Observing Ashley Hecht's Voice Lesson.

For my final observation from one of Dr.Lofgren's students, I observed Ashley Hecht. She is a Spanish Education major and this is her first semester of voice lessons ever. Ashley is a petite, soft spoken soprano, and she wanted to take voice lessons for her own personal enrichment. As it was with Brett, the door remained open for the entire lesson, and she didn't seem phased by it at all. She was sick the past couple weeks so this was the first lesson her and Dr.Lofgren had in quite a while. They began with going up five on an I vowel and then back down 5 on an ah. She was having difficulties staying on pitch as they ascended, but felt pretty comfortable in her lower range. Since she was having trouble finding pitch he had her slide up on on the I and then open up on the ah. She really wasn't opening up at all, and she was barely producing any sound. Dr.Lofgren took that as an opportunity to talk about posture. He pointed out all the spots in your foot that form a "tripod" and told her to align her body into an ears over shoulders over hips position and she should be standing so that all the weight is on her skeleton and she shouldn't be having to do hardly any work. Then they began to discuss breathing and he kept telling her to feel like the breath is sinking down low in her body. She seemed kind of confused, but after a bit of trial and error she began to get a low breath. He had her do yung yung yo up on an arpeggio, and she was barely opening her mouth, but he didn't seem to concerned with that and had her look in the mirror to watch her breath. They continued with the yung yung yo and he wanted her to concentrate on setting up her breath with the ng sound. After doing that for a while she started going up five on a ho sound and on the fifth one she did ho five times and went back down. He told her that she was breathy before and doing stacatto can  help get rid of some of the breathiness. He told her that she was starting to sound better, but I didn't really think it had improved any. If it were me, I would've had her do sliding I's or even just I's on a five pattern so she can feel something of a buzz and little more forward of a sound. She started doing ya up and down five, and she wasn't getting a very low breath and the energy of the sound was pretty much dead. Dr.Lofgren had her do a z sound up and down five and told her to do the ya with the same amount of energy that she had for the z and she did a lot better after that. They kept going up the piano and he would tell her to get narrow and thin at the top and to make sure she's in her head voice and it's nice and light. The higher she got, the tighter and squeakier it was and when they stopped he told her that and he said that she just needs to keep the energy behind it. I think there was a few more things wrong than just the energy though. I know that she needed to open her mouth up more, she needed to open up her throat, and she needed to bring the sound forward because she didn't have any buzz. They started on her first song which was an Italian piece. The tessitura was really pretty low for a soprano, and the highest note was an f5. She sang through it once and it was very breathy and I couldn't hardly hear her because her mouth was so closed. Dr.Lofgren asked her about diction in a couple places and he told her that she needed to get some energy under the sound because it sounded pinched off. Then he whipped out some sheet that had to be from the "Overtones of Bel Canto" book because it was the same type of warm ups he did with Brett. They did some oo-ah-oo and uh-eh-uh sounds and he told her to leave everything open and relaxed and let her tongue move to form the sounds. They went up to about an f and he asked how it felt and she replied that it felt tight. I was kind of questioning if she was really in her head voice, but Dr.Lofgren didn't mention it. He would play a note on the piano and tell her to start on that note and do a siren down. She was doing a pretty good job of opening up for that, but she was still running out of air. They started on the song again and she started to open her throat up more and her sound was fuller, but it only lasted for a little bit and she closed up again. Dr.Lofgren told her to trust herself and it will be there and she needs to use more breath. I didn't exactly know what he meant by that, and I'm not exactly sure that she did either. What I think he was trying to get at was that she was just scared to let the sound come out, and even though I thought he was kind of overdoing the whole breath thing, she really did need to get her breaths under control because they were pretty weak and high. The part of the song where it gets the highest, they took it down and octave and after singing through that they took it back up the octave and he told her to sing with the same openess that she did in the lower register. She was still pretty closed up, but they were out of time so they were going to come back to it next week. One of the big things I noticed in this lesson was that after she'd do something incorrectly, even after he explained how to fix it, Dr.Lofgren would kind of get lost, and he wouldn't really know what to say or do next. I think his style of teaching for her lesson might have worked for some people, but I'm not sure she was really comprehending much of anything he was saying.

Big girl voice.

Well, the semester is finally winding down. Even though I say finally, it really doesn't even feel like it's the end at all. Actually, I wish it wasn't. Man, I would give a lot to just have two more weeks of just free time..not classes..just free time so I have time to accomplish everything I want to do exactly how I want to do it. Ohhh well though, I guess it is now time to engage crunch time mode. I sang An die Musik in recital yesterday, and it was easily the best I've ever done. I feel so much more confident since I'm beginning to figure out how to get my throat more open and produce a fuller sound. Today in my lesson we just ran through my rep, and we started with O cessate di piagarmi. As soon as Dr.Hepworth mentioned it I couldn't believe that I hadn't noticed it before, but there's a part where I tend to get really nasally. That is going to be one of my main practice focuses this week because I'm pretty sure that's the song I'm going to sing first for juries. We sang through An die Musik and fixed a couple diction errors, and I figured out my entrances again since I totally blew some of them off yesterday and made up my own. (Thank God for Mr.Phil) Then we did Love Has Eyes where I always mess up the turn because it's in a really dumb part of my range that I hate, but I am hoping that with time it will get stronger and then I can stop complaining about it. At first I thought that song was really easy to sing, but now I get kind of tired towards the end of it so that is kind of weird. Next we sang When I have Sung My Songs, which I really haven't liked to sing ever since Austin did it on recital a few weeks ago. He owned me, but it's fine. I really need to work on my counting a lot better on that song, and really add some musicality to it. That is something that I just need to do, it has nothing to do with my technique or anything like that so that should not even be a problem, but oh well I will fix it. Also, I need to work on connecting the words a lot better too. Finally, we ran through So In Love which is definetly my second fave after An die Musik. You know, I think I actually might do An die Musik for my first song for juries because I just really love it. But this can be discussed at a later time. Anyways, So in Love is totally the funnest song to sing ever basically because I love musicals and it's awesome. I am feeling very apathetic at the moment, so if this post seems to drone on that is probably why. I think I am going to get some coffee now. That is all, goodbye.

Observing Brett Dorcey's Voice Lesson.

I definetly was looking forward to doing my first observation with Dr.Lofgren because him and Dr.Hepworth have such different personalities. Brett Dorcey was the person I chose to do my male observation on with Dr.Lofgren. His primary instrument is tuba and voice is his secondary. This is his first semester of voice lessons, and he is a tenor. His lesson was at 9:30 in the morning, so warming up was a must for the beginning of their lesson. The first thing that was took me by surprise is that they had the lesson with Dr.Lofgren's office door left open. I thought this made the lesson seem slightly informal, yet Brett seemed to be very relaxed with it. The first thing he did was a few light sirens then they began singing knee on sliding fifths emphasizing the I sound. He was getting a very bright sound by doing this, but I did notice that he would set his mouth into the shape of the I vowel before he would sing it instead of just letting the sound come out. As he was doing the knees, Dr.Lofgren reminded him to relax his tongue, jaw, and face. I was kind of surprised to hear him say something about the tongue because he's never addressed it in choir that I can remember. After that  he got out a book called "Overtones of Bel Canto" by Burton Coffin. The first exercise they did was up five on woah, down five on a yeah and then switch to a woah at the bottom and add a messa di voce at the end. In this book, for each vowel sound it gives you a number and that number says how open your mouth should be when you sing that vowel. For example, a 3 would be hardly open, and an 8 would be open quite wide. He had a lot of control over the messa di voce, but was producing a pretty dark sound. Dr.Lofgren had him sing a couple knees again and told him to keep that bright, forward feeling when he's doing these exercises. Next he did yeah-woah-yeah where he was reminded again about how he needs to keep space in the mouth and to keep a forward feel. Woo-yeah was next, and this time Dr.Lofgren addressed which vowels sound dark, the oo, and which were bright-the yeah. He told him when he gets the right combination of light and dark then he has found the chiaroscuro which is something that Dr.Hepworth addresses quite often. He then did an I sound through a pucker which was very swallowed at first. Dr.Lofgren told him to feel like it's bouncing off of the hard palate which brought on a brighter sound right away. I had to laugh a little bit because after that Brett made a comment about how that felt weird. Dr.Lofgren started to laugh as well and told him that weird is good, and that was the chiaroscuro. As he was doing the puckered I sound his soft palate began to drop and Dr.Lofgren explained to him that that was why his sound was getting a little too nasal. He had him pinch his nose and sing woah which I understood right away because I have been trying to work on that as well in my lessons with Dr.Hepworth. Plugging his nose will force him to project the sound from his mouth versus his nose which causes hyperfunctionality. The lesson was about half over at this time, and I was kind of surprised that they hadn't even worked on any rep yet, but I got the impression that Dr.Lofgren is more of a teacher that focuses on exersises and technique by itself versus integrating those lessons into the student's repitoire. They began to warm up his high range with something that I am pretty sure works fairly similar to the sing-ah exercise. Brett put his arm up to his mouth and literally put his mouth on his arm and go up an arpeggio on an mm. Then he had him put his arm up to his mouth and he went up on an oh and then moved his hand and changed to an ah sound. There was a little bit of the lesson left, and they finally pulled out his rep. Brett is working on Mozart's aria "Dalla Sua Pace" from Don Giovanni. This was by far the most interesting part of the lesson for me. Right when Dr.Lofgren said get out your aria I was confused because since it's Brett's first semester of voice lessons, and he is obviously still trying to get a handle on some basic technique, I didn't think he should even be working on an aria. He asked Brett if he looked up the IPA yet, and he hadn't which I thought maybe he should've got a little slap on the hand for that because I know that he's been assigned that song for at least two weeks since he wasn't in attendance at his last voice lesson since that was the one I was supposed to originally observe. Dr.Lofgren just said okay and had him sing da da da on the notes and rhythms. Brett really wasn't prepared for this song at all so Dr.Lofgren sang through most of it with him. He told him that this song was going to call for a lot of catch breaths and he warned him that there was going to be a lot of octaves at the end that he was going to have to negotiate. He explained the text for the last line, and had him sing through it, reminding him the whole time to keep the sound in his nose. This was the most interesting part of the whole lesson to me...he warned Brett not to spend too much time on this piece because he'll develop bad vocal habits, and it's a real work out vocally. He urged him not to do too much in one sitting, and just do a part of it a day until he got it learned. This just really blew my mind because why would he assign him something that he has to warn against working too much on it or he'll hurt himself? I'm sure he has other songs that are much less taxing, but I just was really hung up on the fact that he was singing this song that is probably for an advanced singer. I definitely was opened up to a whole other style of teaching from this lesson. They are much less personal than a lesson with Dr.Hepworth is, and it almost completely consisted of vocalizing. It seems like Brett was more uninterested in his lesson versus Adrian and Amanda who were very engaged in theirs. I am looking forward to see if Dr.Lofgren's teaching methods differ for when he's teaching a girl.

Best lesson ever!

At the beginning of my lesson today I brought in my voice lesson student to see if Dr.Hepworth could get her to sing in her head voice because I could not figure it out. Well, of course, from the get go she was singing spot on in her head voice. After we got that figured out Aubrey left and we were just going to run through all my rep. When I was practicing last night I kind of thought I had a break through, but I wasn't really sure so I told her. We started with O cessate and it was the best reaction ever. Right away I started singing in my big girl voice and I saw a look of like surprise cross Dr.Hepworth's face and she looked like she wanted to stop, but we kept going til I finished the song and she was super proud of me. When I was practicing last night I didn't make my break through til like the end of practice so I was getting kind of tired so I only ran through a couple of parts of songs after that so I wasn't sure if I would be able to keep it up. Much to me and Dr.Hepworth's delight I kept singing correctly all through An die musik and the rest of my rep :) It felt sooooooooooooooooooo freaking good to know that my hard work is really starting to take shape, and that I figured it out all by myself. Well, of course I would be absolutely no where without Dr.Hepworth, but without taking the time by myself and playing around with my voice I still be stuck where I was a year ago. I was so proud of myself at how happy and excited Dr.Hepworth was. That was one of the greatest feelings of accomplishment ever. What I figured out was how to open the back of my throat. I thought if I did that then it would be too dark of a sound, but it felt so full that I had a pretty good feeling about it. This week I'm going to work on memorizing my rep, and I'm still missing some pronunciations on An die musik. Now I need to start focusing on consistency. When I had practice with phil it wawsn't as good as it was in my lesson, but my voice was getting pretty tired because I had went through practice, choir, and a voice lesson. I'm really excited for the direction I am heading in, and I love feeling like I know what I'm doing. Good things are happening, finally! It's so weird because just like last week I was feeling super discouraged, and now it's a complete turn around. Consistency consistency consistency! That is my main goal now.

Aubrey's fourth lesson...

I am just all over the blog world today. Just got done with Aubrey's lesson, and I am going to be completely honest. I am so frustrated. She can't find her head voice anymore. I've tried i's, sirens, puppy whimpers, sing-ahs, mrs.doubtfire voice.....I don't know what else to do :( it's like she can get it on the middle notes a little bit, but once we get to a d or higher she switches right back to muscling the sound with her throat. I can tell it's so uncomfortable for her too. She was getting pretty frustrated today too because she knew she was forcing her chest voice too. I just feel really panicked because we only have two lessons yet and we haven't even made it through the whole song. I had her sing through it on an i vowel and it really did not accomplish what I wanted it to at all. So we spoke through the rhythm and she got a good grasp on that. I was wanted to make it through the song so I told her just to try her best to get the sound to come from her head voice rather than forcing it up with her throat. I started kind of playing the accompaniment with her, but she didn't really know the notes so I just played the melody, plus I was kind of messing up a lot anyways. I gave her a link to a video to watch just so she could find out how it sounds and how the melody is supposed to go, but I don't think she really listened to it. Ugh, I just don't know what to do. I've tried telling her to think weak to think from her head, to not use her throat, to keep in mind that it will feel weird and uncomfortable, but I just can't figure it out. I don't know what to do. I keep making up all these stupid little things for her to think when she's trying to find her head voice, but they are not working! I am just going to google ways to find your head voice and see if I can come up with anything there. I am pretty sure that the bottom line is that she's just scared of her head voice, but hopefully we can face that fear before the next two lessons are finished.

poor Adele.

Well, I just got finished with my voice lesson annnd it was less than wonderful.It is just not a good singing week for me. It's because I'm on the rag, but that is just annoying. Can I say on the rag on my blog? Well, I'm going to.  So I've been noticing this week that I have a lot of tension in my jaw, and it is pretty much kicking my butt. For warm ups we just did some buzzes and some i's. I have been getting my mouth set up before I actually sing the i vowel and that was messing me up. We practiced just saying i like you would just speak it and then I sang it correctly. My tongue is doing all sorts of weird things in my mouth these days, and I know exactly what it is. Dr.Hepworth said it best: "you're trying too hard". I think I really just need to let go and kind of just let the sound come out instead of trying to focus on all the minuscule things. I know that you have to focus on the little things in order to get the correct sound because, after all, it is the little things that count. But, I just focus so much on one thing that I don't even think about the other things and the proper sound is going to come from doing all the correct things in conjunction with each other, not just keeping my tongue forward, or having a bright sound. I need to figure out how to just bring it all together. I kind of view it as like spinning gears. I don't know if this is totally insane, but this is how I see it. I'll be working on something and I'll have a really bright sound because it's all pushed up in my nose, but then the gear is only like inching around instead of spinning smoothly because my throat isn't open and my tongue is way to far back and all that good stuff. That is just some weird thing that is in my head. This week when I practice I'm going to spend a lot of time with my hand in front of my mouth so I can feel if the sound is where I want it or not. I'm also going to really focus on my tongue. I do a lot of shaping my vowels with my jaw rather than my tongue which is going to be a really hard habit to break. Using the tongue so much just feels really foreign, but it's going to make things so much easier eventually. The diphthongs in So In Love are really putting up a fight, but once I get my tongue under control, I should be able to tackle them without a problem. Oh, and then we also did this weird extroverted and introverted lion face thing which was pretty much hilarious, but it's really nice for relaxing your face and neck muscles which I really need to do. So there is my life this week.

yayayay

Okay so for my last voice lesson I had an hour long one to make up for some missed lessons. It was so nice to have all that time, and we got through all of my rep which was also super nice. We started with So In Love from Kiss Me Kate which was the one that I was least prepared for. I worked on it a little, but I wanted to wait til I watched the movie before I worked on it a lot. We went over where to breathe and how to make some of my vowels sound. At first run through of the song I thought it was supposed to be like a sad song, but then I found out that the lady is actually kind of like a masochist and she likes to be hurt. That kind of made the song a little more interesting to me, and that will make the character a lot more fun to play, I think. I believe we did When I Have Sung My Songs next. This song is just really hard to me for some reason. I think it's because I watched Renee Flemming perform it on youtube and that just kind of was not a great plan! English is definetly harder to sing than like my German or Italian pieces. It's much more difficult to get an open throat on this song which we fought for for a long time. I can figure out how to raise my soft palate, but it's just doing all of it at the same time is what's causing a problem for me. Love Has Eyes was next and this one actually seems to be pretty easy for me to sing. We just worked out some breathing spots and a couple of places to ritard at. The hardest part in this song is at the little sideways s thing. I can't remember what it's called right now...but it is RIGHT ON my passagio and it SUCKS! It is the most frustrating thing. I just cannot get my registers to connect. I have done sliding i's up the yin yang and I just cannot get it to work. We did O cessate di piagarmi and I think I just know that song so well that it just naturally comes out easier. Then we did my absolute favorite song An Die Musik. I am kind of screwing the German up majorly I think. The parts where I'm supposed to pucker with an i vowel are not so easy. Breathing is another issue I have with this song. There are quite a few parts where I'm switching from my head to my chest voice and that just gets my breathing all out of wack. I think once I get a little more of a hold on my register changing, holding out the phrases will be easier as well. Lastly, we talked about me doing the honors program which got me super super excited. I have to pump my gpa up a little bit, but I'm super confident that by the end of this semester that should be no problem. Seriously, I was so proud of myself when Dr.Hepworth brought it up to me. It just makes me feel like all my hard work is starting to pay off, and that is seriously an amazing feeling.