Journaling example

Folks, part of your lesson grade each week is assessment of your work in the studio. Some of you have been asked to summarize your lesson; others have been asked to journal on what's happening in the practice room.

Kristin has given me permission to share her journal, since I thought it was very thorough and included many astute observations. It was also long enough to be worthwhile. Here it is:

- during the tongue exercises I am nodding my head as the notes go as well as releasing much more air than I need to so that by the end i seem to be running out of air and almost pushing too hard by the end of the phrase

- i need to watch myself in the mirror more because I can see the neck tensing when doing most warm-ups

- the hand on my neck during the lip trill took away some of the tensing and also kept my posture up a bit more so the whole exercise looked easier for me

- lifting my eyebrows in the zu-i exercise makes it look a bit more strained and like I’m trying and stretching much more than I should be for the high notes

- the breathing seems to stay pretty supported as long as i keep my hand there so that i stay aware of retaining the breath

- after using the sighs the sound focused a bit more and I seemed to not look so strained as i try for the high notes. my face also starts to relax a bit more and now look so tensed

- I’m still struggling with letting go and letting the pitches ring and be looser

-palpating by tapping on my neck seems to help me let and the entire phrase changed and become much more evenly vibrant

- the higher i went i still had a tendency to add  some h’s in between the pitch’s during the “i love to sing” exercise

(Not on video, but notes from my music for “Il mio bel foco”)

- I need to work on singing through the l’s and m’s more on the quella fiamma parts

- watch the double consonants on mac-cende and other words

- work on the pronunciation of “piace tanto all’alma mia” and make sure all the l’s are present and the tan is correct

- watch for the 16th notes where I hadn’t been 100% on some of the pitches

- 14x through “no vo-le-er giam-mai po-tra” making sure to get the rhythm right

- 14x through the “se-stin-gue-ra” with all the 16th notes

For those of you who are not journaling, you are only hurting yourself. For those who are doing a lot less than Kristin, it's time to step it up! She has set the bar.