My voice was not 100% at my lesson since I was getting over a cold, but it was cool to see what sounds I could still make with good technique!
1358531 on a lip buzz: This last week I'd focused on just making sounds at the beginning of my practicing. I just enjoyed the feeling of releasing and creating sound. I focused on that feeling in this exercise and it not only felt good, it was fun.
8531 [nju] with an open mouth: Starting in my middle voice and sequencing down, we used [u] to find the space in the back and the focus of the vowel. I found that the trajectory of the sound/air had to keep going up towards my forehead even as I went down the scale or my breath wouldn't be consistent and my vowel would go wide. Speeding up the rate of my vibrato also helped with this.
We also found that in the middle of the scale I lost the vowel. I needed to combine the feeling of opening upwards at my back molars WITH an intense focus of a clear vowel.
1353135313531 [a a a a o o o o u u u u] staccato then reversing the vowel sequence: A great exercise in thinking the vowel. When we reversed it I was able to find a hooty, dome-like feeling that collapsed on [o] and [a]. I worked to memorize the feeling and posture of my soft pallet and tongue with [u] before moving to the other vowels and creating them in the same space. It was like I was saying the vowel with my tongue inside the [u] space.
1353135313531 [u o a] more legato: Let lips darken [a], not the tongue. I needed to make sure that the body engagement and energy was there from the beginning so that the last note was not unstable on [a]. I also used a [ja] to help keep my tongue forward on the [a].
5554321 [la la la] with mouth open and diction clear: Using the mirror as a visual cue was helpful. I realized I was closing my mouth a lot more than I thought I was. I need to be careful with my breaths to make sure they're not getting too clavicular and to keep the energy coming from deep. I was also posturing the [a] too much. I need to just let it fall from the [l] posture. It doesn't quite arch all the way to my back molars on the [a].
135654321 [a] feeling the voice turn up and over, or fold on itself on the top note. I also felt a sense of schwa or an undefined vowel in the throat while the vowel was focused at the front of my face. By keeping that sense of schwa in my throat, I was able to find more release and more focus to the sound.
I applied this concept of my voice folding over on itself and the undefined vowel in my throat at D5 and above in my rep and it made a huge difference. Again, my vowels were more focused but my sound felt much more released. I was not as fatigued and it actually helped with my tongue tension. A5 has never felt so good. I also found that it felt best when I had a sense of lift at my back top molars rather than forcing my jaw to open down. We also found that sometime my [i] vowel can be harsh and driven. It sounded best when just had a bit more height to vowel, almost like adding a bit of [I] to it.
As I was listening I found that I added a bit of punch sometimes on leaps from a lower to high note. I want to experiment this week with gentler flips up to those notes rather than punching them with air or muscle.
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