Chesty Voice

Yeah. I know. The title of this post is going to pull in all sorts of strange google searches. But I couldn't resist. After all, my voice lesson yesterday was about chest voice and head voice and blending the two. I almost feel like I'm going back to how I sang before I started voice, but that's not true. Some of the physical element is the same, but before, it was all in my throat. I didn't know proper breathing, so I was forcing the air out pretty high up. So now going below the break in my voice puts the sound into a similar type of range as before, but I (try to) use proper breathing technique. And keeping the breath low produces a much nicer sound. Then we did a little blending - not much yet. I've been focused for so long on keeping my voice above that "shelf" as I sing the lower notes, and then it would switch on its own to chest voice. So now I'm learning to control the switch to make the transition smoother. I like it. I love it, actually. I love learning another layer, and to me this layer is much more tangible than some of the others. I mean, literally, it's tangible. I can feel it in my body. As I practice it'll start to feel natural, but for now I'm focused on it so of course I'm aware.

We also did the next two pages of Gretchen - IPA, pronunciation, rhythm, more pronunciation of course and singing. Oh and more pronunciation.

I told my teacher about the potential thing this weekend. And do I need to get a clean copy of the music? If I do sing, I'll do Una Donna, but my copies are all pencil marked. She said that for something casual like this I probably don't need to. I'm thinking, I can probably buy the sheet music online, download it and print it for $5, so I might as well get myself a clean copy.

On my way into the building I ran into Alex's music teacher. She was there setting up. She has been fabulous at modifying her teaching style to fit with his special needs. She has been in touch with the case manager of his school's child study team and she'll be visiting his class to see how he is in a larger group, although I'm pretty sure that the music class will be small again, like 4 or 5 kids. Alex is very excited that she's coming to visit. I asked if he likes her and he said he DOUBLE likes her. Love that!