Whirlywind

The days are just flying by!

I sang in the first Opera Project Wing performance last week. I sang two songs – Nel cor piu non mi sento and Voi che sapete. I did ok, but would you believe I actually FORGOT THE WORDS at one point? I fudged it and no one seemed to notice. People who know Voi che sapete will know where I made up a word. Hey at least the vowel was the same. And a few people actually approached me afterwards to compliment my voice and say how much they liked my performance. That was nice! I'm always so surprised when that happens. All I hear are mistakes, so I always assume that people are just being nice. But I also know they wouldn't approach me and say that just to be nice. So it's pretty cool!

The voice lesson following that recital I was lucky enough to have two teachers at once. Sometimes they talked about me like I wasn’t there. I was fine with that. I learned a lot about breath and legato line and how to really incorporate the two. Like my voice teacher says, sometimes you just need a different person to explain the concept to you a different way in order for you to get it. So I’ll see her today for a lesson, then I’ll be seeing the other teacher later in the week.

Then… on Friday. FINALLY! L’Elisir D’amore at the Met!! Juan Diego Florez. Ahhhh. And then on Sunday, another recital, where I plan to tackle Ombra mai fu. Then I'll write all about both adventures, hopefully while they're still both fresh in my mind.

What to Sing IF I Sing

I have a bunch of upcoming events. Maybe.

1. There's the voice evaluation for the music school in mid-May.
2. There's possibly an Opera Project recital near the end of May. Well there's definitely an OP recital but they're not sure they have room for arias this time around - more on that later.
3. There's the recital my teacher puts on of her students.
   

I'll need two songs for the evaluation, two for the student recital and one for OP if I can sing with them next month. Overlap is allowed of course.

I have three songs that I'm shuffling around for the events, plus another I can toss in for the eval.

1. Art is Calling for Me
2. Nel Cor and
   
3. I've pulled Vedrai Carino out of the closet of my brain.

So here's how I've got it mapped out.... for now.

1. Voice eval: Batti Batti and Nel Cor (or Art is Calling?)
2. OP if I get in: Either Nel Cor or Vedrai Carino
3. Student Recital: Art is Calling for Me and Nel Cor
   

The voice eval is a few days before the OP event. Shouldn't I sing there what I'd sing for the event? I'd certainly know by then if I'll be in. I'll find out next week. As of now they're doing tons of Wagner, the Lucia sextet and then some duets. I so want to do a duet! They told me they'd find someone for me for a duet so I'll talk to my teacher about what I could do. I'm stuck on Zerlina now and would love to do La ci darem la mano. But as usual, I need a baritone. I guess if I could possibly do it I'd just have to learn my part and ask them if anyone wants to do it with me. I feel so green about this stuff. But as usual I digress. As of now the program is full, although the fact that whatever I'd sing would be very short, like 2 minutes, is a plus.

So the plan for tomorrow's voice lesson is, I'm going to sing the three pieces for my teacher and then we'll decide together which one(s) I can get into shape to perform. I like having a plan.

Vocal Frying

Vocal frying? Kind of sounds like what happens if you sing too much, too loudly and for too long. And perhaps it is. Perhaps my voice teacher made up the term? Then again, maybe not, since I just did a google search on it and came up with all sorts of relevant results. So I thought, ok, I have to trust my teacher and do what she says, as she had me creeeeaaakkk my voice on an eeeeeee before doing a certain vocal run from middle C and up 5 notes. We had been going up and down that range and I couldn't seem to get rid of some sort of breathiness thing that was happening, even with a glottal stop. A glottal stop is that little clickish sort of thing you can do in your throat. You can make it audible or do it silently. I do it to prevent an H sound at the beginning of certain vowels on certain notes. So anyway she figured that my breathiness had something to do with my vocal folds, and yes I just typed that because I've always wanted to mention vocal folds, especially my own, because I'm like that. So she thought maybe for some reason I wasn't closing them all the way, hence the breathiness, and since the glottal stop wasn't working, she had me do what she called a vocal fry. Imagine what a zombie would sound like. Creaaaaak. Make the sound in your throat. Not voiced. Just a creaky spooky sound. Like let the smallest amount of air through, enough to make a creepy noise. Go ahead. Do it for about 3 seconds. Then find the note and go right into the exercise. 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1.

Not sure if it worked because every time I tried to do it I dissolved into laughter. But you all know I'll be frying in the car all week.

The other fun part of the lesson was us trying to fit two different versions of Nel cor piu non mi sento together, only they're written in different keys. I have one version from an iPhone app that's lower than the one in the book. However it has some nice ornamentation and we were trying to pick and choose which ornamentation to use. Then she was transcribing it to the other key and seeing what fit where, and writing the new notes on the music. And she said the song was easier than the other music I've been learning... so of course I had to go and find a way to complicate it. Further complications, which also explain some of my pronunciation and lyric mix-ups, is that every version of the song has slightly different words. Some have the same words but in a different order. So we're going to stick with the lyrics from the latest book because they're allegedly the most authentic. I just need to forget all the others... while at the same time I pull some of the ornamentation over. Without the words. Since they're slightly different. Arrrrghhh my brain is frying too!

Still My Own Worst Critic

At my voice lesson this week my teacher insisted that I did a fine job. She said that we are our own worst critics... yep I've heard that before!! She also pointed out that I know what I can do in her studio or at home, and even if I didn't believe that my performance at the recital was as good as I believe I could be, the audience doesn't know it, and on its own, comparing it to nothing, I was fine. We talked about the unexpected things that can happen during a live performance, for example, expecting a chord and getting a note. That wasn't such a big deal for me, but it was an example. We talked about what was going through my mind and about how the more you do it, the more you learn... yeah yeah. I know. It was part counseling/cheerleader session, part voice lesson.

We worked a little on Art is Calling for Me, and then we're going to choose the next thing to work on. I want to sing Nel cor piu non mi sento. Since I'll be seeing Eglise as Lucia on Thursday, here she is to show us how it should be sung. And then I won't listen to it again until after I've learned it...



My teacher has another German lieder piece she'd like me to look at. Then eventually we'll go back to Gretchen, after she rests in the back of my brain for a while. That was a good tactic with Una Donna and Batti Batti, so hopefully Gretchen will work the same way. Or my brain will work the same way. Or something.

Day after tomorrow we head to sunny Florida and Thursday is Lucia di Lammermoor with Florida Grand Opera. There has been so much other stuff going on that I keep forgetting first about the trip and then second that we're going to the opera this week. Once I show up for the flight and then at the theater I imagine my brain will catch up with my body.