Practice 11/28/16

SNOW. YAY. 

Got about 3 hours of sleep last night (grad apps... you know how it be). Not feeling exhausted... yet. I'm actually quite awake. Just waiting for the crash. Also really dehydrated. Had some coffee yesterday (which contributed to my near all-nighter). 

• Lesson 7/2/16
• Think the vowel before you sing
• Think the vowel at the pitch you want to sing. Mouth closed-ish. 
• Start with ears plugged
• The throat is open/released from the breath
• Breathe in the vowel
• Use the whole head as resonator
• SIMPLE sound. 
• sounded better on grad recording when I thought "simple"
• sternum breath. 
• maintain gesture of the inhale 
• release jaw 
• fat/horizontal tongue! not just vertical release of tongue. 
• buoyancy
• on open vowelsa [a, o, u]: same space; pitch just changes. Same released/open back of pharynx/throat. 
• Took out one of the earplugs
• Find the steeple. 
• Balance A-O Joint
• SIMPLE. 
• even breath flow as you arpeggiate up. 
• internal smile
• unicorn horn
• NO closing down the back pharynx as you do the "I may" exercise
• Don't "make" depth. Allow the breath to do that.
• ~30-35 minutes

Side note: I definitely have caffeine voice. It's a weird type of dry and sandpapery, but it's not bothersome. No glottal scrape here. 

Practice 11/20/16

So. I'm sick. I've had a steady flow of thick mucus running down the back of my throat and dripping onto my folds since Friday. And this is super exciting because I have recording sessions with Dallas in two days. WOOOOOOO. Livin' on the edge (of life). Because of this, I've been having some mild coughing, but it's not extreme. The urge to cough only happens every once in a while, and I can lessen the intensity of the cough so I'm not hacking out my lungs. That being said, I've been taking Mucinex and Nyquil in the hopes that it will help me get better faster. I've been able to vocalize, but it takes a very long time for me to find the edge of my folds and find my resonance. However, it is forcing me to be more aware of my breath flow because if I punt air at all, I'll cough. 

• Lesson 11/11/16
• child-like
• tracheal tug
• suck air a straw [u]
• "hugging a fat man"
• sides of soft palate
• don't close down as you descend
• Lesson 7/18/16
• Don't judge the sound! 

I spent about 2 hours (on and off) working on released my voice and trying to find the edge of my folds, and I got to an acceptable place, but it wasn't optimal. Sometimes I would get the urge to cough mid-phrase, so I had to stop. 

Practice 11/15/16

So, to recap on last night; I ended up having a small mental breakdown in the practice room during my evening practice session. It was getting really frustrated because I wasn't making the sound that I wanted to make, and it wasn't going as well as it had in the beginning of the day. Long story short, I sat down, felt sorry for myself for a bit, and then left.

That being said, I was really determined to do much better today than yesterday. I knew there were a lot of things wrong with my mentality last night: "making" sound was my biggest issue, and I also lacked patience with myself.

Today, I spent the entirety of my practice with earplugs in. I didn't listen to myself at all, no matter how tempting it was. I focused all of my energy on becoming familiar with sensation, and in the end, (no surprise), my voice felt very free and easy by the end of my first practice session. When I returned to my practice during the afternoon, again, I put my plugs in, and I found a very free and easy production. This repeated in the evening when I went back one last time. By the end of my final practice session, I felt comfortable enough in the muscle memory to take out one of the earplugs and practice some of my rep with one normal ear. Once I had established an easy throat, it was much easier to give myself permission to listen to my sound, but I found myself often wanting to manipulate it. That's when the earplugs would go back in.

By the end of the night, I was singing Bb5 with relative ease because I was able to focus the mental aspect of the practice, rather than trying to directly tell body parts to do things.

********

I started out the day with some swelling that is definitely telling of some on-coming illness. My tonsils were a little swollen, and there was a scratchy feeling on my folds (that wasn't an acid reflux thing). I spent most of my day wearing a mask because of it because I didn't want to spread some potential illness around. (I will say that it made me feel like the Winter Soldier though...)

I didn't do any serious vocalization until after choir (around 2:30), and I did light vocalization until 3:15. Before, I just did some easy warm-up things (lip trills, etc.). Evening session was in-and-out sporadically from 7:00pm and 10:30pm. I tried to keep sessions short (less than an hour at first, then 30 minutes) in order to a) not oversing with this weird scratchy voice, and b) to motivate myself to be as productive as possible in each session.

Listen Lesson 11/11/16

• about to sneeze space
• the tongue is fat, the throat is released and open (not forced open; just there) 
• Jaw is released
• noticed space between my back molars
• lips are loose
• I noticed a feeling of "airiness" as I practiced, but when I took my earplugs out, it didn't sound like it. 
• This started with the "childlike" sounds
• when you ascend, instead of tightening the tongue or moving it around too much, try sending more breath energy instead
• Once I had found pretty decent release, I noticed that as I got higher, the vibrations (not the sound--because I couldn't hear anything) felt "spread" and unfocused, like we talk about with getting higher. So I simply thought about focus and didn't try to change anything as I ascended, and the pitch felt smaller inside, but when I took the earplugs out, it was more focused. 
• I did a lot of squatting when I did leaps in pitch in order to remind myself not to move anything in my throat or tongue. It's all thought and breath energy. 
• Once I established the good, I took away the squat cue to see if I could do it without it. 

I'm finding that it's really difficult to describe what sensations/thoughts were going through my head when I have no sound to go off of. But I will say that A5s are almost too easy when you find the right "focus." It's a little disorienting, because I'll sing the pitch, and it's so easy (especially compared to what I used to do) that I didn't believe I was singing the right pitch. It felt a fifth lower than it actually was because it was so easy. 

To be honest, I'm just glad that I was able to vocalize so well, especially considering that I feel something weird coming in my body. Also, not having a mental breakdown is nice too, I guess. 

Practice 11/14/16 and Lesson Summary 11/11/16

I had a very interesting weekend with the MONC Auditions. I felt myself getting sick the night before; in fact, the sensation that I had on Friday night were similar to what I had the night before I got sick before my Junior Recital last year. So, of course, that was a little disconcerting.

I focused on resting my voice and listening to old voice lessons, really thinking about what I might be forgetting that was also contributing to some weird vocal tensions that I was having. I looked through old practice blogs, and I found that, a while ago, I found Lesson 7/2/16 to be particularly helpful, so I wrote myself a reminder to listen to it the next morning.

When I first started out on Saturday (around 8 a.m.), my voice was pretty much the same. It wasn't worse, neither was it better. But listening to the lesson recording, I was able to get out of the weird vibrato funk that I was in before. I was singing with greater ease than at my lesson on Friday.

For my MONC experience, I'll probably write up a separate blog.

For today, I started vocalizing around 10:45 a.m. (I have a class before). I feel like I'm getting sick, because I'll wake up and go to bed with weird swelling around my tonsil areas, and sometimes I'll spit out blood out of nowhere.

Lesson 7/2/16

• Use whole head a resonator
• I feel like I'm getting sick; nasal passage feels swollen
• vibrato feels edgy and heavy/oscillation
• Conceptualize the vowel before you sing, before the consonant. 
• don't be careful. Be precise. 
• DON'T make a sound. Focus on sensation. 
• Plug ears
• thumb molars
• about to sneeze/yawn
• cool air on roof of mouth
• anchor breath behind sternum and float on top of the space. 
• focused, not spread. 
• Watch that you don't become lazy as you descend. 
• Watch onsets are precise. 
• Watch that back of neck is released!! Entire upper half tends to wind-up. 
• No external help to shape the sound. 
• MORE FOCUSED DOES NOT MEAN MORE PUSH.
• Even breath flow
• RELEASE JAW/soft back molars
• Internal smile
• loose/long cheeks + genius eyes
• ~25 minutes. 

Lesson 11/11/16

• lip trills 5-1. Have a "horse-like" release of air in the beginning.
•  Think the pitch before you begin so you don't have to drag the pitch up from resting point. 
• "sing-ng" 1-8-531. 
• close to the "ng" on 1 and finish the rest of the exercise on "ng."
• This forces you to isolate the larynx so you cannot jam down with the jaw or tongue. 
• flip up to the top pitch. Don't slide up. 
• "wah" [wae] 54321
• Reiterate "wah" on each pitch. Bright. 
• Watch corners of the mouth that they don't turn down
• Don't close in the back to make the bright sound. 
• Return to the "ng" exercise. 
• Just let pitch change. 
• Consistent breath flow
• Don't worry so much about pitch. Sensation!
• watch snarl muscles
• "ng" 8-8-8-8-8531
• "ringing ringing" 8-1-8-1
• Start with larynx down
• Use the "r" 
• < symbol with opening towards the spine. 
• Think about tracheal tug with the breath
• Think of energy on back side of the sternum
• "hmm why not" random pitch-8-5-3-1
• If you feel gravel on the folds, think of the sternum breath
• Or the breath is coming in through a hole in the lower back or the top of the head
• "o-a-o-a" 5-45-35-25-1-5-45-35-25-1 with [o] on the top pitch and [a] on the bottom
• [a] 1-53-85-10,8-53-8531
• prep the high note before you sing
• chew the vowel a little with the flesh
• I experimented with using 'ng' instead of an open vowel
• 1-123-345-56789/10/11-11/10/9-987-7654321 + 1-123-345-56789/10/11/12/11/10/98765421 
• (something like that)
• [vi] on the way up, [ve] on the way down
• As many consonant usages as you need
• Let go of control! Shake it off it you don't know what's grabbing. 
• THINK the pitches/runs. Don't make them. 
• Know the difference between open and stuck and open and released. 
• ~27 minutes

Practice 11/10/16

Strange film over voice/thick mucus? Preventing vibration sometimes.
2/26/16 and 2/27/16.

Woke up at 9:30.

Got about 8 hours of sleep.

Speaking voice feels fine, but there is some gravel/sand-paper-y things going on that I think are left over from last night.

Things feel pretty released though besides that.

Start out in the lower range of the voice (where the mucus/gravel doesn't get in the way) and think "like that" as you ascend. [li le la lo].

It's weird, because I feel like I'm released, but my voice isn't vibrating. And it doesn't feel like a swelling thing.

***

I sang today in Master Class, and it was a bit of a struggle. I felt like my voice was on the verge of cracking the entire time because it was difficult to sing the aria that I chose. But it sounded... okay... in the recording. But by the end of the aria, my voice was pretty tired.

I had a quick coaching with Dallas, and it felt better, but I'm not sure if it was because of the time of day, the room we were in, or something else. But either way, my voice is pretty pooped, and it's only 3:00 in the afternoon. I'm going to take things easy for the rest of today and tomorrow.

Practice 11/9/16

Didn't sleep well last night because, well... Because. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't in a state of constant anxiety since last night.

Lesson 2/27/16

• "old man death rattle"
• release jaw; allow space between back molars
• bright vowels rise the side edges of the tongue
• Don't try to make a resonance (i.e. you get a little kermit-y). Allow tongue to release. 
• "about to sneeze"
• loose lips (esp. corners), internal smile
• Don't make space. Space is breath. 
• Don't use your singing to force out a space. If that makes sense. Allow the sound to come out with the space just being there. The space isn't an active thing. 
• If the vibrato gets heavy up top, it's the tongue/jaw pressing down!!

This was from this morning. I never really settled into my voice until the evening today, and I firmly believe it's because I didn't have the patience to work through things.

I came back to the practice room around 7:30 p.m., and it took me a good hour or so until my vibrato quit being so heavy.

I spent the first 30 minutes of my practice on the floor because I just could NOT get my tongue to release. I could feel it grab on anything above an A4. I got quite frustrated, but I tried to think of it in terms of "what if I was sick right now?" so I could trick myself into being more patient with my voice.

I had to take several breaks because I got frustrated, but by around 9:45 p.m. (yeah, I know, it's a long time), I finally started getting the hang of my voice (sort of). At least my resonance wasn't stuck in my throat and my vibrato wasn't like a brick.

After going over my pieces for this Saturday (AHHHHHHHHHHH), I noticed a strange kind of vocal fatigue. It's not the usual "I can't go back into my speaking voice" kind of thing. And I can continue singing without much of a problem, but it's like a scratchiness? sand-papery-ness? that probably comes from an inefficient use of air at the laryngeal level. I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with the breath.

(In fact, I just tested this after typing the above statement, and after focusing more on not allowing the ribcage to collapse, that "leaky" feeling went away...)

Anyways. Some interesting stuff. I'm going to use tomorrow as an attempted simulation for the competition by waking up at the same time I will on Saturday and warming up before performing. We'll see how that goes.

And a side note: Singing makes everything better. Even on bad voice days. It's so... meditative when you get into the groove of things. Clears my head. 

Practice 11/8/16

I've been a little lazy with practice logs--I apologize. But to recap these last couple of days:
I've been working on trying to get more sleep (although Sunday night was kind of a failure) and staying healthy because I can feel myself on the verge of getting ill. I've also been struggling a bit to get my soft palate up, and Cindy's recommendation of the "old man death rattle" really helped.
My acid reflux has also been getting really bad lately; I'll wake up with burning in my throat.

Today, I didn't really get to align the voice before choir, but I used that opportunity to really try some new things, like the "death rattle" (haha), releasing the jaw, etc. By the end of the rehearsal, I actually felt pretty good. Immediately after, I had a coaching with Dallas, and I felt pretty good about it vocally. Dallas told me that I need to have a greater volume output in order to be competitive for my Rossini, but it could just be that it's low in my tessitura. The other pieces felt better in terms of volume.

I'm starting to lean towards doing the Stephano aria (even though I'm sort of scared of it to be completely honest), but I think it's more secure and easier to believe than the other two fast arias.

When I went back to listen to the recording of our coaching, I noticed that my pitch tends to... travel? move around a lot. It never really settles because things are moving so quickly in my fast pieces. I didn't hear much of a problem in the slower pieces, but it's just an observation I made. I need to be more grounded in my breath, I think.

This isn't really much of a practice log, but I just thought I would reflect on how things went today.