Thoughts on Singing (and the original title somehow vanished!)

Had my voice lesson yesterday. Worked on going up and down without hearing a break. It takes some concentration when the notes get lower. But once I sort of figured out how to do it, it got easier. Well duh of course that makes sense for anything. Went over a few parts of Vedrai Carino that I had questions about - the timing of one part, the progression of notes in another, then we went back to French. Tried Ouvre Ton Coeur in a lower key, from the mezzo book. It felt really comfortable there so I'll probably stick with it. Now that doesn't mean I'm a mezzo (darn!), but my teacher said that singers do that quite often - they're just more comfortable with certain songs in a different key. We also worked on me not being influenced by the background music. It's got quite a beat, for lack of any other way to describe it. But the singing is fluid, so I have to ignore that beat and keep the singing part smooth. Here, like this:



Hear that piano? On the accompaniment CD it's very sharp and staccato. I have to ignore that and sing smoothly. It's a nice contrast. The CD is also very very fast. I feel like I'm running a race sometimes.

My homework is to learn the words, translate and IPA a new one in French - Apres un Reve.



Sometimes the first time I hear a song I'm going to learn, I don't like it. I don't necessarily dislike it, but I'm not always instantly crazy about it. But then, once I get into it, pick it apart and learn it bit by bit I really do fall in love with it. Or maybe I just get used to it????