Practice 3/29/17

Lesson 2/19/16 Warm-up

• root of the tongue wants to default to a heavy, weighty feeling. 

Lesson 3/28/17

• lip trills with toaster shoulders
• "may oh my I" 8531
• about to yawn
• legato does not mean slur
• "I'm bathing" 1-8531
• m/b line up
• loose chew, mouth/lips
• maintain height as you descend
• "gai lai" 5432123454321
• preceed with two "g" touches. 
• "ai ai ai ai ai" 1358531358531

• happy, quiet "ah"
• don't make depth. Even give it permission to be shallow if it wants. Don't make anything happen. 
• noticing a "sand-papery" sensation/sound.... 
• 
  

Practice 3/27/17

I caught myself clenching my teeth a lot this weekend, and I've got quite a bit of lingering "soreness" in the root of my tongue because of it. Spend the first couple minutes of my practice just stretching and trying to find release in the neck. I've also been noticing how my jaw tends to default to jutting forward at times, so I've been trying to be more aware of that.

Lesson 2/29/16 ~13 min.

• Jaw is down and back
• watch onsets
• don't push the sound out; just let it fall out
• watch even airflow
• "depth is breath gesture [not shape]"
• uniformity throughout the range; if you feel something shift in the pharynx, it's probably not right. Use the breath to set up the tube; the tube stays the same even as you add pitch
• Onsets. Really work on those. They've been a little uncoordinated lately. Use sob with panting. 
• watch tip of the tongue
• don't try and "fix" things. Notice the good things and reiterate them. 
• lighten as you ascend. 
• posture
• really supple mouth/cheeks

Lesson 7/18/16 ~9/10 min. 

• "a-a-a-a-achoo" on sob before starting vocalize
• allow the mouth to open if it needs to. Pay attention to what it wants. 

Did some additional arpeggio work; 

• as you ascend, don't come off the voice. Just think of your tube. 
• vowel is in the thought. 
• fast [zi ze zaa----] 12345432-12345432-12345678987654321
• wobble exercises

While singing:

• Watch that you don't spread when "biting the apple." 
• molars are up and easy--when you inhale for about to sneeze, imagine the cool air brushing past them. 
• Watch the tube
• WATCH ONSETS. Sob! 

Practice 3/22/17 and Lesson 3/21/17

Voice actually feels pretty decent this morning. Must be the rain.

Warm up: ~10 minutes

• "nyam" 54321 
• completely released lips, space between back molars
• happy quiet ah, but don't try and /make/ your soft palate raise. Just let it be. 
• feel cool air on hard palate just behind front top teeth
• feel release in nostrils
• "ya" 54321 
• stay in lower range of your voice to get accustomed to complete release
• light/easy for higher pitches
• "yes sir" 8531
• precise/buoyant pitches. Watch that you don't slur. Legato is much simpler than "singing through"

Lesson 3/21/17

• "v" 1~8~1 
• siren-like
• use the pressure created from the semi-occlusion to relieve subglottic pressure
• wide in back
• "th---they" 87654321-35-87654321
• "yes sir" 8531
• "kitty kitty cat" 54321
• stay light on the higher pitches, and allow speech-like quality on bottom pitch (not from added breath pressure)
• [be de be de] 8531
• completely released back molars
• you can do happy inhale, but remember to stay released everywhere. Millimeters make a big difference!
• "nyam" 123454321`
• use the [n] to find the highness of the tone
• [fi fe fi fe fi] 564534231
• don't poop out breath
• big nostrils
• "my oh my" 8531
• child-like
• buoyant, no slur

Practice 3/20/17

Hey! Less allergies today. Voice still felt really weird over the weekend; like something was swollen. I also feel like my default to singing these days is really "leaky" with the air, so I need to work on that. Referred to my practice blog for 3/17/17.

Lesson 2/26/16

• Do some stretching of the ribcage
• bite the apple + happy breath
• molars triangle
• watch breathiness--don't try and /make/ it go away, but expect it to. 
• soft palate stays up as you descend
• energetic release of the tone
• cheeks are really released--the space on the inside is super soft just behind the cheek flesh. 
• keep thoughts happy though
• constant space between molars
• top lip is released
• be "singing" the pitch before you're even finished inhaling
• soft palate stays up even as you descend
• vowel is a thought
• watch posture
• release tip of the tongue
• REALLY bite the apple
• don't think of forcing the folds to adduct. They'll do that on their own. 

Lesson 2/28/17

• fat tongue
• release temporal
• don't make depth; depth is breath gesture
• think of the pointiness that you want in your tone. 
• feels like it's going out of a hole in the middle of the hard palate
• think "like that" whenever you have to reascend
• take your time!
• tip of tongue is really friendly with bottom row of teeth
• if the first pitch doesn't start outside of you, you're not going to end up in a good place. 
• raised molars
• onsets! Watch them. If they feel like the folds are coming together, that's not right. 
• think opposites for vowels

Spent about 40 minutes aligning the voice, but things above G5 are just not wanting to cooperate today. They get really weird and fuzzy whenever I tried to work with them, but I stopped because I didn't want to overdo it. 

Practice 3/17/17

Allergies are still pretty bad, but I've been taking some essential oils for it, and it works surprisingly well.

Referenced the practice blog for March 3, 2017.
Lesson 2/26/16 warm up

• stretch the ribcage
• bite the apple + happy breath
• don't overfill with breath
• back molars lift into skull, and there's that triangle, with the teeth being the bottom two points. the top point into the middle of the skull. You don't /make/ the "point" in the tone, but it somehow appears there in the middle of the hard palate. 
• don't be a leaky faucet
• if you can feel yourself open up in the throat when you breathe, you're closing in the first place. 
• gesture of the inhale
• millimeters can make a world of a difference!
• Yesterday, during my preview, whenever Cindy cued me to have a more open mouth, it wasn't necessarily exaggerated. It was just more released. Don't overdo it. 
• vowel is in the thought
• watch subglottal pressure.... 
• tip of the tongue is friendly with bottom row of teeth
• breathing in through the nose helps me to feel the breath right behind the top front teeth; have that same feeling when you're inhaling through the mouth. 

Lesson 2/28/17

• sometimes, there's just too much pressing between the folds. Imagine that they're barely touching. 
• imagine the point-y-ness in the pitch. Don't try and make it. Just let it happen. Look for it. 
• release temporal
• fat tongue
• release the A-O joint! if jaw feels really tense+root of tongue. 
• keep soft palate up as you descending
• release jaw for [e/i]!
• Posture makes a big difference (who knew.... *sarcasm*)
• horizontal length in the front chest, equal with the back
• prompt the soft palate, but don't try and force it up higher than you think you "need."
• prompt open mouth (like Cindy). Don't jam it down. As if you're in mid-performance. 
• prompt the pointiness in the tone, but don't make it. especially as you ascend. 

Pharynx felt very nice and released by the end, but there was some tension in the root of my tongue that I had a hard time eliminating. I put some earplugs in as I worked on my music, and I kept all of the things that I worked on in my vocalization in mind, focusing particularly on making sure that things felt released, not focusing necessarily on the sound. I just assume the resonance is there when I feel it? It's difficult to explain. 

Lesson Summary 3/14/17 and Practice 3/15/17

Yup, allergies are in full swing right now. Scratchy throat, runny nose, congestion, the works. Kind of feels like my folds are a little sandpaper-y right now.

Lesson 3/14/17

• Breathe for the instrument that you want. Breathe the space that you want. 
• breathe through your ears?
• about to sneeze
• Complete release in the jaw/cheeks/space between molars
• always reopen back to the space you need when you have to close for certain consonants. 
• it's a miniscule change, but it makes a huge difference!
• [i] is farther back
• you don't need your jaw to make [i]! 
• tip of the tongue is anchored to the bottom teeth
• hands on face/chin to monitor jaw movement
• energetic release of the pitch

Practice 3/13/17

Got back to Logan from my London trip at 3:30 this morning! Woohoo! (I think I'm more tired leaving Spring Break than getting into it...)

Lesson 2/26/16 Warm-Up

• Lynn Helding breath
• happy, quiet, "ah" OR about to sneeze
• A-O joint release
• "corset" breath; don't overfill.
• Don't try and make a sound; just let it happen
• horiz. and vert. release!
• tip of tongue release
• bite the apple + magnet lips
• Don't "make" the soft palate go up; cue it instead with the breath
• breath makes the instrument. 
• think of the little ball of space just front top teeth
• back of tongue against top molars
• release in back molars
• stay high even as you descend
• sing on the gesture of the inhale! 
• start the sound "before" you're finished inhaling. 

Lesson 2/27/17 (L.H.)

• don't try and /make/ depth. 
• lips are really REALLY loose and don't cover the sound. 

Lynn Helding Lesson 2/27/17 and Practice 3/3/17

My tongue's default today was pretty released. So I started warm-ups by focusing on breathing and getting the soft palate up.

breathing with the dress on

Lesson 2/26/16 Warm-up ~12 min.

• Stretch up and slowly lower arms while maintaining ribcage suspension 
• lip magnet
• don't overfill with breath
• chomp the apple/rectangle mouth (but watch that your tongue stays horizontally released) 
• "happy" breath
• fingers in dimples to remind molar space and singing in mask
• don't use up your vocal capital unnecessarily 
• tip of tongue

Lesson 2/27/17 Lynn Helding

• 8:00
• equal opening/released in soft palate and in the throat
• "ah ah ah" 5-5-5-5-54321
• approach from above
• about to sneeze in between
• keep soft palate lifted as you descend
• **Vowel comes from the inside. Think the vowel on the inside and it will come out. Don't make the vowel
• **Don't force the vocalize to work. Just let it do its thing. If it's not perfect, it's fine. 
• [fla fle] 5-534-423-312-271. 
• watch the temporal muscle. You want to flex it.
• "Mignon" by Wolf
• "Gold" more open 
• [ka ga ka ga ga] On single pitch 
• prep with about to sneeze
• "kennst" 
• tip of tongue REALLY needs to be against bottom row of teeth
• It's never just one thing; jaw and tongue and abdominal release and etc. etc. etc. 
• soft palate: 
• [a] [e] [a] 5-5-5-5-54321
• "Una voce poco fa" 
• It's never an "all or nothing thing." We can make adjustments. 
• happy, quiet/sneezy
• practice your strategy an octave down.
• best vowel around G# is [a] 
• Millimeters (in the soft palate and tongue) make a huge difference!
• Trust that the sound will be focused and full; don't force it with the tongue or breath. 

************

Update:

I was in a really good place by the end of my practice, and it felt like my soft palate was miles up into my skull (in a good way), and everything just felt really easy. Since everything felt really released, later that night, I decided to try my hand in CCM again (in stark isolation, of course), and I decided to look up different singers and take a look at their belting techniques. (i.e. Charice) 

I also remembered Rebecca saying something about how Lynn Helding said that CCM requires a slightly lowered back tongue position, so I experimented with that, all the while maintaining the nice soft palate lift that I had managed to get before. I found a sound that I really liked and felt pretty healthy. It definitely felt like speech or shouting, depending on where in my range it was, but it wasn't exhausting on the voice at all. 

Some comparisons to classical singing:

• CCM definitely has a bit of a lower tongue. The back of the tongue isn't touching the top back molars, unlike classical singing. 
• There is more subglottal breath pressure (more noticeable in upper range), but I really didn't notice until I tried to return to classical technique. 
• In order to access the different harmonics in CCM, I feel like I had to open my mouth a lot wider than I would in classical singing for "higher" pitches. (This is something that I observed in the videos that I watched with healthy belters.) 
• Again, just a small difference in the height of the soft palate makes a huge acoustic difference for both styles. 
• Now, this is going to sound weird: In classical singing, it feels like there's a small ball of space that sits just below the "hump" of the hard palate and just behind the front top teeth. In CCM, it felt like the ball of space was just below the top back molars. This probably has something to do with the lowered tongue position as well. Also, when I was belting, it felt like I was singing out of my top back molars, but the sound was coming out the front of my face because of the resonance. 

Lesson 2/28/17 + Practice 3/1/17

Lesson 2/26/16 Warm-up. Began with some airiness in the tone. (That tends to be my default.)

• Don't be afraid to have space between molars
• A-O joint release
• release tip of the tongue
• horizontal release of the tongue
• take "complete" breaths

An observation during my warm-ups: because of the acoustic nature of the practice room, I think have a tendency to want to make a particular sound, rather than letting it happen. That may contribute to some of my tension, especially compared to how I like the acoustics in Dallas' office. 

Lesson 2/28/17

• "bap bap bap" 54321
• released lips
• slowly increase the length of the vowel. 
• "ringing ringing ring" 123454321
• "play me" 8531358531
• fully stop the air before continuing
• Don't let go of the air; there should be a sense of "continuity," rather than a change of pressure. 
• loud vs. concentrated
• let the "l" cue your tongue tip to release
• "if your tongue wasn't held down by fibers, it'd fall out of your face." 
• Imagine the plosive "p" exploding inward to prevent "letting go" of the air. 
• Your breath should build your instrument. 
• You don't have to sustain the final pitch; you're unnecessarily using voice. 
• Watch your shoulders/collarbones.... 
• [fi fe] 123454321
• sob
• [a e o e a] 1353-135853-13583-8531. 
• stretch
• Watch that the breath doesn't get frantic, even from the very beginning. 
• Again, watch the collarbone (wide) and released shoulders
• vowel change on the inside
• "I I I--- don't know" 5-4-3-2-1358531
• sob/whine
• Keep top lip completely soft/released. 
• Happy/quiet/"ah" inhale
• No horizontal spreading of the lips
• 1358531 
• Exaggerated released tongue: tip never leaves the bottom teeth
• "when I went to bed" 54321
• "Donatella's dead"
• "slender"/sob
• Don't "make" depth. Just allow it to happen. 
• "Randy never tells"
• "Danny never lies"
• mp

Really focus on the breathing technique. If you take a "quick" breath and you can hear it, that means a) you need to take more time, b) you're likely not "happy" or "ah" enough!!