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!

Practice Drive

I know you're supposed to only practice when you do nothing but practice. I know. And I know you're supposed to make the time in your day to do so. But too bad. I can't always do that, and I'm not a professional, so I have to bend these "rules" to fit my lifestyle.

I sing in the car all the time, and yes, I practice there too. To me, the difference between practicing and singing is, when I sing I just sing, but when I practice I focus on incorporating or improving particular aspects of singing.

Today on my way to work it was all about the breath.

A few weeks ago I made a CD of the piano accompaniment of the songs I've learned so far. Some of these are from when I first started my lessons. So today I was going through the CD and singing some of the early songs while focusing on my breath. Or more accurately, on the support. Like in that Pearl Fishers video, I was actively pushing out my abs and then pulling them in in a controlled manner for each measure of the particular song I was singing. Controlled being the important word in that sentence... I'm getting much better at controlling it so I can hit the higher notes without sounding like I'm blurting them out. And one thing about sitting to do this is that I can really focus on the abs while the seat supports the rest of me. I mean, I relax into the seat and really concentrate on what my belly is doing while I'm singing. Or should I say, what I'm doing with it. And when I'm really controlling the outgoing air, I'm then able to focus on relaxing my throat to really open it up. Bit by bit, little by little, I feel the layers adding up.

And one other positive aspect is, it makes the commute (ok it's just 10-15 minutes) fly by!

Did You Ever Wonder?

Did you ever wonder what opera singers do when they're not studying music, rehearsing or performing? Obviously it's this:



The huge problem here is that it's somehow too wide for the blog page - so I insist that everyone who sees this click over to YouTube and see it there for the full effect. Seriously. You have to see the translations and the singing driver. Promise? Ok, good. Now go.