Voice Lesson #7

So, today we returned to our regular lessons. My teacher has been off for the past two weeks taking some much deserved vacation. Now, however, we are back in the swing of things, and today's lesson went quite well, I thought. I had taken lots of notes over the past three weeks..yes, three because there was the week right after my last lesson..so I actually had three weeks to practice, and hopefully show some improvement! I think I did, to some degree. I could tell from some of the looks on my teachers face that I was doing better on some things! Gotta love that! I am still having problems with all the same things, BUT, they are getting better! I noticed a lot things during my practice sessions and made a lot of notes for my teacher, but condensed it, for her sake..hehe! I think the biggest things were that I noticed that my tongue is doing everything we don't want it to do..which may not sound like a big deal but, trust me, it is! For me to see and realize this, is a good thing! I also think I found the correct relationship between the tongue and the "AH" vowel...as my teacher put it, it was an epiphany! Indeed, it was! She seemed very happy about this! I still have work to do on it, but the "AH" vowel is much easier for me at this point because the tongue, for the most part, is staying put. We were working on one of the songs, and I mentioned that I had particular difficulty with a certain phrase of the song..actually a certain word. The "eh" vowel is involved, and at a higher pitch. So, not only does the tongue want to kick up, but try as I may, I tend to want to bring the chest voice up to that note, which is NOT what I should be doing. I should be in my head voice throughout the entire phrase. So, bringing the chest voice up to that particular note causes me to STAY in the chest voice..it's like my voice becomes trapped, unable to break free to the head voice, where it SHOULD be. So, all this to say that we replaced the "eh" vowel with the "AH" vowel, as an exercise on that particular word and that caused me to be in my head voice from the get go, which kept me there for the rest of the phrase! Sounds insignificant, maybe, but it wasn't..it was awesome!! We also began a new song, today. It's in Soprano. She's doing this to help me with the Passaggio. Soprano, for me, is very high but I understand what she's trying to do...as I've said before, there's method to the madness. She is a brilliant teacher, so I have no doubt this will help me with the Passaggio, which is basically, the notes involved in the transition between the registers. A difficult area to maneuver in and around. Actually, the Passaggio is throughout the head voice. It's how you get from one note to the other. If you start off the first note in the wrong place..the following notes will be wrong as well. So, like I said, today's lesson went very well and I am looking forward to practicing this week. As I always say, with a Jesus and an awesome teacher, I WILL get this!