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.