told him that I liked that as a syllable for him
to sing it and and asked him to continue that. I informed him at this point
that one does not actually need to close the jaw at all to make [n]. We went
through the phrase again. I asked him how it felt. He said that he was a lot
more open that time and that it felt a lot more comfortable. After that I asked
him to stand with his heels against the wall and his head in a normal position.
I measured the distance between his occipital ridge and the wall. I then took
out some text books from my backpack and laid them down on the floor. I asked
him to lay down and put his head in a balanced position on the books with his
knees bent and his hands resting above his head. I told him that we were going
to continue singing on [na]. I then fine-tuned his head position. I reminded
him to try to have the sense of smelling shirt throughout the entirety of the
phrase. I asked him if he could feel any difference being on the floor. He said
that he honestly couldn't. I said that I noticed a slight difference, but
nothing huge. He commented that he was having trouble remembering the melody.
So, I gave him the music and had him hold it above his body so that he could
see it. I continued to play the melody on the piano as we sang through the
phrase again, trying to remember the melody for myself. I made some mistakes,
but overall it was okay. After we were done singing, I asked him if he felt any
difference. He said that he felt like he had a better breath that time. He said
that he really remembered to keep a feeling of openness. I told him that I
wanted to do it one more time, this time singing it on [nu]. I told him after
that that I felt like laying on the floor was freeing up his neck, but that
there was still a tendency to squeeze for high notes. I asked him to just take
a few shirt-smelling breaths and imagine the big space that breath creates. I
then asked him to imagine that this space increases when we sing high notes. I
also asked him to just care less about how it sounds. As he sang, I repeated
the word 'space' before he arrived at ascending passages. I asked if he felt a
difference after that repetition. He said that he was more aware of the
constriction that happens when he sings high. I told him that this awareness
seemed to help him. He said that he noticed that the space was a lot bigger on
lower notes and that he was trying to imagine that same space remaining for the
high notes. I asked him to get up off of the floor and asked him to remember
the free feeling that he had in his neck as a result of that posture. I asked
him to pretend that he had just returned from the dentist, so that his jaw had
a nice loose feeling. I told him that I didn't care how it sounded, I just
wanted him to have an experience singing with a free jaw. We went on to a new
phrase. I played it once for him on the piano so that he could hear it first.
We continued to sing on [nu]. We pretended to sniff a shirt for a few beats
before tying to sing. After that I asked him if he could pretend that the
dentist gave him more drugs. We went through the phrase once more. I then asked
him if he did a better job of having a loose jaw. He said yes. I agreed. I then
told him that I wanted to combine the feelings of space in the throat as a
result of good breath and space in the mouth as a result of the loose jaw. We
sang through the phrase again. We then went on to the next phrase. Before the
next phrase I reminded him to be aware of space in the throat and looseness in
the jaw. I asked him how he felt he did. He said he felt like he did a little
better. Next we went on to another phrase. I reminded him to be aware of those
same things once again before we sang through it. I asked him how it went. He
said that he felt like he did okay, but he could feel when he was wanting to be
tense. I told him that it is good that he was aware of that because awareness
is what cures our problems. Before we ended I asked him if he had any
questions. He said that he didn't.
I think that overall this was an okay lesson. I felt like the
shirt-smelling breath was particularly successful for Rob. I also feel like
[nu] ended up being a really good syllable for him to sing on. I was glad I
made that adjustment because I feel like that really helped him maintain a
sense of space in the throat as he sang. I don't think laying on the floor was
very successful for him, but I'm glad that I tried it anyway. I think it was
more effective for him in our previous lesson when I just had him leaning
forward and putting his elbows on his knees. I think another improvement I
would make if I could teach this lesson again is that I might be more picky
during vocalization. I was chiefly concentrating on the breath gesture when we
were doing the 'shy' exercise, but I think I could have also given him some
direction regarding a loose jaw. I noticed it during vocalization, but I just
wasn't sure if that would've been too many things to focus on. I did address it
later when we were doing song prep, but maybe it would've been more effective
if I had brought that up earlier.
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