3/2/2011 Sarah

Amazingly, Sarah is preparing for an audition as chorus for a local musical theater production.  She's done one production with them already but she's nervous about the audition because it's for a new director.  We are going to have an extra session this week to get her independant on her vocal line.  Aside from that pressure, a very good discussion today.  Practicing an octave glide with her on different vowels, but the same pitches.  I explained that she needed to find a way to differentiate between the color/vibration change that happens because of pitch change and the color change that happens because of vowel change - otherwise she would change the pitch when the word changed.  She understood, but then asked why it wasn't an issue in her speech.  It was a moment of brutal truth.  Her vowels in her speech are almost identical, giving her the characteristic deaf "slur" to her speech.  Her face changed when I told her, and then became strong with determination as I explained that this process would help her speech as well.