Ella had her first voice lesson this week! She did SO AWESOME!!!!
Each week we'll break down our lessons into a few different categories:
"This week", "Things to remember", our progress videos, and reminders to bring a new song at the appropriate times.
At our first lesson we introduce so many new things:
- Vocalizing and matching pitch: Ella has such an awesome voice naturally with such raw ability - we now are working on getting her technique on the same level! This will start with us doing a lot of work in our warm ups. This is where we will explore the different things Ella's voice is capable of! She did great!
- Relaxing the voice while singing: I make all my students promise me at the beginning of their lessons that they will do all the silly ridiculous things that I ask them to do because it will make them a better singer. You'll see this in their videos as i make them wiggle in a variety of weird ways. Some of the motions are to remind them to do very specific things (there will be a lot of forward arm movement). Some of the motions are to distract them so that they can't squeeze their vocal chords when hitting exceptionally high or low notes in their song - you can't hurt your voice, or sing incorrectly in an unsafe way, if you're rolling your head and moving your shoulders. It helps accomplish what we need to and we take the motions out the more lessons they have and more we move into performance technique.
- New placements : a new placement with our voice is an interesting thing. With our first few lessons we're trying to get Ella to feel her voice in a different way. We do this not only for sound quality and vocal technique but also for safety of her chords. The first placement we introduce is singing like we talk. While the students are figuring out how this feels with their voice we break it down in ways that are easy to do. We call this "talk it out".
This first placement is the first of three steps we need Ella to go through in her first couple lessons.
1. Moving her voice forward so that she physically feels the difference and can hear it very distinctly so that as we get into harder songs and build her technique, she always knows what "safe" and that first step feels like on her vocal chords.
2. Making her sound more conversational. This usually doesn't come until the second or third week. Ella not only started moving in this direction - she rocked it!!! The more we work with the placement, the more Ella will trust it. The more that happens, the more natural it will sound AND feel.
3. Adding back in the things that make it sound like Ella. We eventually add back in all the really awesome instincts that Ella already has with her style. We just have to go through these first 2 steps first or her voice will always revert back to what it's comfortable doing.
By learning the techniques that i'll teach you, your voice will quickly start to sound brighter, your range will extend, you'll have more control over your voice and therefore your style choices - lots of good stuff is on the way!
You'll hear me talking throughout their videos, saying all sorts of things that don't make sense. They make sense to your student I promise! As I remind them in real time of the different things to focus on in their song.
Now that you know what to expect - Here is your first lesson break down!
This week:
- We introduced vocalizing.
- We vocalized on: humming, me-me, yah-yah.
- We introduced our new placement: singing like we talk, and started moving her voice to a more "forward" place.
Things to remember:
- Smile!! It brings your voice forward! and it will look awesome on stage :)
- Sing through your teeth!
- Sing like we talk!
Before/End of our lesson:
Great job Ella! What a first lesson!! See you next week!