Practice 10/26/16

Today was a good practice day, although it didn't start out that way. I kind of woke up on the wrong side of the bed in addition to my vocal "bleh-ness." I've been feeling my vibrato very strongly in my throat, and it's been obnoxiously heavy and difficult for me to sing anything higher than an A4. My folds felt a little abused because I've been trying to get past that in my practice, but by the time I got close to getting out of it, my voice got tired.

I had multiple practice sessions throughout the day, and each time I went back in to practice, I felt better about my voice. The first practice session was about 1 hour long, and just as I was getting into the groove of it, the fire alarm went off. Of course. The second session was about three hours later for another hour, and I felt pretty good because I was able to find the good spot again. By the time I got to opera, things were aligned pretty nicely, and my G5s were really effortless, and that kind of caught me off guard to be completely honest.

I started out the day (because from the moment I woke up, I could feel the tension...) by listening to some of my favorite artists, and getting the sound of a released voice in my head first thing.

I tried a different approach today and really took my time, taking care to allow the sound to be soft if it wants to be (rather than forcing out a large sound). (This was really meditative and thoughtful for me because I needed to concentrate to get my mind off of other stressors.) I followed along with my lessons from 2/26 and 2/27/16.

• internal smile --> cheeks. No snarl.
• thumb top molars up!
• loose lips --> magnetic lips
• don't be afraid of "airiness." Don't press to make a "clear" sound. 
• This was key. I've just been too involved in bringing the folds together, rather than just letting them vibrate. 
• release in a "horizontal" breath, as well as vertical release
• I figured that since I had been focusing on releasing in a "vertical" way (it's hard to explain), doing something in the opposite direction might help. 
• Watch the frown reaction on the lips, especially with dark/rounded vowels and descending passages. Think up as you go down. 
• Panting to release adductors 
• Tip of tongue stays resting against bottom row of teeth. Tongue is horizontally fat. 
• If sound falls back, bring to concentrated point in the middle of the roof of the mouth. 
• No pressing down with the jaw as you ascend. 
• Always ask yourself: What did you like? Why did you like it? Try it again with that in mind. 

Some observations: When I found good release, my mouth wasn't as open as I thought it would need to be, but exaggerating the opening helped me to find it in the first place. The vowel feels like it's floating in the space above my top molars, and the pitch is originating above the top row of teeth inside my skull. Using bright vowels helped me to find this resonance, and thinking "like that" helped to move on to my darker vowels.