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.