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.