Friday, May 2, 2014
Jared D Camille B Lesson Record/Reactions for 1/10/14
Cami took voice lessons in 9th grade for about 4 1/2 years. She took from Debbie Ditton. Sometimes she experiences raspiness and tightniess. She played one of the daugters in fiddler on the roof. She was the nanny in Peter Pan. She feels as if she has no power, she wants a bigger voice, and to expand her range. She can see herself having a future in singing. She gets performance anxiety really bad and she tenses up and then sings really quietly
Caitlin Craig April A. Lesson record/reaction for 4/25
Date: 4/25/14
Student: April A.
Brief overview of lesson: We began by stretching and I asked her how her body felt today since I had known that she had been feeling a little sore earlier in the week. She said that she was feeling really good so we didn't do a whole lot of stretching.
I started our vocalization saying that we wouldn't be singing with the piano for the majority of the lesson, I wanted to focus on doing vocalizes without the piano. I gave her two major instructions. 1) Start at a high place, and 2) end in a low place. I told her that we would start with some yawns, and after a few good yawns, she added into the mix some sighs. They seemed to be fairly free, so I gave the cue for her to keep it free. I wanted to see some low larynx and an element of freedom in the sound. Once I heard that I cued to start higher, so I said, "higher! higher!". Sometimes I think this made her constrict more. But as she went on I think she figured it out and they sounded more free.
I then moved on to vampire speech, because I wanted to touch on that because in our last lesson I noticed that she wasn't completely opening on each vowel. I explained to her that we don't have to close our jaw for all consonants, and that every time there is a vowel we should reiterate it by letting the jaw swing back, and feeling a space between our back molars. We worked on it a bit, since the first time we did it April's jaw was closed on "I". We tried it again and although it was a little bit foreign to her, I think she gained a better perspective on how reiterating that space between the molars helps keep the jaw open and released.
I then moved on to some lip buzzes. I asked her if she would rather try the raspberry instead, but she had a hard time keeping it going. I noticed that her posture was hunched over and that she breath-farted, so I asked her to do the toaster motion to get her in a better alert and happy posture. I also asked her to feel as if her feet and breath were more grounded. She seemed to be able to sustain the raspberry for longer. I asked her again to start in a high place and end in a low. I heard a better transition, sometimes there was some grabbing and pulling up of the larynx, but I could hear that she was starting to find release.
Next I wanted to introduce her to the rose breath. I asked her to pretend to smell a rose. I told her that this helps to release things, since we only really need air and our vf's to produce sound. I asked her to smell a rose before every vocalize we do from then on out. We switched to lip buzzes, and I sensed that she was feeling the presence of an open throat for the first time. Her transition from high to low was seamless, and it seemed genuinely easy. I stopped her after doing quite a few repetitions to ask her how that felt different from the vocalizes we had done earlier in the lesson. She said, "It felt easier, it felt more free rather then tense in my throat." I then said, "That's great! Let's try to incorporate that rose breath into our practice."
I then had her try the rose breath before starting the dove sound. I again asked her to start in a high place and end in a low place. She did a few that were alright, and then I noticed one that wasn't so great. So in an effort to teach her the difference between a released, low larynx, I pointed out that the feeling of rose breath changed once she started the dove sound. She said she noticed that too. She kept on going, and I wanted to check in on her and make sure that she had a released tongue and slight arch in the back. She didn't have her tongue released, so I asked her to have a fat tongue for a second, and make sure that it is released with a slight arch in the back. This made it an easier transition. I then tried to distract April by giving her something to do while singing to distract her so I had her move her arms. That worked well, to distract her from the task at hand.
I then wanted to do some panting to give her some energy, and then sing "day" on 54321. After she did it a few times I saw that she looked really scared, so I asked her to have a pleasant look on her face, and to use her most agreeable voice she could use. I found that saying "agreeable" helped immensely to trigger the easy transition while descending. She matched all the pitches. I was really happy with it. I wanted to try something else by asking her to move around because I wasn't sure that she could feel the released pharynx while panting yet. So I told her that she could also think of excitement in a low breath. She did this while I cued her with words like "agreeable" and "rose". I noticed that it was much more free, energized, and transition was fluid. I thought that I'd add one more thing by asking her to think about happy moments like her boyfriend bringing her flowers, or getting a job promotion, the farmer's market opened, etc... When she had specific thoughts in mind the breathy quality was lessened. Overall, she was matching almost every single repetition.
I stopped to tell her that she was doing really well, and that she was matching almost every single pitch. I told her that I could tell she was getting closer to finding more release.
Since I could see some improvement in matching pitch, and finding release, I wanted to challenge her a bit so we then switched to "day" 8531. She was doing a great job with matching pitch and falling through the top. The only time when she didn't match was when we approached D5 and above. Then she constricted and it got difficult.
We ended our lesson by discussing the progress that April had made over this semester. She told me that she feels like she gained a lot of confidence and that she felt that that alone was worth her time. I told her that as we practice, we will see progress. It won't always be large, but baby steps are a great way to start. I also told her that I was really proud of her willingness to try weird or different things, and to be patient with me as I learn to become a better voice teacher.
Assessment of student: The presence of the rose breath and thinking of having an agreeable voice were some great tools that helped April experience a low larynx! I was so happy with the progress she made in this lesson. I tried to do less with the piano as Cindy suggested, and I saw a tremendous leap in her awareness and confidence because of that.
How will you modify your teaching based off of what you learned from the lesson? April has been a challenge to teach this semester, however, teaching her has been a great learning experience for me. Now in the future, if I have a student who struggles with matching pitch, I am going to stay away from the piano for a bit, until he/she becomes more aware of what is happening in their voice/body vs. the model.
Takeaways for the student:
1. Rose breath
2. agreeable voice
3. think let trust
Student: April A.
Brief overview of lesson: We began by stretching and I asked her how her body felt today since I had known that she had been feeling a little sore earlier in the week. She said that she was feeling really good so we didn't do a whole lot of stretching.
I started our vocalization saying that we wouldn't be singing with the piano for the majority of the lesson, I wanted to focus on doing vocalizes without the piano. I gave her two major instructions. 1) Start at a high place, and 2) end in a low place. I told her that we would start with some yawns, and after a few good yawns, she added into the mix some sighs. They seemed to be fairly free, so I gave the cue for her to keep it free. I wanted to see some low larynx and an element of freedom in the sound. Once I heard that I cued to start higher, so I said, "higher! higher!". Sometimes I think this made her constrict more. But as she went on I think she figured it out and they sounded more free.
I then moved on to vampire speech, because I wanted to touch on that because in our last lesson I noticed that she wasn't completely opening on each vowel. I explained to her that we don't have to close our jaw for all consonants, and that every time there is a vowel we should reiterate it by letting the jaw swing back, and feeling a space between our back molars. We worked on it a bit, since the first time we did it April's jaw was closed on "I". We tried it again and although it was a little bit foreign to her, I think she gained a better perspective on how reiterating that space between the molars helps keep the jaw open and released.
I then moved on to some lip buzzes. I asked her if she would rather try the raspberry instead, but she had a hard time keeping it going. I noticed that her posture was hunched over and that she breath-farted, so I asked her to do the toaster motion to get her in a better alert and happy posture. I also asked her to feel as if her feet and breath were more grounded. She seemed to be able to sustain the raspberry for longer. I asked her again to start in a high place and end in a low. I heard a better transition, sometimes there was some grabbing and pulling up of the larynx, but I could hear that she was starting to find release.
Next I wanted to introduce her to the rose breath. I asked her to pretend to smell a rose. I told her that this helps to release things, since we only really need air and our vf's to produce sound. I asked her to smell a rose before every vocalize we do from then on out. We switched to lip buzzes, and I sensed that she was feeling the presence of an open throat for the first time. Her transition from high to low was seamless, and it seemed genuinely easy. I stopped her after doing quite a few repetitions to ask her how that felt different from the vocalizes we had done earlier in the lesson. She said, "It felt easier, it felt more free rather then tense in my throat." I then said, "That's great! Let's try to incorporate that rose breath into our practice."
I then had her try the rose breath before starting the dove sound. I again asked her to start in a high place and end in a low place. She did a few that were alright, and then I noticed one that wasn't so great. So in an effort to teach her the difference between a released, low larynx, I pointed out that the feeling of rose breath changed once she started the dove sound. She said she noticed that too. She kept on going, and I wanted to check in on her and make sure that she had a released tongue and slight arch in the back. She didn't have her tongue released, so I asked her to have a fat tongue for a second, and make sure that it is released with a slight arch in the back. This made it an easier transition. I then tried to distract April by giving her something to do while singing to distract her so I had her move her arms. That worked well, to distract her from the task at hand.
I then wanted to do some panting to give her some energy, and then sing "day" on 54321. After she did it a few times I saw that she looked really scared, so I asked her to have a pleasant look on her face, and to use her most agreeable voice she could use. I found that saying "agreeable" helped immensely to trigger the easy transition while descending. She matched all the pitches. I was really happy with it. I wanted to try something else by asking her to move around because I wasn't sure that she could feel the released pharynx while panting yet. So I told her that she could also think of excitement in a low breath. She did this while I cued her with words like "agreeable" and "rose". I noticed that it was much more free, energized, and transition was fluid. I thought that I'd add one more thing by asking her to think about happy moments like her boyfriend bringing her flowers, or getting a job promotion, the farmer's market opened, etc... When she had specific thoughts in mind the breathy quality was lessened. Overall, she was matching almost every single repetition.
I stopped to tell her that she was doing really well, and that she was matching almost every single pitch. I told her that I could tell she was getting closer to finding more release.
Since I could see some improvement in matching pitch, and finding release, I wanted to challenge her a bit so we then switched to "day" 8531. She was doing a great job with matching pitch and falling through the top. The only time when she didn't match was when we approached D5 and above. Then she constricted and it got difficult.
We ended our lesson by discussing the progress that April had made over this semester. She told me that she feels like she gained a lot of confidence and that she felt that that alone was worth her time. I told her that as we practice, we will see progress. It won't always be large, but baby steps are a great way to start. I also told her that I was really proud of her willingness to try weird or different things, and to be patient with me as I learn to become a better voice teacher.
Assessment of student: The presence of the rose breath and thinking of having an agreeable voice were some great tools that helped April experience a low larynx! I was so happy with the progress she made in this lesson. I tried to do less with the piano as Cindy suggested, and I saw a tremendous leap in her awareness and confidence because of that.
How will you modify your teaching based off of what you learned from the lesson? April has been a challenge to teach this semester, however, teaching her has been a great learning experience for me. Now in the future, if I have a student who struggles with matching pitch, I am going to stay away from the piano for a bit, until he/she becomes more aware of what is happening in their voice/body vs. the model.
Takeaways for the student:
1. Rose breath
2. agreeable voice
3. think let trust
Sam Meredith Lesson Summary 4/22
I felt well prepared for my lesson today. I had been trying really hard to apply the things that we talked about in my lesson last week and was well warmed up for my lesson. We continued where we left off last week, trying to do things that would help me form a good breath gesture that would allow me to start phonation with good pharyngeal space. We started by doing some descending arpeggios on 'choo.' Before I began that part of the vocalize, I pretended to sneeze to so that I could have that good breath gesture. We did a couple of repetitions of that before we changed the word to 'so.' Cindy encouraged me to try not to open my mouth very much when I sang so that I would stop trying to compensate for my lack of pharyngeal space with space in the mouth. We continued to use the 'about to sneeze' breath. We did a couple of repetitions of that. Next, we did a vocalize using a 564534231 pattern on the syllables [fi, fe, fa, fe, fi] switching syllables every other note. I tried my best to maintain that sneeze breath. It wasn't going very well at the beginning, so we went back and did the 'so' exercise a couple of times just to get a better sense of the right space. Cindy encouraged me as I sang to make sure that I don't let the sound fall out of it's good placement on [a]. After that we did turns in thirds over the course of a tenth on the word 'many.' I continued to have trouble with finding the high placement we wanted. When that was the case, we went back to 'so' again and did a few repetitions before transitioning directly back into 'many.' After a few more reps, we changed the exercise, so that I did three repetitions of 'so' before transitioning directly into 'many' without breathing after the third repetition. Throughout the exercise Cindy continued to encourage me to close my mouth. We discussed the fact that tongue tension may be the reason that I can't get the sound to be in the right place and that the tongue is released when the mouth is closed. After that we looked at some music. We started with 'wenn du zu den Blumen gehst.' We decided that we would try singing it with my mouth closed. After that Cindy asked me how I thought I did. I said that I was really surprised how easy it was to sing all of that with my mouth closed. I also said that I noticed a desire to open my mouth on open vowels, but that the closed vowels were a lot easier than I thought they would be. Cindy said that she did notice one small glitch in the performance, which was probably a result of the fact that my tongue is so accustomed to pushing down at that point that it tried to do so even when my mouth was closed. She asked me to sing the second verse one more time with my hand resting gently under my chin so that I could notice how things felt at a laryngeal level when I had the proper pharyngeal space. After we sang through the second verse again, she asked what I noticed. I said that I noticed that I could really feel that my mouth wanted to open and that my larynx also wanted to elevate. She asked me if I could cue something in my body that would get rid of that. I said I would try. We tried the verse again. I was still having trouble with the transition to high notes. Cindy told me that I need to start to bear down for the high note before it comes, not as it comes. We tried again. After that, she asked me to do the verse one more time with my mouth completely free to go wherever it wants to so that I could further make the connection that my mouth is just a hole in my face for shaping words, not the thing responsible for producing timbre. After singing through the second verse once again she asked me how it felt. I said that it felt pretty good, but there was still one place where the tone was running into the roof of my mouth. She said that this may have been the case, but it was still better than it has been in the past. She asked me to do it one more time with my mouth closed and just concentrate on the sound being really high. She also asked me to let the notes spin immediately rather than holding them. We went through the second verse again concentrating on letting it spin. There were some places where I was having some trouble letting the notes spin, so we went through those places again. Cindy told me that she doesn't want me to try adding in vibrato, but just be aware of the vibrato and realize that if it isn't there I'm bracing somehow. When my accompanist arrived we added in a few things musically such as breaths. After that we decided just to go through all of the songs that I was taking to juries to make sure that everything was in order. We started with 'wenn du zu den Blumen gehst.' As I sang Cindy instructed me to do some things to loosen up my shoulders. After that we talked about what things I need to do to make the song more expressive. Cindy told me that I just need some sort of specific intention to drive the emotion in the song. Next we sang 'der Mond hat eine schwere Klag erhoben.' Cindy stopped us after the first phrase and informed me that I was making a lot of unnecessary head movements as I sang. After we started again and went through the whole thing, Cindy told me that I need to sing each note in the song as if it were the beginning of a new phrase. We started to sing again. Cindy stopped me after the first phrase again and encouraged me to insert a breath in that phrase so that I wouldn't be so tight by the end. Next we did 'psyche.' I was having similar problems with this song--I was taking too long to get to the vowel. I think I want to incorporate a lot of the things that I did today into my lesson into my everyday practice. I really need to stop practicing gaspy breaths and practicing good breaths instead. I also need to look in the mirror more when I practice as well. I also really want to see what I can do with my mouth closed during practice. I think when I stop relying on pushing my jaw down and concentrate instead on given the sound a nice tube to move through with my pharynx, the sound will not be so flat and will have an easy, natural vibrato.
Caitlin Craig April A. Lesson reflection for 3/7/14
Date: 3/7/14
Student: April A.
Brief overview of lesson: I asked April how she was doing today, she said she was doing great. I asked her if she'd been singing today, she said that she had done some singing in the shower. So we began with some lip buzzes on 54321 I began at A4. I instructed her to have the lip buzzes be free and easy. She did quite a few, and I could see that she was struggling, so I stopped and I asked if everything was okay. She said that she didn't feel like she could get enough air in. I thought this might be because she is blowing out a lot of air, so I asked her to imagine while she was breathing in and while she was singing to imagine the air flowing freely. We tried another lip buzz, and it sounded more even in breath flow, and the sound was consistent, rather then stopping and starting.
Almost all of the lip buzzes matched pitch. The only time they stopped matching pitch was when she got to the tonic, and it just kind of dropped off. Although she was doing a fine job at pitch matching, so I went up to D5, and I said to think lighter at the top, and I went down in half-steps. She did a really great job in pitch matching.
She seemed really tired, so I told her she could sit on the piano bench, but I wanted her to remember that attitude of happiness, because it really helped her in her last lesson. She sat up, and looked like she was sitting upright.
I then introduced April to the dove sound exercise. I demonstrated it for her, and asked her to join in. I specified that we were to be making dove sounds and not singing. We did some without pitches starting in a high place and ending in a low place. I thought this might be a good idea to work on the shift through head and chest voice. She seemed to be doing pretty good, although I noticed that it sounded a bit swallowed at times. I then asked her to try it on a 531 scale pattern to see if she could figure out what she needed to do to get rid of the swallowed sound. We started on A4 and after the first repetition, April stopped me and said that she wanted to try saying "Hey, Mom!" in her child-like voice before starting each one. I was so happy to see a moment of development where she was becoming more aware of what was happening, and the fact that she remembered that sensation she felt when she spoke in the child-like voice would help her fix that. YAY! I was really happy with that discovery. So I started her again on A4 with her speaking before each repetition. We did four or five repetitions, and although I felt like the production of the dove sound was easier with the addition of the "Hey, Mom!", she wasn't matching pitch at all. This didn't help either, and after several repetitions, I stopped and asked if I could feel her larynx, and sure enough it was high and tight. I told her that we wanted to feel an openness in our body and throat, a certain release needs to happen. So we don't want it to feel tight or squeezy.
Now that I listen back to the recording, I hear that she was doing more singing the longer we were doing the exercise, and I think I could have cued her in a better way like saying "don't be singy, but make more of dove sound." I think this might have helped her to let go more than saying, "release and keep the larynx low", since she doesn't really have the awareness yet to do this. I think it may have also been more helpful to say something like, "we don't want to engage any extra help here.". I think reiterating the fact that she is making an animal sound, and not singing would help her be more connected to her breath and body, than saying something about releasing, just because she doesn't have that type of awareness yet.
After we talked about that, she matched pitch a little better, but I then noticed in the lesson that it was more singy than animal noise, so I corrected her to make a dove noise or sound, not a singy one. She then stopped me and asked me how my tongue was curled. I said that my tongue was not curled, but that it was released and the tip of it was resting on my bottom permanent retainer. Apparently she had been curling her tongue as if she were whistling to gather people together. After I corrected her tongue, she still was singy. She then asked me how I dampened the sound. I told her that I didn't really know how to explain the logistics of it, but that it was a lot easier if she thought of it as an animal sound, rather than singing. I also told her that my neck was completely released. I asked her to act like she was blowing a gentle stream of air out of a straw. We both pretended to blow out of a straw. I then asked her to pretend like she was sucking a gentle stream of air through the straw. I then asked her to blow out of the straw again, while maintaining the feeling she had when she pretended to gently suck through the straw. The sound seemed to get less singy, but it wasn't quite all the way there. Since I didn't really know how to explain it in a different way, I decided to move on since I had some other stuff planned, and I thought I might be able explain it in a different way next time.
I asked April to stand in an alert and happy posture, while she sang on an [u] 535153515351. I told her that it is going to be a little scary, because she is going to feel as if she can't sing the notes that fast, but if she just thinks the pitch, provides the air, and trusts that it will come, that it will. I started her at B7 and she again said, "Hey, Mom!" before each exercise. She did good a handful of repetitions specifically in the lower range, but around D5 and C5 she was struggling to match pitch. I cued her while she was singing by saying "light at the top" and "Child-like voice". These cues seemed to help a little, and she was matching better.
I then moved on to "abcd 'th'ee" 8531. I thought the speaking 'abcd' might help her keep that child-like speech while eliciting the pitch. I started her at C5, and on that repetition she had the speech-like quality that I wanted when saying abcd, but then she didn't maintain that same quality when singing the 8531. I cued her to have her singing feel like the speech felt like. This seemed to help, but after a few repetitions April said that her throat felt sore and tight. I told her that we could sing something else, but to make sure that it was light, and felt free from tension. She said she wanted to try the same exercise but lighter, so I played the top note again, and they seemed better, but I did notice that when I said lighter that her timbre got more breathy. So I'm not sure if lighter was a good word choice for her.
For the remainder of the lesson we worked on reading music with a hymnal she had brought. I told her to pick a song and that I first wanted her to learn how to play the melody. I then taught her some terminology like measure, rest, quarter and eighth notes. I also went over time signature. I told her about FACE and EGBDF to memorize the spaces and lines on the staff.
We then ended with our take-aways.
Assessment of student: I think that April is beginning to develop a better model, and awareness of what is going on. I am really happy with the suggestion she had to say "Hey, Mom!" in the child-like voice, because that shows that she remembers the free and easy sensation she has in her speaking voice, and now she is trying to implement that into her practice. I think that this will be a great tool for her to work on eliciting pitch, and pitch matching.
Goals for future implementation: I liked the exercise that we did with practicing reading music. I think that I will implement this again, because it will help April to become a better musician in the end.
How will you modify your teaching based off of what you learned from the lesson? I did notice that I could do a better job at playing the descending scales more quickly, just because I think it will help April let go, and not grab or hold notes. Especially as she is learning to free the voice, and allowing the pitch to happen. I think I need to give cues that are dependent upon her current ability, because she may not know how to let go of her larynx, and let it be yet.
Questions for Cindy: How do I explain the dove sound in an effective way?
Takeaways for the student:
1. practice reading music-specifically associating pitch name with location on the piano and staff.
2. associating speech like voice with singing voice.
3. think let trust
Student: April A.
Brief overview of lesson: I asked April how she was doing today, she said she was doing great. I asked her if she'd been singing today, she said that she had done some singing in the shower. So we began with some lip buzzes on 54321 I began at A4. I instructed her to have the lip buzzes be free and easy. She did quite a few, and I could see that she was struggling, so I stopped and I asked if everything was okay. She said that she didn't feel like she could get enough air in. I thought this might be because she is blowing out a lot of air, so I asked her to imagine while she was breathing in and while she was singing to imagine the air flowing freely. We tried another lip buzz, and it sounded more even in breath flow, and the sound was consistent, rather then stopping and starting.
Almost all of the lip buzzes matched pitch. The only time they stopped matching pitch was when she got to the tonic, and it just kind of dropped off. Although she was doing a fine job at pitch matching, so I went up to D5, and I said to think lighter at the top, and I went down in half-steps. She did a really great job in pitch matching.
She seemed really tired, so I told her she could sit on the piano bench, but I wanted her to remember that attitude of happiness, because it really helped her in her last lesson. She sat up, and looked like she was sitting upright.
I then introduced April to the dove sound exercise. I demonstrated it for her, and asked her to join in. I specified that we were to be making dove sounds and not singing. We did some without pitches starting in a high place and ending in a low place. I thought this might be a good idea to work on the shift through head and chest voice. She seemed to be doing pretty good, although I noticed that it sounded a bit swallowed at times. I then asked her to try it on a 531 scale pattern to see if she could figure out what she needed to do to get rid of the swallowed sound. We started on A4 and after the first repetition, April stopped me and said that she wanted to try saying "Hey, Mom!" in her child-like voice before starting each one. I was so happy to see a moment of development where she was becoming more aware of what was happening, and the fact that she remembered that sensation she felt when she spoke in the child-like voice would help her fix that. YAY! I was really happy with that discovery. So I started her again on A4 with her speaking before each repetition. We did four or five repetitions, and although I felt like the production of the dove sound was easier with the addition of the "Hey, Mom!", she wasn't matching pitch at all. This didn't help either, and after several repetitions, I stopped and asked if I could feel her larynx, and sure enough it was high and tight. I told her that we wanted to feel an openness in our body and throat, a certain release needs to happen. So we don't want it to feel tight or squeezy.
Now that I listen back to the recording, I hear that she was doing more singing the longer we were doing the exercise, and I think I could have cued her in a better way like saying "don't be singy, but make more of dove sound." I think this might have helped her to let go more than saying, "release and keep the larynx low", since she doesn't really have the awareness yet to do this. I think it may have also been more helpful to say something like, "we don't want to engage any extra help here.". I think reiterating the fact that she is making an animal sound, and not singing would help her be more connected to her breath and body, than saying something about releasing, just because she doesn't have that type of awareness yet.
After we talked about that, she matched pitch a little better, but I then noticed in the lesson that it was more singy than animal noise, so I corrected her to make a dove noise or sound, not a singy one. She then stopped me and asked me how my tongue was curled. I said that my tongue was not curled, but that it was released and the tip of it was resting on my bottom permanent retainer. Apparently she had been curling her tongue as if she were whistling to gather people together. After I corrected her tongue, she still was singy. She then asked me how I dampened the sound. I told her that I didn't really know how to explain the logistics of it, but that it was a lot easier if she thought of it as an animal sound, rather than singing. I also told her that my neck was completely released. I asked her to act like she was blowing a gentle stream of air out of a straw. We both pretended to blow out of a straw. I then asked her to pretend like she was sucking a gentle stream of air through the straw. I then asked her to blow out of the straw again, while maintaining the feeling she had when she pretended to gently suck through the straw. The sound seemed to get less singy, but it wasn't quite all the way there. Since I didn't really know how to explain it in a different way, I decided to move on since I had some other stuff planned, and I thought I might be able explain it in a different way next time.
I asked April to stand in an alert and happy posture, while she sang on an [u] 535153515351. I told her that it is going to be a little scary, because she is going to feel as if she can't sing the notes that fast, but if she just thinks the pitch, provides the air, and trusts that it will come, that it will. I started her at B7 and she again said, "Hey, Mom!" before each exercise. She did good a handful of repetitions specifically in the lower range, but around D5 and C5 she was struggling to match pitch. I cued her while she was singing by saying "light at the top" and "Child-like voice". These cues seemed to help a little, and she was matching better.
I then moved on to "abcd 'th'ee" 8531. I thought the speaking 'abcd' might help her keep that child-like speech while eliciting the pitch. I started her at C5, and on that repetition she had the speech-like quality that I wanted when saying abcd, but then she didn't maintain that same quality when singing the 8531. I cued her to have her singing feel like the speech felt like. This seemed to help, but after a few repetitions April said that her throat felt sore and tight. I told her that we could sing something else, but to make sure that it was light, and felt free from tension. She said she wanted to try the same exercise but lighter, so I played the top note again, and they seemed better, but I did notice that when I said lighter that her timbre got more breathy. So I'm not sure if lighter was a good word choice for her.
For the remainder of the lesson we worked on reading music with a hymnal she had brought. I told her to pick a song and that I first wanted her to learn how to play the melody. I then taught her some terminology like measure, rest, quarter and eighth notes. I also went over time signature. I told her about FACE and EGBDF to memorize the spaces and lines on the staff.
We then ended with our take-aways.
Assessment of student: I think that April is beginning to develop a better model, and awareness of what is going on. I am really happy with the suggestion she had to say "Hey, Mom!" in the child-like voice, because that shows that she remembers the free and easy sensation she has in her speaking voice, and now she is trying to implement that into her practice. I think that this will be a great tool for her to work on eliciting pitch, and pitch matching.
How will you modify your teaching based off of what you learned from the lesson? I did notice that I could do a better job at playing the descending scales more quickly, just because I think it will help April let go, and not grab or hold notes. Especially as she is learning to free the voice, and allowing the pitch to happen. I think I need to give cues that are dependent upon her current ability, because she may not know how to let go of her larynx, and let it be yet.
Questions for Cindy: How do I explain the dove sound in an effective way?
Takeaways for the student:
1. practice reading music-specifically associating pitch name with location on the piano and staff.
2. associating speech like voice with singing voice.
3. think let trust
Jared Daley lesson Summary 3/05
This was the week I walked into my lesson and told cindy my throat had been burning and i told her about the paint and the rehearsals. We started warming up and she stopped me and said my vocal cords were damaged from the paint fumes and we shouldn't be singing that day. So we talked about strategies for healing. We talked about drinking tons of water and using a humidifier and close to my face at night as possible. I was also put on vocal rest. I wasn't allowed to sing at rehearsals for Tarzan for a few days.
Jared Daley lesson summary 3/26
This was during the week of Tarzan, so we Didn't have much of a lesson this week. we talked about strategies for surviving the show and we talked about recital order and putting everything in order for graduating.
Jared Daley lesson summary 4/02
This was my last lesson before my recital preview so I had warmed up previously so we could just run through things. My accompanist was there and we were ready to sing through things. What ended up happening though was we spent nearly the entire lesson on one of my french pieces, I just couldn't do anything right that lesson it felt like. She kept telling me if I kept singing like that I was going to fail my preview. So i got more and more discouraged and don't feel like i got any better at that song. It was right after Tarzan was over I didn't sing at all the weekend after to give my voice a chance to rest. I also hadn't been singing much at all that week before to save my voice every night for Tarzan. So I was unprepared to start singing classically again and it showed and I felt stupid and like I was not going to be ready for my preview. I just couldn't seem to get my voice to do what it was supposed to do, but that's because I had been accessing and entirely different style for the past 2 months and not giving enough time to classical training. So needless to say i was destined to fail. I left the lesson feeling hopeless and having that feeling like i didn't want to sing anymore.
Jared Daley lesson summary 4/09
So this was my first lesson after I failed my recital preview and wanted to give up singing. I wasn't excited about going. Cindy told me to be prepared to warm myself up and she'd watch me and give notes, and then to bring something I enjoyed singing to the lesson to work on. She would jump in and take over when she felt necessary. I started off doing some hums into [a] and descending 5 notes scales. I did some scales starting descending then "bouncing" off the bottom note into a lighter top note. I did some vocalizes I learned from Mary Saunders and did some "Never never no" s randomly throughout my range and ending with some "Hey" s. Cindy liked most of the things I did, except she didn't like the hey's because they started on an aspirate sound. We then worked together on some musical theatre pieces. What we did was something very different. We wanted to give my voice the feeling of doing different things on different notes. So where I would usually be louder and fuller we would make it lighter and do the opposite in different places. it was giving my voice a chance to have an experience singing a note many different ways so when it's time to sing that note for real, I have options in my arsenal on what to use and how to sing it.
Jared Daley Lesson Summary 4/16
For this Lesson Cindy had me warm myself up a little bit again and then she came over and help structure it a little bit more. The things I was doing weren't bad but they were not going to warm me up in the direction i needed to go to improve my faults and be ready to work them. We spent a lot of time doing different breathing techniques to get me to release my abdominals. I feel like I can't breath or like I'm going to run out of air because I tighten them and then I get that panicky i'm going to die if i don't breath feeling. She had me hunch over in the football linebacker position to feel the expansion in my back and then we would gradually come up and it would work for awhile then I'd reengage my abs and get mad at myself. We tried applying some new breathing techniques to some of my spanish pieces. I would a phrase and then check to see if I had stiffened and made sure i was released before continuing onto the next phrase. then we would connect two phrases and see how i did. It was relatively succesful. I felt good about it. I didn't hate singing as much that day.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Sam Meredith Lesson Summary 4/15
I felt well prepared for my lesson today. I had been practicing and was warmed up when I got to Cindy's office. We started by doing some lip trills on a 5-tone scale. When I started I was having trouble finding a timbre that was appropriate and I always feel like it takes a lot of air to get my lips started, so we switched to a trilled 'r'. After a couple of repetitions, Cindy encouraged me to give the pattern a more bounce and float technique. As we went higher on the keyboard, there was a tendency on my part to lift my larynx for pitch change. We did a few repetitions lower and then went back up, asking for the same mechanism for both repetitions. That seemed to help. After that we broke it down even more. Cindy told me that she was seeing a slight increase in pressure before I left the top note. She encouraged me to get rid of this by just letting my voice fall down to the bottom note and and bounce off of it. She encouraged me to incorporate the exercise in my daily vocalization and also asked me to to the same trill with an [o] posture in my lips. After we did that a few times, she told me that this would be a good way to start vocalization every day. Next we did an exercise on the word 'ning' doing ascending turns in thirds over the course of a 5th. After a few repetitions Cindy told me that the goal of this exercise was to have the consonants help improve our tongue posture on the vowels without incorporating nasality into the vowels. We did a few more reps and Cindy asked me to take my neck out of its concentration position. Next we changed the pattern to 564534231. After a few more repetitions she asked if I could try breathing through my nose by just letting the air. After a few more repetitions we took the 'ng' off of the the word and eventually started switching between [ni] and [ne] every two notes. After that we did a vocalize on the word 'please' over 1 1/2 5-tone scales. She encouraged me again to have breaths that give me a feeling of more upward space in order to make the sound more pleasant. After a few more repetitions we changed the vocalize so that 'please' was at the top of the first scale, 'let' came at the bottom of that scale, and the word 'me' came again at the top to end the exercise. After a few repetitions Cindy said that breathing through the nose is an easier way to find that sense of space and singing at the top of the breath gesture, but that the same sensation could be found even if I were breathing through my mouth. We did one more rep with me breathing through my mouth. After that we did a vocalize on 'my o my!' with 'my' being on 8, 'o' being on 3 and the other 'my' being on 1. After my first rep Cindy told me that I needed to have as much of sense of space and height as I could for this exercise. I noticed on my first repetition that there was a tendency in my neck to tighten up, so I tried to loosen it up with some gentle neck movements. The movements, however, were really rigid still, which Cindy pointed out to me. She said it would be better to just make it a more bobble-head-like motion. We changed the vocalize to 'may o may I'. I did a lot better after I was able to really feel the increase in space during the breath gesture. Once I did that, the neck problems I was having went away and there wasn't any tension in my jaw either. Cindy told me to remember that the breath is the real space maker, not the jaw. Our next vocalize used the word 'fly' on a 1335588553311 pattern with a re-articulation of 'fly' on every other note. After a few repetitions, we added in the word 'flow' to the middle of the exercise starting on the second occurrence of scale degree 5. The vocalize went pretty well, but I was feeling a bit of laryngeal elevation and Cindy told me to just make the [o] for 'flow' by just rounding my lips. To fix the laryngeal elevation problem, she encouraged me to just have a bigger sense of free flowing air in the sound. After that I continued to have some problems with tongue tension, so we went on to another vocalize where we sang 3 5-tone scales in a row, the first on [ja], the second on [jo] and the third on [ju]. After a few repetitions we inverted the exercise by starting at the bottom of the scale on [ju]. It seemed to make the tongue problems go away. Next, we separated the three vowels and made each of them an individual exercise with a descending scale on [ju] followed by an ascending scale on just [u]. After that we did the same thing but with [o]. Cindy told me that when that gets easier I could do a full 9-note scale instead of a 5-tone scale at the end of each repetition. She said that the key on those would be to let the breath carry the sound and not elevation in the larynx or tension in the neck or jaw. After that we worked on some music. Cindy asked me what my most problematic piece was. I told her that it was 'the golden willow tree.' We decided to work on that for a little bit now to see if I could maintain some of the healthy space that I had during vocalization for the high notes in this piece. We sang through a couple of phrases. Once I got to the really high point in the song, I noticed that there was a tendency to brace. Cindy asked if it felt like the sound was running into the roof of my mouth. I said that it did. She said that it would be helpful to thin that the roof of my mouth was a sound permeable structure. With that in mind we tried it again. Again there was a desire on my part to brace. She asked me to try it again and just asked me to not care about how it sounded. Once we did that, it was a lot better, it still wasn't great, but it felt and sounded a lot better than it had before. We talked about how challenging it is to keep the nasopharynx open. She said that a good feeling to maintain is that of the beginning of a sneeze. After that we took some time to decide what four pieces I was going to take to juries. We decided to go through all of my pieces and see which ones were the best. We started with 'psyche.' Next we did 'Le Bachelier de Salamanque.' Next we did 'Der Mond hat eine schwere Klag erhoben.' Then we did 'Wenn du zu den Blumen gehst.' Next, we did 'troppa briga a prender moglie.' After that we talked about which ones we liked the best. I said that I would like to take the two french and the two german pieces, but that after my performance of all those pieces I didn't really feel like taking any of them to juries. Cindy asked what I meant by that. I said that everything just felt really tense. She said that this was possibly a result of the fact that I felt so free during vocalization. She asked me to sing 'wenn du zu den Blumen gehst' again and asked me to have a sweeter feeling of my voice as I sang. That seemed to help a lot. I think that is something that I really want to incorporate that kind of visualization into my practice in the future.
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