Who Am I?

The comments about the "Which Should I Sing" video both here and on facebook made me realize that one of the reasons I was so slow to incorporate proper breathing was the whole poofed-out stomach issue. On facebook someone said that she avoids any activity that requires her to poof out her stomach any more than it already is. I can relate to that. We (women) spend so much time sucking our abs in to look thin (at least, I do) that it was against my instincts at first to unsuck, or I guess I should say, to poof out, my stomach to get the breathing thing going in order to sing correctly.

Then, of course, there is my personal issue with my weight. Before I had Alex I was down to about 120 pounds. My weight varied between 117 and 122 at that time. I was 122 when I got pregnant, 155 I think at 38 weeks, 137 or so right after I gave birth and down to 125 again at some point in the past couple of years. So how did I gain almost 20 pounds back? Stress, finishing Alex's food off his plate, not finding the time to exercise… yes, yes and yes. So who am I? Am I the Tiny Person from my life Before Child? Or am I the Chunky Middle-Aged Mom? I cringe just writing that. We are bombarded with weight-loss ads everywhere we turn. Gym memberships, magic pills, trademarked diets and miraculous fitness equipment. The message is to lose, lose, lose. I just have to figure out if I'm a Tiny Person stuck in this bigger body, or if I'm a chunky person who used to be thin. Or maybe I just have to forget about those labels and just be happy wherever I am. Yeah, good luck with that…

The next who am I question: Mezzo or Soprano? I know, I know - don't categorize yourself into a voice type. Many people are considered one voice type but sound great singing songs that are categorized in the other. Diana Damrau sings Rosina. Cecilia Bartoli sings Despina. Of course they are the best of the best and can probably sing everything backwards while standing on their heads and it'll still sound beautiful. But this post isn't about them and their wonderfulness. It's about me. It's about how sometimes the soprano stuff is too high and the mezzo stuff is too low. But sometimes I can totally rock the soprano stuff. Sometimes the mezzo stuff sounds pretty good too. But other times I crack all over it because it's in That Range. What is going on? Why can't I be consistent? I know there are, as Alex would say, a hundred-infinity-nine reasons why. But obviously it's possible to overcome a few of those reasons and produce a passable sound, a consistent sound. It's frustrating that I can do it, sometimes, but just not all the time. Professionals do it all the time. Or if not, they're good at faking it.

Am I not practicing enough? I don't want to practice too much. I need to figure out what the right amount of practice time is to help coordinate the layers I've learned so far so they become habit. I need to build my core so that I don't end up with sore abs after singing one aria.

I already use the blog as a tool to help with my vocal identity issues. I'm thinking of using it to report my body issues as well. Not in a way that takes over the spirit of the blog, but as a way of having someone out there to report to each week. I used to do cat-pic Friday. Perhaps now I'll do weigh-in (or measure-in) Friday. There's a thought.

Bonus Features! Pep Talks! Tessitura! And Much Much More!

Great voice lesson tonight!

First we did Despina and I thought I did pretty well! I relaxed into it, became her, didn't fear the high note and just had fun. My teacher was impressed. Then while we were going over a few tiny things with that, two of her colleagues stopped in to help us with the "mezzo or soprano" debate. I sang If Music in soprano, mezzo and soprano again. The verdict: Split! I feel more comfortable with the soprano, my teacher likes the mezzo and the other two were split. One of them took a look at the music for both and saw that there is a possible key in between to transpose the thing to, and THEN she graciously offered to do it! She said she would try to get to it. How cool is that. We all agreed that the missing middle key would be perfect for me. I hope she can do it.

After they left my teacher started telling me the mistakes she wants to fix and I almost felt like she was annoyed. She wasn't, not at all. She kept saying how much I've improved, and how great it is that I actually listen to what she says and fix things between lessons.

I got a chance to tell her about how I often beat myself up and twist complements around. I usually have to scoot out of there for the next student, but the next student didn't show, so we chatted for another half an hour. I told her about my previous blog post, and about the nice comments people have been leaving, and how great it is to have the support of other students who are going through similar things. She understands all my self-doubt and other similar behaviors having done them all herself. We talked about my blogging, and how sharing what I'm going through helps me learn more about myself in a way that allows me to be a better singer. I feel like I have to be honest with myself, plus I have to allow myself to be vulnerable, in order to really put all I have into the music. I put that all here in the blog. Sometimes I forget that people read it! Let's see, we talked about building the voice, and how it takes time, and how I have to RELAX and be patient and relax and did I mention relax? Yeah tell me something I don't already know. She said singers often switch teachers after a few years just to get a new perspective on things. We talked about tessitura, and how some songs are there and some aren't, but we shouldn't just give up - we can build our voice and learn our way through it. Talking about building the voice led me to tell her about Susan Eichorn-Young's fabulous blog, and she said I should really look into trying to get to one of her workshops if I could. A total pep talk, which was just what I needed. And all thanks to the student who didn't show.

For All You Mezzos Out There

Joyce DiDonato has a recent blog entry outlining her take on a bunch of different "trouser" roles. It's pretty interesting - check it out!

Rehearsal Peek and the Voice/Personality Connection

In the rehearsal room, the chorus does their thing:



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During tech rehearsal hell, *YAWN* there's the crew on the stage doing I don't know what. Their thing. And the rest of us doing... nothing. No thing:



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In making these little clips, I made sure not to record the principals. And it's obvious that no matter how great they sound in rehearsal, they're holding it back until the performance.

So all this big deal is made about sopranos being divas. Yeah, maybe the nobody sopranos in the chorus last year... but as far as the principals go, the sopranos so far have been sweet and normal. The tenors, on the other hand, seem to sort of act like little girls.

Baritones, of course, flirt like crazy, even when they're not interested in women. Mezzos are super-friendly (no pun intended but go ahead and think I did it on purpose if you want) because they're tired of always pretending to be boys. Supers are shy and keep to themselves but I'm breaking the stereotype! I am superluminous, watch me glow!

Hmm. That about sums it up.

Diagnosis: WhyCan'tIBeAMezzoItis

Remember a few thousand posts ago I wrote about sending Dunque Io Son to my voice teacher? Well she replied... well actually she tried to reply but it kept bouncing back so she printed out her email and handed it to me. So much for a paperless world... but anyway... she's so funny! She said many sopranos suffer from wanting that mezzo sound. Then without my knowledge she did a test while we were warming up. She increased the speed as the notes got higher and she also brought it down lower than usual. I kept up with her and was so busy keeping up that I didn't think about anything else. I kept up with all the vowel changes and there was no discernible break! Afterwards she said she was testing me to see if I could potentially handle coloratura (or as we fondly call it here and elsewhere, cluckuratura)

Making progress on my "project." More on that later.