Practice 9/25/16, Lesson Summary and Take-Aways 9/23/16

Some thoughts before I begin:
It's kind of an obvious thing, but I'm really starting to notice how much having food inside you before vocalizing really affects your singing. When I get stressed out, I either a) eat like there's no tomorrow, or b) don't eat anything ever. This last month has been more of a "b" kind of stress, so I haven't been eating much. As a result, I'm starting to understand how much of a difference food really makes. In my head, it's always made sense, but I guess it's just now starting to sink in that my eating habits aren't exactly healthy. I'm going to make it a goal to have a regular eating schedule.

Lesson 9/23/16
With that in mind, I feel like this lesson may have been more successful than last week because I forced myself to eat something before singing. When you're low on energy, it's easy to accumulate tensions because you're compensating for your lack of (breath) energy. I started this lesson pretty tired (from lack of sleep, not lack of food), and my voice felt pretty swollen. Whenever I went to produce sound, there was a small "hitch" in the breath as it would try to vibrate past the folds.

• "please" 54321: Watch that it's not shallow in your preparation. Open yourself up. 
• Let the breath out, let the breath open you, sing, repeat. Let it be organic. 
• 13-35-58-85-53-31 "I" 
• Go around the fat man with the "ay" when you ascend. 
• SUPER "yawn" 8531. 
• switch to "gah." Let the pressure of release originate at the [g], rather than at the folds. 
• switch to regular opening, not hyperextended. Looking for the suddenness of the release, not the breath pressure. 
• "My own" 1-87654321. 
• Have feeling of yawn in [a] of beginning and the [o] of the end, but allow the resonance space to change because of pitch difference. 
• Allow the "squealing" rather than "hissing." 
• "gai lai" 5432123454321. 
• Really think about more neutral face. Don't be dead, but be as released in the face as you are in the low notes in the top notes. 
• [mi me] 13-35-58-85-53-31
• Use finger on the forehead cue. It's like a hole the size of the tip of your finger, and your top note comes out of that hole. Depending on the pitch, the height of that hole will be higher or lower. 

By the time we finished vocalizes, I didn't feel completely ready to sing (at least, if I were in my own practice, I would still be vocalizing), so I wasn't quite sure if singing was a good idea. However, even if I didn't feel ready, I was surprised by how easily I was able to enter the act of singing (if that makes any sense). Just an observation. 

Even now, after following along with the lesson, I don't feel quite ready to sing, so I may go over some of the opening exercises a couple more times before getting into my music.