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.