Today I had my singing lesson with B. I wasn’t feeling well at all and I had been to the doctors for the majority of the week due to severe stomach pain and nausea. I have been told that I have two infections in my stomach and there is a lump there that they are still trying to figure out what it is. So I went into her lesson in a lot of pain and she could see that so we had a gentle lesson. She made sure that I didn’t push myself so that I could get better quicker.
We did a little warm up to begin with which includes:
- Face Massage
- Scales
- Creak Voice
- Tensing the whole body and then relaxing to see the difference between them both
- Relaxing techniques
For the majority of the lesson she was asking me about the layout of my portfolio and what I have and haven’t got prepared. I brought in the song ‘Heaven help my heart’ from Chess which is one of the songs that she had previously listed to me to learn. I wasn’t very confident in this song and so we went through it enough times to learn the tune and sing the song without the words in front of me. It really helped to spend the time learning the song considering I didn’t have much time all week to look at it because I was so ill.
We then talked about where a bouts my larynx should be when I am singing the song to benefit my voice most. I was originally singing the song really softy which wasn’t moving my larynx at all so the vocal flaps weren’t moving inside my throat and so it wasn’t doing anything for my voice at all.
B then explained to me about how the larynx works which was really helpful and I understood other techniques that I didn’t before.
Here is a diagram of the larynx:
B chose a couple more songs that she would like me to look at before the next lesson with her. Here is the list of songs:
- By the sea – Sweeney Todd (1979) Mezzo Book 1
- I will be loved tonight – I love you, you’re perfect, now change (1996) Mezzo Book 4
- A change in me – Beauty and the Beast (1993) Mezzo Book 3
- Mein Herr – Cabaret (1966) Mezzo Book 3
- Don’t cry out loud – The boy from Oz (1998) Mezzo Book 4
Jess Last - Year 2 Musical Theatre 
Jess, this is good – I like that you have done a little research about the larynx and found a diagram although you haven’t referenced where this came from, which you must do!
You say that this new knowledge helped you understand ‘other techniques that I didn’t before’ but you don’t go onto to say what these are and what you now understand – this is the kind of thing that we are looking for as evidence that you are capable of higher standard thinking.
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