Reading List

I just love reading Benny Meza’s posts. The guy has been with Brett Manning for a long time and knows a lot. I still haven’t taken any lessons with him but wish to one day. Here are some recent gems.

20 terrible singing habits

Weak High Notes

Light Mix

Sound

Smooth singing

What I’m working on right now is learning to sing smoothly. so many times using the vocal exercise tracks in the car I’ve developed a very staccato habit that permeates all my singing. ugh. I was advised by Chase to practice the exercises in a slide for a while to smooth things out. Around this time is when I saw Benny’s blog post. Pretty cool. The struggle continues, but I think I’m getting better.

Got my oldest into Suzuki piano lessons. There was some required reading and parent training. Loving it so far! I’m dusting off my old piano proficiency and learning awesome new techniques to make my playing better as well as effective teaching techniques. They start off learning Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with some variations. But the focus is on proper technique in staccato and legato notes. I never realized that excellent pianists actually make their relaxed hands dance, not just hit notes. In my crash course parent training I found that my right hand remembers playing classical guitar and thus wants to hit the keys with the nail area. Not good! If you’re wondering why the parent training involves teaching the parent the basics of the technique it’s because the parent is expected to practice every day with the student and non verbally correct posture, technique, and even model the correct things. These books are great! I found a lot I could apply to myself as far as getting the job done of practicing every day you eat something, which is what Suzuki himself admonished.

Brett’s post on Patience

As always I find inspiration from Brett Manning. I am still struggling to carve out time in the week for myself, but at last my baby is getting strong enough to play with big brother and they entertain each other now. Sadly I find that I have definitely lost vocal endurance and power from being unable to workout in the car. Sleeping and/or screaming kids have thus far prevailed. I used to do two technique discs twice a week while commuting and the Mastery disc was a piece of cake except for the thinning and zipping for whistle voice which totally eluded me until the new high voice program he released. Fixed a lot of my problems actually. I need to start again at the beginning and run through 360 then Mastering mix with the Vibrato program sprinkled in for those quick runs I was so close to mastering a few years back right before the first kid. Also to sing on Smule a whole lot more!! These are my goals. Im barely getting in a warmup a few times a week now, occasionally a mix workout. I have picked Carrie Underwood’s How Great Thou Art to conquer. Let’s goooo!