Pacing Today we worked on the national anthem! Ella began the lesson by saying she wanted to "try" the song to "see if she could do it". Ya right Ella. You can do anything. We started with picking a starting note on the piano to find a consistent note that Ella will start on every time she sings the national anthem. (She will find this note on a pitch pipe) Having a consistent starting note will help Ella be consistently confident with the notes in the song as she will be able to prepare for exactly what she's singing - instead of guessing each time. We then moved to pacing. Because Ella will sing this a cappella, it's easy to have inconsistent rhythms throughout the song - or to get off beat because there is no track in the background. It's also easy to go too slow. Because of this, we worked on her "performance ritual" or what she will do before she sings this song every time. Her performance includes blowing in her pitch pipe, humming, "oh"-ing her note, and counting to three with the rhythm and timing she will maintain throughout her song. Our goal is to start and finish our song in around 1:25-1:30. Finally, we worked on placement, her high belt, and making sure that Ella felt comfortable hitting her high notes with power! We worked on aiming every note forward - especially her lowest notes so that they didn't mute or fall back into her throat. She did AWESOME!!!