Voice lesson six

Today we had our last lesson and we had it earlier in the morning which I found did make a difference.  Over all I know Danielle understands how to sing in her head voice and what is happening.  On the other hand it is just taking time for her to have it all click and flow together when she is singing.  I found myself at one point in this lesson almost telling her to just open her mouth and let words magically come out.  Of course this was a bad comment as far as teaching goes and I tried to correct it.  I know in my own voice experience it was hard to figure out how simple it is to sing.  All you really have to do is let your natural voice ring in its natural resonators.  We try to have too much control sometimes and that is exactly what Danielle is doing is thinking too hard and trying to control it, which in turns causes her tension and jaw movement.  For only the sixth lesson she has made it pretty far though.  I have taught her the fundamentals and left it up to her to practice and actually feel what it feels like.
With having her lesson early I tried to get her really warmed-up but her upper register stayed hit and miss for the entire lesson.  The main focus of this lesson was to introduce and work a little on vowel modification, and open/closed vowels.  I first explained it and then pointed out words in her repertoire that it applied to.  Although it wasn't perfect I did hear her putting effort into trying to open up as the notes were higher.  Just to test her a little I also just played the accompaniment for a verse to see if she could find her own pitches.  She was great at doing this which proves to me she has been learning and if lessons were to continue she would develop a great voice.
Today was a good experience because she did have an "off day" but everyone will have one sometime and I am going to have to learn how to effectively teach through that.  For the first time I don't think I completely crashed and burned but I know there is room for improvement.  Lessons have been quite a learning experience for me and I could possibly see myself teaching them a lot more often in the future.

voice lesson six!

voice lesson 6.wma

Voice Lesson five!

voice lesson 5.wma

lesson #5

Today we had our fifth lesson together and Danielle has been making a ton of progress.  Unfortunately she was suffering from some allergies but once we got warmed up it didn't seem to effect her singing. There are still some crackles in her higher register but it is getting a lot smoother then the beginning.  She did very well on the tongue autonomy exercises I gave her to work on especially the "la" one.  I noticed today that between pitches she slightly moves her jaw which was cause a tiny hitch sound in the voice.  To help her realize when she was doing this I had her sing while watching herself in the mirror.  It seemed to help a little bit so I also had her hold her cheeks and  focus on an open mouth and stable jaw.  This she will need some practice on because when she focused on that she had trouble getting into her head voice and relaxing.  Most of what I was telling her was to just relax and think of a wide open throat allowing the air to go up in the resonating cavities.
We worked through most of "Greensleeves" today and focused on consonants like the "d's" and "t's." Throughout the piece the rhythm is very repetitive so there wasn't a whole lot of work needed on that.  There is part where she has to come in on F5 without working up to it so we repeat that a few times until she could attack it at a forte.  I feel like she is learning from my lessons.  I wish sometimes I knew more and could identify faults quicker but I do get excited when I realize the faults I do.  It will take a few years of teaching to develop my skills, but for now I'm pleasantly surprised that I can do what I have.  These lessons are probably teaching me more things then Danielle.

lesson #4

voice lesson 4.wma

Lesson #4

This lesson turned out to be very successful!  After the weekend both Danielle and I seemed to be relaxed which I believe was a great contribution to the success.  The entire lesson was full of energy and there was great motivation throughout.  Today I tried to find her head voice by introducing the "puppy whines" which I figured she would know how to do just from her childhood.  I believe she is one of the hardest students I could have chosen because she didn't even understand what a puppy whine was.  So with quick intervention I changed to making a police siren sound and who would have known but it worked.  She was getting in her head voice no force necessary. She must have seen a lot more police then puppies in her recent days. Just kidding, but I am so excited that she has had the feeling of head voice and it gives me a lot more encouragement and motivation to get her into always singing with it. 

After this I introduced some of the tongue agility warm-ups.  I figured since we are starting on a solo we ought to work on articulations and forming consonants.  I am going to let her work on the speed until our next lesson but I have confidence that it will be no problem for her.  We then moved to some "sing-ahhs" and once again the head voice was apparent, not yet consistent, but at least trying to come out.  

To start the Greensleeves we focused on the first fourteen measures and  I had her sing all the notes on the "E" sound.  I was able to relate her singing technique to horn technique.  She would leave a tiny space in between every note and hit the note right on pitch.  In my current horn lessons this is exactly what Mrs. Darahilo tells me to try doing.  It was distracting while singing the "E" but once we switched to words it sounded much better.  For the remainder of the lesson we worked out the breathing and vowel formation which I found to be pretty fun.  I think once we can get a consistent head voice the solo will just put itself together smoothly.  With the energy in the lesson I found that the time seemed to just fly by and I almost wanted more time to work on things.  I am very excited for our next lesson to come.

lesson #3

voice lesson 3.wma