Almost midterms, hanging on!

 This post is going to include the 5th and 6th week because I only received one lesson a week for these two weeks.

I received my voice lesson on the 5th week and then my guitar lesson on the 6th, so this post will conclude everything encompassed within the last lessons.

With midterms coming up, I feel like the semester is barreling over me and I am barely hanging on. The music lessons feel like an escape and a burden at the same time. I feel that I have no time to practice and that I am getting no where in my lessons. I believe that I only think this until my lessons.

The entire week I feel like I am being dragged through everything until my lessons. I do not want to go because I feel like it will just be another class, but I walk into the lesson and it goes so much better than I anticipate. I believe that with all the classes and midterms coming up that I am just feeling overwhelmed and not allowing myself to relax with the music lessons like I would want. 

This week’s lesson we continued to work on Les Mis - In My Life. We started the lesson as usual with warmups before running through the song before the pianist comes in.

I walked into the lesson feelings vocally weak. I felt that my sounds was really weak and not audiable like it normally is. I felt that my sound was soft and not projecting. My vocal professor asked me to sing during warmups and halfway through, she would ask me to simply sing instead of thinking about what I should sound like. I simply had to get out of my mind and then she asked how that felt. I said it felt better but I still felt weak. She continued to talk to me saying that my sounds is great and travels well but that I am not use to using my voice in this way. I need to quit listening to myself because I sound great.

We would finish warming up when my pianist would come in to play along with me as I sang. My vocal professor allowed me to record the song so i could use it whenever I practice and then I would slowly sing along with the piano. My professor said she would sing along with me, I guess she caught on to my nerves. I would sing through the song before going back to fix a few rythums and notes to be on pitch. 

After singing all the way through, my vocal coach would ask me to stay in front of the mirror that she has in her office. So I would go stand in front of the mirror, moving away from the sheet music, and she would ask me to tighten my core and not allow myself to collapse. She would put her hand on my ribcage and tell me to stand straight while not letting her hands collapse inward. I would find myseld standing straight more and all of a sudden, my voice was huge! 

I could hear myself so clearly and my voice had this vibrato or shake to it like most people do in classical music. I felt like I was supported and let myself truely have a big sound.

My professor would clap and tell me to sing it just like that! This was what my sound was just supporting myself by tightening my ribcage. Sining is suppose to be tiring and it is suppose to be work, that's the point. I felt like I could truly sing for the first time. I was supported emotional and physically for the first time in a long time. I walked out of that lesson wanting to sing now more than ever. 

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This week for guitar, I really focused on being able to trust myself when moving across the strings and strumming. I really wanted to impress my professor and really be able to get as far as I could for my next lesson. I would really focus on chords with my left hand but I found myself getting bored doing the same exercises over and over again. 

I walked into my lesson and he would ask what I have been working on and what I want to touch on today. I pulled out my guitar and I would show him the chords and strumming that I have been working on. I would only slightly struggle between switching chords as I continue to strum, for I would get through the entire song only messing up a few times. He would say that it was good and that we are almost done with "Brown Eyes Girl". 

He would ask me to try a few new exercises that consisted of doing all the chords needed but in different orders. Because I have only been practicing these chords in the order of the song, I could more easily move through chords if I just practiced them as chords instead of fixing them to a single song. 

He would also just ask me to touch the strings that would make up the chord I want to play instead of pressing down and actually playing them. I would simply just move my fingers across the strings and no pressing down or strumming just do I can understand why to move my fingers more carefully. He would finally ask me to him my strum pattern again, and we worked on what specific strings I need to strum with what chords.

I would find myself playing quiet a lot but in the middle of the lesson, my professor would just ask me to allow my hand to rest at my side because I was allowing myself to become tight. I was tightening everything in my hand and arm and stopping myself from playing to my best ability. 

The main lesson of this session was allowing myself to feel the song within the guitar and its strings and therefore being able to trust myself with accurately playing our song. I was also tasked with thinking of a few other songs we could look into playing next week!