Pre-Florida Post

Raise your hand if you sing in the car. Your hand is up, right? Because everyone sings in the car, or has sung in the car at some point.

Sometimes I sing vocalises in the car. I practice the patterns I learned in my voice lesson, make up patterns, go up and down the scale and so on. Sometimes I do that to warm up on my way to my lessons. Other times I warm up by singing along to pop music in that lower vocal range. But this post isn't about preparing for my lessons.

My teacher teases me when I say I want to sing Pamina or when I joke that I want to sing Lucia. She says I'm not ready to go there yet. That said, I've been avoiding singing those roles for fun, and by fun I mean, in the car. That's because when I'm learning a song I avoid singing along with the accompaniment or with a professionally recorded version because I want to learn it fresh and make it mine. But... I'm not learning Pamina or Lucia. I used to sing along for fun. Why shouldn't I sing along now? I don't strain on the high notes - I either skip them or sing an octave lower. I have fun. Why not sing Caro Nome and see how pretty I can make it? Am I teaching myself bad habits when I do that? Or the Doll Song. It's so much fun to sing. Now that I'm studying voice, does that mean I shouldn't sing something that I can't sing "for real" ? I do practice technique when I sing these pieces, even though I'm not actually studying them. So I still don't know.

Just to change things up, this morning I was listening to Phish on my way to work. It was Hoist, which has a lot of female backup vocal, so instead of singing along with Trey I decided to focus solely upon the backup. My conclusion: It's not easy to sing the word "stop" that many times in a row in Down with Disease.

On a final note, a new blog for the blogroll: The Vintage Maven. This is someone I know from the early 90s. She built up a stall in a flea market into a full blown shop and also just released a book about vintage accessories. No doubt she'll be a great resource for opera fashion!