Kaylyn - Musician's Mind Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Emotion, Empathy, and the Unification of Art and Science

Summary: This chapter discusses that emotion and science or equal partnership or value. Emotion is fundamentally in twined with human reason. Meaning that emotion can no longer be considered a separate or lesser brain function or distraction from reason. Music has the power to induce emotion and emotion is a vital component of human existence. 

Key Concepts: Empathy definition empathy is closely aligned with other attributes such as concern sympathy and compassion.Empathy is not just sensory Jervin there’s a cognitive process and top down control arm for a constituents of human empathy. Obama’s quote about empathy deficit the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. When we do this we are least likely to harm does we see as extensions of ourselves musicians can help save the culture by normalizing empathy.

Connections: I think understanding empathy will also help me understand people and share kindness, but also really be able to get into our characters and understand thought processes of people different than us. 

 

Kaylyn - Musician's Mind Chapter 7

 Chapter 7: The Digital Brain

Summary: This chapter discusses the positive and negative consequences of the advanced technology for singers as well as the consequences constant screen time has done for our attention and therefore our learning process.

Key Concepts: Positives of technology: We have never been able to give ourselves augmented feedback so fast because of recordings of lessons and recordings in general. Negatives of technology: Our attention has been trained into not being able to focus as long, so we accomplish less in our practice because of distractions.

Connections: I just recently watched "The Social Dilemma" on Netflix and it was an interesting documentary to watch before this chapter talking about how technology has influenced us in a negative way. think it is so important to take note and realize our distractions and be able to minimize those, especially when we are practicing and trying to learn a new skill. This new age of multitasking is toxic to our attention span, which in return is toxic to our learning process. I feel like I regularly take advantage of my lesson recordings because I think its helpful for me to listen to old lessons even if it wasn't my lesson that week. I do want to be better at keeping my phone out of my practice sessions. I can see that this has been extra difficult since quarantine since I mostly practice in my house and when I do that I think about meal prep or laundry or every other 5,000 things I have to get done so my anxiousness doesn't help me focus either.

Kaylyn - The Musician's Mind Ch. 4-6

 Chapter 4: Learned Movement 

Summary: This chapter goes deep into motor learning research, and the new research on the organization of practice schedules, the timing of feedback, and the quality of practice to optimize performance. There are learning modes, and performance modes. 

Key Concepts: Learning mode: encourage exploration, and freedom. Its wobbly and unstable, not ideal for performance. Performance mode: stop teaching! The hallmark of motor learning is repeatability. Positive performance shifts are not always good, and negative performance shifts are not always bad. Desirable difficulties is learning a task that requires a considerable but desirable amount of effort that improves long term performance. The Three Rules of Practice: 1. Distributed practice is more effective than massed practice. 2. Varied practice is more effective than constant practice. 3. Randomly ordered practice is more effective than blocked practice. Mental practice can be very effective. 

Connections: To help students we have a few things to do to help them with motor learning. We can repeat, refine, and revise instruction while letting them think, let, and trust. Mental practice can be very helpful if we truly are visualizing kinesthetically. Our instruction is also helpful if it is concise, creative, and precise. We need to help them become better error detectors, we don’t need to state the obvious. Our process for augmented feedback would have the 3 S’s. Short delay (after they have done something), Simple (instruction given), and Several (trials given to them before you offer augmented feedback). Ultimately, students learn to trust their teacher through empathy. Master class effect is not learning, we must run to the practice room. 

Chapter 5: Performance Studies 

Summary: This chapter talks about the importance of deliberate practice, and how much of it is actually required for success. This digs deeper into the concept of desirable difficulties and the struggles necessary for learning. 

Key Concepts: Goal setting is a very important aspect of teaching that can boost learning and ignites motivation. Deliberate practice is the way to learn a skill. We can’t learn a skill with nonproductive persistence. GRIT can be helpful, but to those children who do not have the basic necessities of life, how could we expect them to learn deliberate practice without those things. 

Connections: The “help wanted” job descriptions of a music student and music teacher are both very interesting to me. I love the idea of being a student who is seeking a teacher of deliberate practice and daily practice regimen that includes building fundamental skills and self-reflection. I also loved the concept that we are not born knowing how to work hard, we have to learn how to work. This is where the growth mindset is helpful. 

Chapter 6: Mind Games 

Summary: This chapter discusses the challenges of performance anxiety, the possible causes, the things that help manage it, and everything in between. MPA can happen to anyone, whether your age, gender, expertise, and genre of music. 

Key Concepts: Causes of MPA: childhood performance trauma, pressure from self, inadequate preparation, and not knowing how to manage feelings. There are 2 theories to why choking happens: 1. Explicit monitoring learning (overthinking) and 2. Distraction theory (distracted). We are more likely to have these kinds of MPA episodes if we are depressed, sleep-deprived, or operating under a large mental load. MPA is not all bad. There are some upsides. It creates this “care” or reason to make music, as well as gives energy to ride the wave of a performance. We can also retrain our minds to think in a positive way by saying “I’m excited” rather than “I’m nervous”. Alexander Technique can help with this body awareness and manage MPA. Its okay to make mistakes--still working on this one!

Connections: My favorite and most relatable part of this chapter was the letter to family and friends. Often I find myself not focused, stressed, and full of activities whenever my family comes into town for a performance. I often even prefer that no one comes to performances because of this reason. I thought the letter was a great way to let them know that I need my space to re-group, meditate, and mentally prepare for a performance.

Kaylyn - The Musician's Mind Chapter 2 and 3

 Chapter 2: Groundwork

Summary: This chapter will discuss the findings of the most recent research on music and cognitive development. A study showed that while music training didn’t make children smarter, it made their brains more receptive to learning.There may not be a benefit to simply listening to music, but actually making it can. We can utilize the skills of both the left and right brain, but that doesn’t make the left or right brain a personality. The human brain can function as both artist and scientist with its abilities and how we can strategies comprehending them. 

Key Concepts: The Mozart Effect - The myth that listening to classical music makes you smarter (1990s). Exposure is not learning--it lacks engagement. Engagement is a fundamental requirement of learning. Right brain and left brain dichotomy. Left brain: dominates for many tasks. Left is responsible for the mechanics of speech production and literal meaning of words. Right brain: process motor tasks, visual and spatial relations, and certain aspects of emotion. The right brain translates pitch and timber to effect a more nuanced understanding of a language. Labeling yourself as a visual or verbal learner is actually just a preference, it doesn’t mean you can’t learn a different way. This myth is actually quite limiting. Labels cause us to stay in a fixed mindset. One research study showed that music training actually induced brain plasticity, which is a necessary precursor to cognitive enhancement. Attention and memory bookend learning. Sentience or subjectivity: awareness of your self awareness. Know that: knowledge of facts (requires motivation, attention, repetition). Know how: bound to the body (occurs outside of conscious attempts to learn). 

Connections: A helpful thing with these kind of learning books is giving my mom a phone call and talking about it. It’s been very interesting to discuss this information that way as well. One topic that I loved was that we are not a visual or a verbal learner, and those labels are what can get us stuck in the fixed mindset. I’ve always thought I learned by colors, but that doesn’t have to be the case, I can learn strategies that can help me grow and use the other parts of my brain to strengthen my skills as a verbal learner. Very interesting, I did not even think that something like that could be a fixed mindset. 

Chapter 3: How Learning Works

Summary: This chapter talks about the vital question of cognitive science...what is learning? Learning is a complex, three-step process of attention, learning, and memory. There are different sections withing these three learning processes. Attention has 4 different modes: default mode, executive attention, attentional switch, and attentional filter. Attention aids emotion and desire, motivation and rewards, goal setting, and sleep. A part of learning is developing better memory capabilities, chunking is something that helps with this. We absorb information into a short term memory, and then we using our working attention to move those to long term memory. Constructive memory helps us learn from our mistakes. 

Key Concepts: Declarative learning (know that): information that someone can speak about. Knowledge that is learned that is not innate. A process that results in a permanent change in behavior as a result of experience. Procedural learning (know how): learning physical skills or motor learning. The difference between these two learning procedures is the speed we accomplish them. A process that results in a permanent change in behavior as a result of practice. The default mode (daydreaming) actually is where connections occur and creativity happens. Emotion plays a critical role in memory consolidation. Desire is the ignition system of attention. The ability to learn starts with the ability to remember. Neurogenesis: the brain can regenerate. Neural Plasticity: the brain changes continually in response to experiences. 

Connections: What caught my attention, was the section on the attention part of learning. I thought it was interesting that they found attention aids emotion and desire. This makes sense, but I think this a great way of thinking on how to keep the light ignited, like in The Talent Code. Putting specific attention on a task as the first step of learning is a way to keep our desires and motivations strong, with of course strategies like goal setting and taking care of our bodies.

The Musician's Mind-Intro and Ch 1

Chapter Summary:

Key Concepts:

Behavorist psychology-"is key to understanding our motivations and weaknesses as they currently play out in all our arenas of musical endeavor and accomplishment, whether as students, teachers, parents, or practicing musicians." (Pg3)

Behavorists believe that natural consequences shape behavior. (positive behavior tends to be repeated while negative actions will be avoided because of the consequences associated)

"People cannot be judged and predicted by outward behavior alone; people do not always choose their pain" (pg 5)

"Kohn has made a singular career of blasting behaviorism, particularly the ubiquitous use of what he calls "goodies" (candy, praise, financial rewards) to "incentivize" behavior. Kohn has long argued that these behaviorist principles, still common practice among parents and teachers, have spawned multiple generations of schoolchildren who have grown up so addicted to incentives, praise, and prizes that they find little joy in discover, little intrinsic worth in learning for its own sake, and therefore little reason to pursue a goal without the promise of immediate reward."

Key Terms:

The inverse power of praise

Learned helplessness--when the animals would just curl up in a ball as a response to the pain given as a negative consequence, even if an alternate route was given. Opened u p the door to research depression. 

Operant conditioning (came to be one of Skinner's most famous and infamous contributions to science) Because of his study, behaviorist saw virtually no behavioral distinction between animal or human. 

Behaviorism 

Cognitive Revolution-the start of the modern scientific study of the mind 

Cognitivism 

The Mozart Effect

Mindless Behaviorism 

Neuroaesthetics 

Neuroplasticity-being able to grown your brain. Came about in about 1890

Neuroscience vs cognition 

Making Connections: 

In the studio, our students begin to feel entitled as we are giving them physical rewards for their practive. 

Because this concept is so un-natural for us, we need to almost memorize the script of the Dweck book page 181, 185-6. This will help us as we are changing the narrative for our students. 

Music is still an intelligence and talent. There is no hierarchy of talent. 

We've raised a bunch of people who know how to memorize, but not know how to learn. This is the danger that comes with behaviorism. 

Our job as teachers is to raise students who ask the question WHY (operating within the realm of inquiry)

Valuing art for arts sake. (not because it makes you smarter (the mozart effect)

Kaylyn - The Musician's Mind Chapter 1

 Chapter 8: Science, Art, and the Missing Mind

Summary: In the past, psychology was based on behaviorism. There was a cognitive revolution that challenged behaviorism into a new, modern way of thinking and cognitive neuroscience. Understanding the effects of behaviorist psychology is key to understanding our motivations and weaknesses. There are two cultures of controversy, science and humanities. The division of these two cultures has been a major handicap to both in solving the world's problems. The rise of a third culture is where humanists and scientists would communicate so effectively it would bridge a gap that would ultimately better society. Artists thrive in the gray area that contains the black and white answers scientists search for. It will take a creative mind to be able to discover the boundaries of art and science. 

Key Concepts: Behaviorism: primarily concerned with observable behavior not internal thoughts and emotion. Cognitivism (new theory of learning): is a learning theory that focuses on the processes involved in learning rather than on the observed behavior. Music provides cognitive enhancement, but it has more to do with the broader enhancement of the human experience. No behavioral distinction between animals or humans. (B.F. Skinner) The animals with unpleasant negative consequences just gave up. The Theory of Multiple Intelligences: people are not born with all of the intelligences they will ever have. It also describes different ways students learn information. (There are 8 intelligences: musical, logical mathematical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, naturalistic, linguistic, bodily kinesthetic, spatial). Neuroaesthetics: experimental science that combines psychological research with aesthetics by investigating the perception, production, and response to art, as well as things that evoke feeling.

Connections: Awe! You’re in the acknowledgment section! Since behaviorism is so deeply embedded into the American psyche, we need to focus on developing a new strategy for learning. Since incentives are not the primary forces that stimulate human creativity, we need to find a way to create just to create not for a reward. This is something I find very interesting and a reason why I hit such a large regression during quarantine. I feel like I work hard and I am able to see some kind of result (or in my eyes a “reward”). But everything I had done the work for was all of a sudden canceled, and so I actually had a “regression of the very motivations they are intended to ignite”, which ultimately had a negative impact on my technique and positivity towards music. 

I also loved the idea of Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, meaning that intelligence is related to talent and ability. Music is not something that should be dismissed as “mere talent”. 

Kaylyn - Mindsets Chapter 7 & 8

 Chapter 7: Where Do Mindsets Come From?

Summary: Children and students are remarkably sensitive to the messages sent from their parents, teachers, and coaches. The way things are worded is extremely important in teaching a growth mindset because praising one's intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their performance. The most important aspect of a growth mindset is the process. We praise the process of learning, not the ability or even the speed. Lowering our standards is not the answer, we need to teach the tools to help students succeed. 

Key Concepts: Messages about Failure. (Tell her she didn’t deserve to win). Sympathize with disappointment, but don’t give a phony boost that only leads to further disappointment. Don’t judge. Teach. It’s a learning process. Challenge you at the same time as feeling nurtured. Tie accomplishments to the process. Mistake: praising the ability instead of praising the learning process. Treat failure as an opportunity for learning. 

Connections: We teach a growth mindset. You don’t just “have it”. We can use teaching as a place to grow our learning. What I can do is find what I love to learn about and I can grow as a teacher so that I can help my students. 

Chapter 8: Changing Mindsets

Summary: This chapter discusses different scenarios and how a fixed mindset would react and how a growth mindset would react. 

Key Concepts:All students can learn, even those who struggle. It is tricky to replace a mindset that tells you to embrace all of the things that have felt threatening such as struggles, challenges, and criticism. Make concrete plans to get things done. Followthrough helps with the chances of success. We need to maintain the growth mindset (the change) to keep growing. We can’t stop the strategies when things are improving. Growth mindset is vulnerable, fixed mindset is protective. 

Connections: The first step to growth is embracing your growth and fixed mindsets. Find the triggers and find strategies to cope with them. This semester I will pick one attribute I can change and change it with a growth mindset. For me, I would like to change my fixed mindset on “I’m behind because I haven’t been singing as long as everyone else” to, “since I haven’t been singing as long as everyone else, I need to work harder, practice smarter, and be willing to fail so that I can find success”.

Kaylyn - The Mindsets Chapter 1-3

 Chapter 1: The Mindsets 

Summary: Mindset theory explains why we are the way we are. This chapter discusses the two different kinds of mindsets and what we can do to change our current mindset for optimal growth and learning. People with a fixed mindset think that their intelligence or skills are fixed or predetermined. People with a growth mindset know that their intelligence can be learned. Fixed mindset people believe that failure means they are stupid or cannot overcome something. Growth mindset people look at failure as learning and a challenge they are looking forward to overcoming.

Key Concepts: Failure = learning. Achievement is not fixed prior ability, but purposeful engagement. Don’t hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them. You can change your mindset. 

Connections: As I was reading, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I actually had some growth mindset in my daily life (thanks to my mother). One thing that stood out to me was getting a C+ on a paper and how we react afterwards. Dr. Scheer’s class has given me a lot of C+ kind of grades. One test that came back, I was confused as to why I did so poorly (I studied and went to class and did the readings). I took my test to Dr. Scheer and we talked about what I could do to improve my studying techniques. I then became friends with Megan and she said she would teach me how she studied, and I was able to learn how Megan could get A’s on Dr. Scheer’s tests. For my practice, I will be looking at my challenging opera music as a challenge I want to overcome. Instead of it is too hard to sing, but rather I will need to use the new practice strategies I’ve learned to get the melody into my ear and my body. It's a challenge to learn this music in 2 weeks rather than It's impossible to complete this task. 

Chapter 2: Inside The Mindsets

Summary: The key is not ability, it's whether you believe that ability is something inherent and only needs to be demonstrated or whether you believe that ability can be developed. Fixed Minset-er’s want to look smart and that effort is pointless. If at first you don’t succeed, don’t try. They also feel threatened by the success of others, but this robs them of opportunity and they plateau early. People with a growth mindset are inspired to learn and challenges make them stronger. Their self esteem is not tied to their success. Failure is just another opportunity to learn. They are inspired by people who have success. 

Key Concepts: Learners (growth) and nonlearners (fixed). Be like a baby, learn and stretch as much as you can. 

Fixed mindset: people don’t give effort to something they think they won’t succeed at right away. Feeling worthless when you fail. Its about immediate perfection

Growth mindset: Its about learning something over time, confronting a challenge and making progress. This is hard. This is fun. Becoming is better than being. Effort is what makes you smart or talented. Failure can be a painful experience, but it doesn't’ define you. 

Connections: Something I want to experiment with in my practice is reminding myself that it is okay to fail. My mindset for practicing has been “this is the time to make it perfect”, but this chapter made me realize that I might be missing something by not allowing myself to stretch, challenge myself, and fail. I have felt like I’ve been at a plateau in my practice, but that is because I have not challenged myself to make more mistakes so that I can learn rather than feeling like “I’m not becoming a good singer”. I want to get past the fear and make a plan to conquer it instead. 

Chapter 3: The Truth About Ability and Accomplishments

Summary: We have to be self aware to see what our strengths and weaknesses and see what motivates you. You can learn new skills through observation by looking to those who are more successful than you and seeing what strategies they used to get there. We can only make positive growth when we know and acknowledge our own weaknesses. When you feel overwhelmed, that is the time to dig in and do what it takes to accomplish your goal. 

Key Concepts: Working hard doesn’t make you vulnerable, but it makes you smarter. We don’t study to ace the test, we study to learn, we get better grades. Go over your mistakes until you understand them. The fixed mindset limits achievement and makes people into judges rather than allies. Prodigies aren’t born with a skill, they are born with an extreme love of learning and challenge. Stereotypes don’t disrupt the performance of those with a growth mindset. 99% of success is hard work. 

Connections: I loved the idea that just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean other people can't do it with training. A lot of the time I would say “I can’t do that because it's not something that comes naturally to me” such as singing high coloratura. But this chapter gave me the motivation that I can find and practice strategies that can help me achieve that goal. The drawing class portraits showed a lot of progress in just five days, so I know that with my training this semester I will be able to learn the skills to become stronger at singing.

Roberts Lesson 9.6.16

At the start of our lesson, I was asked to conduct a warm-up as if i were alone in a practice room. It was a little uncomfortable at first, because in that moment I was only concerned about doing the "right thing". Then I realized, I was just being asked to do what I usually did in my practice time. There just happened to be another person in the room. So I began to stretch my body from top down to loosen my muscles. Sitting at my desk at work can cause my body to tighten and curl in on itself. Over time, I started to realize how much of a strain it was putting on my singing, so stretching prior to any type of vocalization became a requirement for me. After I felt a little more loose, I started a pitch less lip trill to loosen my lips, cheeks, and focus my breathing. After suffering with asthma for many years, I taught myself to really try to pay attention to my airflow. I took multiple deep breaths to see what type of air I was getting. Either deep, or gaspy, or short. Then I moved to simple lip trills on random pitches to get the voice moving, since I was a little raspy that day. We worked on some vowel placements, and working on the internal "flip" that happens when we jump octaves or larger leaps. We worked on this concept of "air opening the head, and flowing straight through to my hips" The visual that concept gave me helped a lot in feeling that open space in my head. It led to my notes sounding clear, and effortless, with no pulling or tension. I did realize that my jaw is continuing to pull in. It's frustrating that it still happens, but I am glad I can instantly detect when I make the mistake. The first piece of music we looked at was Come Scoglio. We took the first few lines in the Andante section and really struggled through finding patterns, and chunking the words, and their translations. it helped using the piano to have a audio and physical example of what it sounded like. It helped greatly with retention of pitches, rhythms and texts. During my practice time in the upcoming week, ill be sure to pay attention to making sure anything comes out of my mouth feels free, clear, and easy. Continuing to work on my "model behavior" and staying on top of when things don't feel or sound the way they should. And, figuring out how to fix it.

Jake Spjute practice session: 9-3-14

Right now I'm just trying to get familiar with my Italian and French sets. I found a YouTube of Joyce didonato singin my entire Italian set in one recital, si I was able to use that to get a feel for how the accompaniment goes along with the vocal line.
My voice has been pretty tired all week I due to the celebrate America rehearsals and performances, so I've been tapping out the rhythms in my music to be able to get the feel of how the songs go. Slow process, but it works I'm the end.

Jacob Spjute lesson record reactions jacob cortez

I spent the first few minutes just getting to know jacob a little bit. Apparently we were both in Meistersingers when I sang in their choir for a year when I came home from my mission. I didn't remember him at all though. I felt bad. Anyway he's a music major at bsu, he's 23, and sings tenor.
I started off with the same stretches I always do. Rolling the neck very softly and slowly in circles then reversing the direction. Then we did the bent over hanging stretch I like to do. Instead of starting off with vocalizes I asked him if he had a song he wanted to sing just so I could hear him sing and get a feeling for his voice and to see if I could see/hear any problems or anything like that. He sang a hymn for me, and I played what I could of the accompaniment. He has a really nice voice. It's very light and clear, and in general it sounds very free. I did notice some breath gesture problems when he was singing. He was doing a lot of heavy Bucket breathing and his chest was moving way too much for my liking. So I talked about breath gesture and I explained the idea of the rose and breathing down with the diaphragm so he wouldn't recruit all those extra muscles around his shoulders neck and chest while singing. After that we did some vocalizes and I asked him if he could try to apply the rose breath gesture into these vocalizes. I said I would give him plenty of time inbetween scales to set up a good breath. I started on C3 and did 1-9 and down again on an "a" vowel. We moved up a half step until we reached f#4 and then we stopped because he wasn't able to be as free and open as he was on the other scales lower pin the range. I had to stop him twice to remind him of the rose gesture. We did it again, except this time we went faster between scales. I wanted to see if he could work that rose gesture correctly with less time to set up on the scales. He was able to do it two times but I had to stop him after that and talk about setting up breath correctly every time. I told him that I also struggle with this very same thing. We talked for a bit about choir at bsu, then all of a sudden the half hour was up.
I asked him what things he would take away from the lesson and he said obviously the breath gesture and the rose technique. I think he already has a decent technique set up and everything I think he's just at the refinement stage in his training. Pretty cool guy!

Jacob Spjute lesson plan jacob cortez

So jacob is a guy that sings in the Meistersingers at bsu. Tim givens told him about me and that I was ding lesson while I was home so he texted me saying he would like a lesson. Since I've never heard him sing, and I don't really know anything about him, I'm kinda in the same boat as I usually am. This first lesson is about listening to his voice and figuring out where he is at from a technical standpoint. I figure he must be a pretty decent singer if he is in the concert choir at bsu.. I guess I'll find out!

Jake Spjute lesson plan Rex spjute

So Rex is unce Carl's son, I wonder if they'll have any of the same tendencies?? Haha
Anyway, Rex is a pretty good singer from what I've heard him do in the past. He's been in choir all through high school, and is also part of a barber shop quartet made up of himself and his 3 buddies. This first lesson I'm gonna see wheee he is at vocally and technically, at this point I just want to get to know his voice and figure out if he has any problems.

Jake Spjute lesson record reactions uncle Carl #2

We began with some relaxed light stretches, the same ones I do with Cameron and my other students. Hi said he hadn't really sung yet today so we started off with some light vocalizes on an "a" vowel. Descending five note scales, I feel like they are the best to begin with, we started on A3 and worked our way down to  a low G. I feel like he doesn't have a very big range, which I think is due to him being in his fifties and not training his voice on a daily basis, but I would definitely classify him as a baritone.
During the downward scales I would have to ask him to fix his chin. He tends to put his chin down toward his chest when he sings, he holds that position the whole time and it looks like it causes a lot of tension just by looking at him, so I can imagine it's causing a lot of inner tension with the voice. My cue for him to put his chin in alignment is "chin up" which probably sounds horrible to command as a voice teacher, but for him it works. I had to explain the top teeth being parallel with the floor idea to him last time at our lesson, so when I say say chin up, he actually moves his chin to a better aligned position. During these scales I also noticed his breathing seemed chesty and this seems like it triggered the chin to go down into his neck/chest again. So I explained to him about breathing with the diaphragm and not using any extra muscles that are not needed to breath. I also explained that when we recruit more muscles than needed, we usually cause a tension, which will hurt the quality of our voice.
After these scales and conversations about breathing and alignment, we took out his music for secret garden and worked on his part for the rest of the lesson. Most of the role he sings is pretty much in the middle range of his voice, so it in general isn't hard for him to sing, but I wanted him to sound as beautiful as he could. So I talked about vowel space in the mouth and how we shouldn't change the space more than we need to when we change the vowels. We talked about keeping a big open space all the time, and applying the breath technique we had discussed earlier into the phrases of his role. I demonstrated singing different vowels while trying to maintain the same space, but since I'm not the best at that, I turned to YouTube for the help of Bruce ford to demonstrate. I asked if I turned the music off, if he could tell when Bruce changed vowels, so we had a little fun with it and basically, we both couldn't tell when he changed vowels with the volume down because his vowels were so uniform. Very cool!

Jake Spjute lesson record reaction Cameron Spjute #2

I started off the lesson just by talking to Cameron a little bit about how he was doing etc. he said that he had been trying to remember the posture technique stuff in his choir classes and that he felt it was helping.
I started off with the normal neck and back stretches, rotating the neck in circles in both directions, and letting the head and back hang down reaching with the hands down to the feet. We then started singing with a soft vocalize starting on A3 and going down on an "a" vowel. Instead of going through the scale for a while without correcting anything like last week, I stopped quite a few time in this exercise to correct his posture and his nervous body movements that I think May be a hard habit for him to break. When he sings in the middle or higher part of his range he gets very nervous and his body starts to wiggle around and he crosses his arms and just does kind if nervous twitch type things. So I would have him start lower in his range where he seems very comfortable then I would switch up to higher notes and do a scale right away with no break and I would try and track his body I to see if he was still doing those nervous body movements, he improved a little bit when I would have him do the low scale-high scale jumps like that.
By this time the lesson was already almost over! ( I can't believe how fast time goes when I'm teaching)
So I wanted to work on the hymn we worked on last time before he left to see if he could sing the higher notes with more confidence and technique this time. With a few reminders to   have a good breathing posture and a big space he was able to sing the second stanza which has the highest phrase in the song, not only was he able to do it on one breath but he sang all the notes and he didn't get nervous and give up like he did before. And the tone was improved from the first time we did it last time. It was very cool to see his improvement  in this lesson.

Jake Spjute lesson plan Carl Spjute 2

Today I wanna see if uncle Carl is able to not push his chin down into his chest. He was doing that a lot last time, hopefully he's been working on remembering "chin up"
I will also be monitoring his breath control, reminding him of the "rose" idea if need be.
I also want to continue applying these principals into his role in secret garden.
Short term goal: see if Carl can self monitor himself when he pushes his chin down
Long term goal: keep working breath control/posture until it becomes a habit

Jake spjute lesson plan Cameron 2

So last time Cameron had struggles with just ting his jaw out and upward, and he also had problems with keeping his body aligned, and his breath down, ( sounds like every singer ever..) haha
Today I want to see if he has been practicing better technique and posture, and then i want to apply those principles in the hymn we were working on.
Short term goal: get him to be able to self monitor chin movement
Long term goal: achieve proper body alignment

Jake Spjute lesson record reactions/'uncle Carl

We started the lesson just by talking about his role in secret garden and what he wants to work in so he won't be so nervous and so that he'll sound good. He said there is high part in one of his quartets. That sits up pretty high so he wants to be able to perform that better, and at the end of a bit of earth reprise he sings a high A in falsetto and he says sometimes it comes out and sometimes it doesn't.
For our first vocalize I started with what I always do. Descending scales, light and easy. I started on Bflat and worked my way down. I noticed that he tends to tuck his chin way down into his neck/chest quite a bit. So I asked him if he could be think about keeping his too teeth parallel with the floor. ( it's a good trick) this improved his sound after the adjustment, it was more rich than it was before. I asked him how that felt and he said it felt easier that way. Good!!!
We proceeded with some vocalizes and he went down to about a low G. I would classify uncle Carl as a baritone...
We then did an ascending vocalize on an A vowel up to an f before he started getting nervous and his voice cracked. I had to remind him once again of his chin position, and to think about the teeth being parallel to the floor.
As we went through his sings for the musical, I noticed his breath management was off. He was taking a lot of big breathes frequently but not sustaining them very long. So I stopped him and we did some breath exercises and I demonstrated diaphragm breathing and I implemented the "rose" technique into his breathing. We sang a phrase in one breath that he ahead to do in two the previous time, I asked him how that felt and he said it felt much better and that it was amazing how much just a breath gesture can change the way he felt singing. Along with the breath gesture, I gave him instruction on keeping the vowels pure, and the space in the mouth open, and to make the space in his mouth as similar as he could for each vowel. This helped a ton with the high A that he has to float in falsetto. He was able to do it very nicely each time with a warm open sound. I asked him how he felt about his falsetto notes and he said they were much easier than before! Awesome.
So I gave him 3 ideas to remember from this lesson that I thought were most crucial to him at this time:
1. Chin up ( I know it sounds like terrible advice but for him it works)
2. Rose
3. Similar space

Jake Spjute lesson plan uncle carl

So I kind of have an idea of how uncle Carl sings... Most in my family are fairly musical so I imagine he will be able to stay in tune and all that stuff. The main reason we are doing these lessons is so that he will be able to sing more confidently in Boise music weeks production of the secret garden. He plays Mary's dad so he actually has a decent amount of singing to do. He says most of it sits up higher than what he is normally comfortable with, so let's see what he has going on!
Short term goal: figure out his voice and what he needs to improve
Long term goal: help him be more confident for the show

Jake Spjute lesson record/reactions Cameron #1

We began the lesson just by talking a little bit and I especially wanted to talk about his choir experience in high school, what part he sings, that type of stuff. So he sings in the sophomore choir and the men's choir, and he sings tenor 1.
I had him sing a descending scale starting from A3 going down. The guy went clear down to a Db2!! And it wasn't vocal fry or anything like that, it had a nice warm tone to it. I couldn't believe they had him singing tenor over there. Then again, the new high school teacher over there is quite awful, from what I've heard from my other cousins that go there... Anyway, he's definitely a BASS.
we then started an ascending scale on an "a"
He asked if I wanted falsetto, and I said just sing whatever you feel feels right and whatever comes out comes out. So we started and I noticed that his middle range and upper range was much weaker than his low notes. I was very surprised by this because he told me they have him sing tenor I. He then told me that he's been singing tenor since the 8th grade. I could see that maybe because his voice hadn't matured yet.. But there is no way he should be singing tenor.... What the heck.
So I probably should have done this before we started singing, but next we did some stretches. Rotating the neck I around in circles slowly in both directions, and bending over and letting the back and neck hang naturally while taking some deep breaths. After that he told me that he liked those stretches and I said I did too.
 Before we began to sing again, I wanted to correct his posture. I didn't want to correct anything before this because I just wanted to hear his voice and see where he was at. He had a nervous looking posture, kind of hunched over and he had his hands clasped behind his back. So I talked about body alignment and how having a good alignment will help your voice be more healthy, clear, and free. We then did three quick scales on an "a" vowel. I stopped him on the third because I wanted him to make a more tall and pure "a" vowel. He kind of had mix of "uh" and a bright "ah" if that makes sense... It was a very immature sounding "a" maybe that explains it better. But he did improve on the pure vowel idea I have him.
At this point I also noticed that he was jutting his jaw forward and up. So I stopped again and pointed that out to him. I told him that when the jaw goes up and out like that it causes tension and it would effect the freeness and color of his tone. I displayed an aligned jaw, telling him to keep his top teeth parallel with the floor.
The parallel idea worked really well for him, and he was able to monitor himself throughout the rest of the scales.
He said that it felt really weird to have his chin/head in that position, and that he felt it would be easier to sing higher and have more energy. I tried to explain again how that head position would be detrimental to his sound and timbre, and that that position also causes tension, that he probably doesn't feel now, but would eventually feel in the future.
I decided to see if we could apply these concepts in a song that he knew. So I grabbed the hymnal and I asked him to sing his favorite hymn. We went through it once and then the time was out for the
Lesson. I asked him if he could name two things that he would take away from the lesson and apply into his singing at school, he said that he would remember to have a better posture and to not tilt his chin up. Couldn't have asked for a better response!
While I'm home we'll continue to have a few more lessons, and we'll be able to keep working on stuff. Great first lesson, I can tell where he is at vocally, and technically, and he was able to make improvements in this first lesson, which is really Cool.