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