Brianna Skeen-Smith- Chapters 1-3

 Summary

-Chapters 1-3 focus on Smith's overall philosophy when it comes to singing. His approach is that in order to truly solve one's problems in singing, it would help to have a wholistic remedy that focuses on the source of the problem rather than the symptoms. Smith uses the difference between traditional medicine that focuses on prescriptions, and wholistic medicine that typically suggests things like exercice, diet, and meditation to solve relieve symptoms and promote overall good health so as to prevent additional illnesses. He looks at singing in very much the same way by establishing good and natural techniques that go for the root of the tension or problems instead of providing a temporary solution to the tension. With that he goes on to elaborate on how phonating is a very natural sound and talks about how babies learn to speak. They start by making sounds and then, through the encouragement of adults those sounds are then oraganized into words and sentences and so on. He also talks about how breathing is the very essence of life and is also a very natrual occurance. We do not have to think much about our breath or our vocal folds to phonate to communicate with others on a daily basis. And while in order to sing it does take an extra awareness of our breath and how we phonate the desired freeness can only come by singing as natrually as we speak. 

Application

-I agree with Smith on the sense that singing should feel as natural as speaking and that through practice on proper technique one shouldn't have to think about breath or phonating in order to produce a natural and free sound that is free of tension. I really enjoyed his analogy of the "trip" when it comes to singing. It takes a lot of thoughtful planning and preperation to take a successful trip. It takes research and budgeting, and travel time awareness and knoweledge of the sites of where you are going and what you want to experience while there. Just like in singing it takes thought as to the language, what vowel you are singing where, how you are going to hit that high note without tension and so on. However, once you are on the trip, and once you are performing the song, you need to just let go of all the plans and trust your preperation to just throuoghly enjoy the trip and the song and story you are presenting.