Cakes and Lessons

Things have been very busy here in the I'd Rather Be Sleeping household.

First of all, Alex turned 6!!!! I still don't believe it myself. Check out the cake - how awesome is that???? And then... one of the toddler guests blew out the candles! Oops. Then I stuck my hand into a burning candle when I try to relight the others... but Alex held it together and waited for his chance to blow them out. It all turned out great in the end AND we had the R2D2 cake!! Artoo! Chocolate!! With chocolate frosting that was then covered with white buttercream frosting, then gray and blue and all the lines and so on. A friend of mine made the cake and then I helped her decorate it.




Here is Alex's first view of the cake:



The other Alex news to report is, he is in the process of being tested for our school district's Gifted and Talented program in music. He passed the first part and had the 2nd part of the testing today. I have no idea how much more testing they do. No one really seemed to know when I asked. But Alex says it's all been so so so so easy. So that's good!! The first part was for pitch. They played two tones and he had to determine if they were the same or different. Today it was for rhythms, same deal.

Then he has his very first recital this coming Sunday! He might play something on the piano, but I doubt it. Hopefully he'll go through with his stand, bow, stand presentation. Here he is practicing during a recent lesson when his teacher came to our house.





I have been getting into the groove with my new teacher. It's hard not to compare teaching styles - she and my previous teacher are very different. The past several months with my prior teacher she had been working on me singing through the low passagio. Now we're all about sound. Rounded, full sound. My first teacher used to stop me to correct diction and pronunciation. My new teacher focuses on... sound. Rounded, full sound. Raised soft palate, keeping on top of the air, keeping my voice on top of the airstream, focusing to a point over my nose, punching the air forward. I keep thinking, "Punch it, Chewie!" to remind myself. (Star Wars on the brain.) For some phrases she tells me not to worry about the words, just focus on getting the sound, the air in the right place, and then we can add the words back in. She recommended I do ab exercises. She has told me not to be afraid - and that I'm going to have to face my very soul (or something like that) in order to reach my goal. It sounds hokey but it made sense in context and still makes sense. It's really the same old story. I have to trust myself, trust my body and let the sound come. She is really good at sensing what I need to do to vary the sound for different vowels. And I really can hear an improvement. Husband says he heard it after the first lesson I had with her this time around. That lesson happened to be just before that vocal evaluation, and it definitely helped.

I record the lessons on my phone and later listen to the lessons without singing along. Then I sing afterwards if I can (like if I'm not at work or if Alex isn't asleep) and I can hear the difference. Just listening to her describe and demonstrate, and then pull it out of me, helps me figure it out even if I'm not actually singing. Mental, it's so mental.

I mentioned that I was learning some Handel piece. It's Lascia ch'io pianga, with a page of recit before the aria. My first recit!! Not that it's any different than singing an aria, except the tune is not really there yet. It hints at the tune of the aria and then BOOM the aria - and what a beautiful piece it is. Here's my favorite "listen and learn" role model, Cecilia Bartoli, giving her rendition of it. The aria only, no recit:



If I can sing it half as beautiful as she does, I'll be happy. I'm still working on controlling the volume once I get the airstream in the right place.

So, where have I heard this before? The movies???? It sounds so familiar. And WOW so sad. That's fine, I can do sad.

The Learning Experience Recital

I've been avoiding writing about Saturday's recital because I just wasn't happy with my performance.

But I'll write about it anyway.

This recital was on the main campus of Westminster Conservatory. My voice lessons are on one of the satellite campuses. There are a few satellite campuses in the area. They decided to have each satellite teacher to send 1 student over to the main campus for a recital. I was one of two voice students... oh and I was the only adult. There were 17 of us. We sat in order of appearance in the first row. I was 2nd to last. At the other end, the earliest performers sat, their legs dangling because they didn't reach the floor. Yep, we're talking, 5 and 6 year old kids getting up and playing piano and violin. Then a few tweens playing wind and brass, a few piano, a teen singer who sang some show tune, and me. And these kids were so cute, and performed as you'd expect a talented kid of their age to perform... and the audience was all their parents and grandparents.

As it got closer and closer to my turn I found myself getting nervous. I had this sudden fear of forgetting the words, of not having warmed up enough, anything... Seriously. So when I got up, I explained in 20 seconds what the aria was about, then sang. First off, in rehearsal the accompanist and I decided she would play a chord and then start. She played a note and I was like, wait, that's not a chord, but I think that's what she's doing, so I went with it.



I felt like I forgot all I had learned. I sang nicely enough but not operatically. I forgot to make the notes ring. I had to struggle to get vibrato. I was actually sharp on some of the high notes. Husband made a video but I'm too embarrassed to even post it. I know, I know, even the most talented of singers don't like how they sound in video recordings, but trust me... it was bad. I'll post snippets of the video, but not the really cringy parts.

At the end of the event, they gave out these certificates.



Yes, I am a participant. In a fit of unnecessary paranoia I just removed my last name from the photo, not that it would make a difference... but whatever... Anyway then they told us to all group together so our parents could take group photos. Um, my parents are in Florida... so... this is about half the group. The little ones are farther down to the right.



So I figure if nothing more, it's a learning experience. Afterward my teacher was nice enough but, "We'll talk next week." gulp. Yeah, can we skip that part? I pretty much know I sucked, thanks.

Here's the ending. The best of a bad performance... that should give you an idea. This is bad. Imagine very, very worse for the rest.

Ouch.