![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuSo last night I had my first voice lesson. I got the strong impression that the teacher is looking forward to working with an adult (most of the students at ANMS are kids) and with someone who has had enough vocal experience (and training from my conductor) that I already understand good posture and breathing, even if I haven't completely internalized what I've been taught.
It is that internalization, of course, that I am hoping to develop by working one-on-one with a teacher who can act as a coach, watching me do it and pointing out flaws in my technique. Based on our first lesson, I think that this is going to work out very well. She has some experience with the Alexander technique, for example, but is not an Alexander partisan; that is merely one set of tools that she can draw upon.
She thinks I may actually be more of a baritone than a low bass; in the warmups she had me hitting G (where I usually think of E, 330Hz, as the top of my range). I've certainly seen this in Zamir, where someone comes in to auditions thinking of themselves as having a particular voice part and we assess them differently. Perhaps, because I'm sometimes lazy with my breath support, I gravitate to the bottom of my range and haven't developed the top enough? We'll see.
One thing that she kept catching me doing, and which I know I've consciously developed while in Zamir, is raising my shoulders and chin. I think this is because I've taken the "marionette" metaphor too literally, and think of the "up" position as helping me keep the pitch from falling. My teacher said that this actually causes stress and pressure on the "false vocal folds" and I need to work on maintaining a more neutral position.
I used my Zoom H4 to record the lesson and the recording is quite clear. I've been consistently quite pleased with this device's ease of use and quality of results.
We'll be starting with a book of basic exercises. The first one has phrases that move primarily by step, the second by thirds, the third by fourths, and so on. The lyrics are Italian, of course, because Italian vowels are pure.
It is that internalization, of course, that I am hoping to develop by working one-on-one with a teacher who can act as a coach, watching me do it and pointing out flaws in my technique. Based on our first lesson, I think that this is going to work out very well. She has some experience with the Alexander technique, for example, but is not an Alexander partisan; that is merely one set of tools that she can draw upon.
She thinks I may actually be more of a baritone than a low bass; in the warmups she had me hitting G (where I usually think of E, 330Hz, as the top of my range). I've certainly seen this in Zamir, where someone comes in to auditions thinking of themselves as having a particular voice part and we assess them differently. Perhaps, because I'm sometimes lazy with my breath support, I gravitate to the bottom of my range and haven't developed the top enough? We'll see.
One thing that she kept catching me doing, and which I know I've consciously developed while in Zamir, is raising my shoulders and chin. I think this is because I've taken the "marionette" metaphor too literally, and think of the "up" position as helping me keep the pitch from falling. My teacher said that this actually causes stress and pressure on the "false vocal folds" and I need to work on maintaining a more neutral position.
I used my Zoom H4 to record the lesson and the recording is quite clear. I've been consistently quite pleased with this device's ease of use and quality of results.
We'll be starting with a book of basic exercises. The first one has phrases that move primarily by step, the second by thirds, the third by fourths, and so on. The lyrics are Italian, of course, because Italian vowels are pure.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
L'shanah tovah!
Date: 2007-09-12 07:02 pm (UTC)Wow, that Zoom thing looks pretty intense. Have a wonderful New Year!