5/17/2012
      Oh, I love the days when you realize you're stuck and not going anywhere. (note the sarcasm)
Yesterday I had my voice class and the teacher started teaching me how to breathe correctly. I felt confident, that I would impress him with how much I already knew. Instead, I surprised myself in how little I know.
I've been taking voice since I was 14 years old. My first voice teacher taught me to breath low (how I understood it) and to support by using muscles in the lower abdomen, tightening them. I later had another voice teacher who explained to me that I was taught wrong (or just misunderstood). She told me that I had to breathe low, but NOT to tighten muscles in the lower abdomen. Later I came to College. Here, I was taught to tighten the muscles in the lower abdomen by a student teacher, and by a professor, I was taught to use those muscles but not to tense up. Then another semester, I was taught NOT to have tense muscles. I was told to USE my muscles in the lower abdomen, and to breathe so that I expand the ribcage and hold it there. Now, I'm being taught that I SHOULDN'T expand the ribcage, and to put tension on the muscles down below. I'M SO CONFUSED!!!! 5 times, I've been taught how to breathe! And they were all different! I was so overwhelmed, I had a "meltdown" in the Snow building. I sat in the Hallway and cried while on the phone with my mom, about how I have been in voice all these years, and I still have yet to learn the CORRECT way to breathe! Is NO ONE going to teach me a correct way that OTHERS can agree with??? I don't know. Yesterday was just not my day. I almost lost it in Orchestra and started crying. I've been practicing what my new voice teacher taught me, anyway. There is nothing I can do...well, I guess I could drop the class and spare myself the confusion, but that would be STILL sitting in the mud, not moving just stuck. Maybe things will make sense later on. I thought going to college, meant getting a FINAL answer, not a whole bunch of contrasting techniques. :/ ??????
--Whit