Because you're the first one that I am dealing with directly (as opposed to a parent) - what's up sista - I'll explain everything i usually do in the first break down (philosophies to talk parents off cliffs when their kids start doing weird stuff in their videos and sounding different than they thought or - I'll say it - weird their first week) and then i'll get into some of the things we talked about that will help you practice on your own!
This week:
Each lesson I'll break down our lessons into a few different categories:
This week (what we vocalized on, what we worked on, and tips to help you keep your voice where we put it!), our progress videos, and reminders (to bring a new song at the appropriate times, things that you should do every time you sing, where vocalizing exercises are, ect.).
At our first lesson we introduced so many new things:
- Vocalizing and matching pitch: Warming up will be important every lesson, and is important to do before you sing every single time (this is the hard part for me, and will be the hard part for you because you sing so often - but it will help A LOT).
Warming up is where all improvements in the voice are made. We do all the work in our warm up (range extension, muscle memory and teaching our voice how to relax, moving it into the right placement, thinning out our chords and making our scats quicker/easier... so many things)- and then learn tricks and techniques to make sure our song gets put in the right placement (that will in turn make it sound better).
- 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. All the wiggling that we do in warm ups, and crazy things we do while we sing are muy importante because they force our bodies and our throats to relax while we're singing.
When singing by yourself - try to roll your head to the front and bop your shoulders up and down the whole song. After a while, your vocal chords will be used to hitting all the notes the correct way and without tension that you'll be able to remove the movement and replace it with performance techniques or playing instruments.
Some of the motions that we did in our lesson will be the ones that will remind you to do very specific things (a lot of forward arm movement). KEEP DOING THIS. Some of the motions are to distract you so that you can't squeeze your vocal chords when hitting exceptionally high or low notes in your 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 you have.
- New placements : a new placement with our voice is an interesting thing. With our first few lessons we're trying to get you to feel your voice in a different way. We do this not only for sound quality and vocal technique but also for safety of your chords.
The first placement we introduce is singing like we talk. While your brain is figuring out how this feels with your voice - we break it down in ways that are easy to do. We call this "talk it out".
You'll hear me talking throughout your videos, as I remind you in real time of the different things to focus on in your song.
Now that you know what to expect - Here is your first lesson break down!
This week:
- We introduced vocalizing.
- We vocalized on: humming, lip buzz, me-me, be-be, yah-yah, oh-ah
- We introduced our new placement: singing like we talk, and started moving your voice to a more "forward" place.
Things to remember:
- Smile!! It brings your voice forward!
- Sing through your teeth!
- Sing like we talk!
- Take out all the style because your voice only knows how to do it in a "backward" placement. Hit the wall with the placement - making it all the way extreme at the beginning. Once you know how this feels we can add in different things. Make sure this placement becomes your baseline.
** the internet is straight broken. Until it un-breaks -- your videos are a combo of videos and links/don't look pretty. I'm sorry. I wish i could control the universe. It would make this SO much easier. ugh.