I need to begin this breakdown by saying WOW!
This week was INCREDIBLE for Ella!!!! wow.
ok. So. This week we did so many wonderful things!!! We kept working on our new belt placement and moved our low notes even more forward.
Belt:
This week we started out our lesson with a couple phrases that Ella dreads more than anything: "sing it less"..."hit the wall"... and "i don't want you to try and make it sound good" (you can picture Ella cringing at this point). To put Ella's voice in the place she needed it to be for our high belt placement - or to do any sort of Adele song, or song with really high powerful notes in it - we had to start from an even more stripped down place than we did last week. We had to start from a place that wouldn't allow any sort of muffled sound come out without Ella feeling it in a big way so that she could feel the difference and not just hear it in her before/after videos. This would allow her to change it as she sings (and when she sings by herself) instead of feeling like it's a hit or miss thing.
In order to do this we started - even in Ella's warm up - with extremely talked sounds and words. From there - she could only lengthen the sound --not change it. (So she could only say hello longer instead of moving to try and sing it).
By repeating these talked words and sounds various ways, we got Ella's voice used to the sound and feeling of being so forward and conversational that she could add things on top of it.
From here - we established check points, or places Ella had to make sure to move through on her way to a different sound. Our main check point was the extreme talking place or "hitting the wall" at the beginning of each word she wanted to belt.
We then did the same thing with our whisper texturized words in the middle of the chorus. We worked hard on the transitions between full belt and light whispering so that they wouldn't sound like yodeling but like they were on purpose.
Low notes:
We also worked on staying in our forward placement in our verses and singing through our teeth.