We had three two hours of anatomy this week, and I noticed how tiring the traditional frontal teaching format is. Luckily Mick Gleeson presented the material in an interesting and light-hearted way, deepening my knowledge about anatomy in a productive way.
Even today the school routine didn't kick back in, half of the students explored swimming with Penny. Ria and Jenny were our teachers for the performance day, having plenty of time for each of us. I worked with Ria on maintaining my directions while talking to a student, which worked out well in many dimensions.
Not that I don't like having hands on me, but Rias communicative approach improved a bit my self-esteem. And as we both maintained our use, the quality of the conversation, even with many interruption, reached a lot of mutual understanding.
We explored the role of the jaw in sound production as group activity, after exploring each others torso during breathing, monkey and whispered aaah. The more I allow all of the sensory information to come together, the easier it gets to get an idea what's happening in another person.
During the performance session, Ria picked up on my extra breathing when singing. After my first attempt, she used her hands to remind me to inhibit this habit, then she just cued me verbally in time. I was surprised that my performance looked like I was thinking less, as I was acutely aware of the diversity of intentions I was juggling with while singing.
Showing posts with label whispered aaah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whispered aaah. Show all posts
Thursday, February 18
Thursday, November 19
Taming the beast
One peculiar thing about Alexander Technique you cannot 'do' it. Do whatever you like. When you observe yourself in doing, apply the means-whereby while doing, you're using the skills Alexander Technique teaches.
However, having an excellent MacDonald style teacher in the school can look a bit like one can 'do the technique'. Nili's directions are precise and efficient, and we went through a lot of 'traditional' approaches like chair work, table work, hands on the back of a chair, monkey, lunge and finally the whispered aah.
Just watching Nili made it easy to give myself directions and keep myself up, the increased amount of 'uptime' might have led to the bit of discomfort between my shoulder blades. Or maybe just my bad use while taming a beast, namely a biggish tensegrity sphere.
I found in a cheap shop decorative bamboo struts with a nice dark red colour, together with some Sisal garden string. I build a lot of 6-strut symmetrical tensegrities lately, with a variety of connection methods and tension elements, so I started off with 50 cm rods and about 120 cm string. Sawing the grooves with the Dremel becomes more and more routine, although I find myself often crouched over the work piece.
I experimented with tying the strings to the rod, and making loops with knots to slide the ends through. This would save me sawing 60 grooves into the 30 elements, for the prize of 120 knots. A lot of repetitive activity, a great challenge to consider how to do it easiest. I was eager enough to prepare all elements before the assembly, a strategy I changed soon.
Some of the loops were too big, there wasn't enough tension on the strings, and the ends could slide around. The beautiful idea of easy reusability didn't work out. Back to grooves. The next attempt used sisal strings, but as some of it ripped too easy under tension I went back to nylon line.
I cut the strings so that they had nearly no slack - this might work with more elastic strings, but after about 15 struts it became obvious that it rather break than bend into a sphere. As there is no way of lengthening too short strings, the next set of strings needed preparing. To break the monotony of preparing everything at once, I prepared 5 struts at a time (there's six building stages requiring each time 5 struts).
The first two attempts were still too long, and I waited a day without doing anything before I went with the final approach. The water balloons I used to prevent the strings from sliding were easier to attach than the rubber ring wrapping I used most of time. Unfortunately, they came as easily of again.
The youtube video that inspired me in first place shows an assembly within about five minutes. I spend already the third afternoon and still wasn't sure if everything would fall into place. As the waterballoon failed as security, I looped the string once around the strut before using a rubber band wrapper. I must have started building a sphere at least a dozen times, I know now how to connect the elements with maybe referring to one of the models. I wouldn't be surprised to rediscover the build pattern as weaving pattern.
The skewer model gained stability after stage 4, it get itself balanced on five struts as dome. I got fairly confident when I managed to move the model from its gymball 'mould' onto its own feet. The sculpture rolled in elliptical shape on the floor, I leaned with my body against it to attach the remaining struts. I assembled the final five struts as a pentagon, and carefully slid it into the still wobbly dome.
The pentagon needed 10 connections, after attaching half of them I could turn the model around and do the last connections. I even dared to leave them unsecured. The model flattened still a bit, so I removed some of rubber wrappers and looped previously unlooped connections, decreasing the overall string length slightly thus increasing the tension.
I wouldn't roll it downhill now, but it hangs nicely on a single hook on the wall. Tuning was fairly easy, so I might remove the remaining security rubbers for an overall fine tuning. For now, I rather keep it untouched for some time to see whether it tends to undo itself.
However, having an excellent MacDonald style teacher in the school can look a bit like one can 'do the technique'. Nili's directions are precise and efficient, and we went through a lot of 'traditional' approaches like chair work, table work, hands on the back of a chair, monkey, lunge and finally the whispered aah.
Just watching Nili made it easy to give myself directions and keep myself up, the increased amount of 'uptime' might have led to the bit of discomfort between my shoulder blades. Or maybe just my bad use while taming a beast, namely a biggish tensegrity sphere.
I found in a cheap shop decorative bamboo struts with a nice dark red colour, together with some Sisal garden string. I build a lot of 6-strut symmetrical tensegrities lately, with a variety of connection methods and tension elements, so I started off with 50 cm rods and about 120 cm string. Sawing the grooves with the Dremel becomes more and more routine, although I find myself often crouched over the work piece.
I experimented with tying the strings to the rod, and making loops with knots to slide the ends through. This would save me sawing 60 grooves into the 30 elements, for the prize of 120 knots. A lot of repetitive activity, a great challenge to consider how to do it easiest. I was eager enough to prepare all elements before the assembly, a strategy I changed soon.
Some of the loops were too big, there wasn't enough tension on the strings, and the ends could slide around. The beautiful idea of easy reusability didn't work out. Back to grooves. The next attempt used sisal strings, but as some of it ripped too easy under tension I went back to nylon line.
I cut the strings so that they had nearly no slack - this might work with more elastic strings, but after about 15 struts it became obvious that it rather break than bend into a sphere. As there is no way of lengthening too short strings, the next set of strings needed preparing. To break the monotony of preparing everything at once, I prepared 5 struts at a time (there's six building stages requiring each time 5 struts).
The first two attempts were still too long, and I waited a day without doing anything before I went with the final approach. The water balloons I used to prevent the strings from sliding were easier to attach than the rubber ring wrapping I used most of time. Unfortunately, they came as easily of again.
The youtube video that inspired me in first place shows an assembly within about five minutes. I spend already the third afternoon and still wasn't sure if everything would fall into place. As the waterballoon failed as security, I looped the string once around the strut before using a rubber band wrapper. I must have started building a sphere at least a dozen times, I know now how to connect the elements with maybe referring to one of the models. I wouldn't be surprised to rediscover the build pattern as weaving pattern.
The skewer model gained stability after stage 4, it get itself balanced on five struts as dome. I got fairly confident when I managed to move the model from its gymball 'mould' onto its own feet. The sculpture rolled in elliptical shape on the floor, I leaned with my body against it to attach the remaining struts. I assembled the final five struts as a pentagon, and carefully slid it into the still wobbly dome.
The pentagon needed 10 connections, after attaching half of them I could turn the model around and do the last connections. I even dared to leave them unsecured. The model flattened still a bit, so I removed some of rubber wrappers and looped previously unlooped connections, decreasing the overall string length slightly thus increasing the tension.
I wouldn't roll it downhill now, but it hangs nicely on a single hook on the wall. Tuning was fairly easy, so I might remove the remaining security rubbers for an overall fine tuning. For now, I rather keep it untouched for some time to see whether it tends to undo itself.
Thursday, July 17
Performance
I didn't manage to find out how far I managed to improve my use during the turn with David, yet I noticed some of my tendencies/new habits while doing chair work. I guess it's about time to return to meditation, something that helped me to increase my proprioception.
In Jenny's group work we played with the whispered ahhh while lying down. Head movements become much more noticeable, and looking up to the ceiling gave the illusion of privacy.
I liked singing "She brings the rain", though I felt quite nervous during the first attempt. I'm not too sure whether the nervousness caused my gasping before singing, yet directing instead of focussing on not-gasping improved the performance significantly.
In Jenny's group work we played with the whispered ahhh while lying down. Head movements become much more noticeable, and looking up to the ceiling gave the illusion of privacy.
I liked singing "She brings the rain", though I felt quite nervous during the first attempt. I'm not too sure whether the nervousness caused my gasping before singing, yet directing instead of focussing on not-gasping improved the performance significantly.
Thursday, March 20
Brazil
My turn with Penny had some surprising elements, yet she manages to have similar "watery" qualities in her hands even outside the pool. I get further and further away from my idea of standing when doing chair work. I felt quite light after the turn, and enjoyed it while walking around.
We worked a lot with whispered and sounded "aaah", something I neglected a bit myself. Having hands on while Stephen and Jenny did this offered new insights - while I can notice holding easily, doing this activity directed just produces a decent muscular tone and allows the vibrations of sound travel to the back of the body.
While singing about old Brazil I realised the amount of tension I hold around the jaw, I still need to mentally integrate the jaw into the neck. I achieved the best results while dancing with Penny, sometimes an overload of stimuli helps doing less.
We worked a lot with whispered and sounded "aaah", something I neglected a bit myself. Having hands on while Stephen and Jenny did this offered new insights - while I can notice holding easily, doing this activity directed just produces a decent muscular tone and allows the vibrations of sound travel to the back of the body.
While singing about old Brazil I realised the amount of tension I hold around the jaw, I still need to mentally integrate the jaw into the neck. I achieved the best results while dancing with Penny, sometimes an overload of stimuli helps doing less.
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