French Psychotherapy

Since I missed Thursday's voice lesson due to my foray into the city, I had a make-up lesson this afternoon.

We pulled Apres un Reve out from where it had been resting these past few months. Once again, letting it simmer has allowed me to improve a heck of a lot, except when it comes to the pronunciation. Dang French pronunciation. I took all the way through 300 level French in college. None of that matters when it comes to singing. Why is singing French different from spoken French? What is UP with that? And no matter how hard I try, I just keep forgetting to make the kissy lips to get the vowels right. So my homework is to redo the IPA right into my songbook. We'll work on this during one more lesson before moving on.

The plan: One new English song, and then... German. My teacher specializes in German Lieder. I swear it's true. Totally unrelated to, well, you know. So who knows what she'll pick out to work on. I know nothing. I know opera - I know some Mozart. But I doubt we'll jump right in, as much as I'd love to sing me some Pamina.

Of course we spent a minute or two talking about La Sonnambula. She is officially in love with Juan Diego Florez. I have been telling her about him for two years but I guess she just had to see him in the flesh before succumbing.

Random Ramblings Ending With Earrings

I came here thinking I should write about my voice lesson. The hope/idea is that once I start typing a wonderfully clever and insightful post will magically appear.

So let's see.

It was a pretty mundane lesson. Not bad, not earth-shattering. Went over a few bits and tricksy parts of Ouvre Ton Coeur. My teacher was once again all gushy about how much I've improved. She even drew BOTH a smiley face AND a star on my music. But grrrr that French. What is UP with that pronunciation? Apparently I'm not making my lips kissy enough. Who knew. Maybe I need some kissing practice. *smooch!* There I just kissed all my readers. I hope no one has a cold.

So we decided to put Ouvre back in the folder and revisit Apres un Reve next week, and then... yes... something new!!! Of course next week I won't have my voice lesson on Thursday evening because I'll be in New York City watching Nathan Gunn in Firebrand of Florence. And, you know, maybe saying hi, getting a new photo. You know, for the blog. We're still at the "I'll see what I can do" phase of the adventure. Who is seeing what who can do? Well that part I'm not at liberty to say. Can't give away all my secrets! But the word is, someone is seeing, uh, what can be done. By that someone. Got it?

Dang so if this pans out and I do end up backstage, I can't go empty handed. Same old dilemma. What to bring? CD of some live performance? Been there, done that. Gift CD from Alex? Done. Ya know, if he wore dangling earrings this would be so much easier. Maybe I'll throw a few gifty pairs in my bag, just in case. You never know who you might need to give a gift to. Oh I should post pictures of some of my recent creations! Let's see...

I made these today:





And here are some others I recently made:







So the plan is to sell enough to finance my opera habit. Of course I don't have a shop, or a craft fair, or any other regular place to sell them. I do, however, have a group on Facebook called "Earrings for Sale." If you're on Facebook and you like what you see, join the group to see the rest! And shop, shop, shop! This operamummy is running out of operamoney!

No Lazy Lips!

Voice lesson today. I didn't feel like I was in as good a voice as I was last week, but we worked on technique and I was able to get that sound. Went over Apres Un Reve again, this time with the accompaniment. Some of that French pronunciation is driving me nutso. Really just the "u" sound in "tu, nu, vu" and so on. You have to say an EEEE sound while forming an OOOO with your mouth. What was it my teacher kept saying... oh yeah, "French is not a lazy-lipped language." I'm practicing, I'll get it.

The more I learn this song, the prettier I think it is. At first I wasn't in love with it, but now I can really throw myself into it. Although there's one part that's so hokey dramatic that it makes me laugh. The translation is something like, "you call my name, I leave the earth to flee with you into the light" and it makes me think of the movie Poltergeist when the little old lady medium chick is like, "Go into the liggghhttt.... DON'T go into the liiiiggghhttt......" Wow just fried my brain looking for those clips. Must stop now.

Oh wait one more thing. I printed out my entries about the spheres from last week and gave them to my teacher at the end of the lesson. I wonder what she'll say. No doubt she'll make fun of me. Actually I'm kind of counting on it.

Oh wait one more more thing. Just bought one of John Osborn's new CDs, this one. Actually I bought two so I could give one to my mother. They had some deal, one was $20 but you could get two for $24 so I figured, why not?

Coming Along

Voice lesson tonight. Was pretty good. Did some new vocal exercises and will work on them. I think the recorder was running at the time... I'm getting better at keeping the voice in the upper register as the notes get lower, when really I want to jump off that shelf into a heavier sound. It feels like a shelf to me, inside. It feels like it's in my throat, but perhaps it's in my head. Or it's in both. Argh it's hard to explain.

Went over the IPA and pronunciation of Apres un Reve, then the rhythm of the words, and then fit the singing in. Have not even thought about trying it with the pre-recorded accompaniment. There is one bit in the middle where I get muddled. I get unsure of the pronunciation, which in turn throws me off the rhythm. And truthfully, the IPA doesn't help that much because it's like another language I have to learn. So I end up making up my own phonetic spellings of the words that mix me up. But as I said before, I'm learning it all faster than I did when I first started studying voice a year ago, all these layers. Pronunciation, rhythm, notes, legato, vibrato, crescendos and decrescendos, meaning and emotion, open mouth, relaxed everything. Little by little, layer by layer.

Here's a version I found on YouTube, I think it's different from the last one I posted. Different singer, same pitch as what I'm doing. The previous one was higher by a step I think. Truthfully I don't remember. This one does go down kind of low, now that I listen again. Well here it is anyway.

Take it All Off

Had my voice lesson yesterday. It was good. I mean, nothing earth-shattering. We did some exercises to work on the break in my range. I think if it almost like a shelf. I'm singing, singing, down, down and then I hit the shelf and both the sound and the internal feeling change. So I'm working on staying on the upper shelf for the lower notes - it's hard! I think I might have written about this last week too. At one point in the lesson, pretty early on actually, I was feeling all out of sorts and uncomfortable in my own skin. Ok, the truth is, I just wanted to take all my clothes off. Not in any suggestive sense, but just to not have ANYTHING touching me. It was not unlike when I was in labor with Alex. I chose to have an unmedicated delivery. Part of the natural progression of labor is a point called transition, when the cervix (sorry if too graphic) opens the final few centimeters before it's time to push the baby out. Transition is the most difficult part - contractions one on top of the other, no break, painful beyond description. Luckily it only lasts 5-10 minutes. The longest 5-10 minutes of my life. But I digress, as usual. So when I was in transition, I wanted NOTHING touching me. Nothing. I threw off my clothes (trust me, you don't care who sees what at that point) and I made the nurse take off the straps that were holding the heart rate and contraction monitors. So thankfully I wasn't in any physical pain yesterday, but the idea of wanting nothing touching me was very similar. Sadly, I had to remain clothed, so I compromised and took off all my jewelry. Which sounds like I wear alot... I don't... but it all came off.

We also went over Apres un Reve. The accompaniment has absolutely no correlation to the melody. It'll be an interesting exercise. I have to get the melody firmly entrenched so I can sing along with the accompaniment. I see it as a challenge.

So. That post went off in a direction I didn't expect. But there it is.

Cat pic time, it being Friday and all.


Diego in the bathroom sink.

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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????