I must apologize for the lack of blogging! I feel like life is just swirling sometimes and there's no time to sit and write. But that's just not true. So here I am, sitting and writing.
I had a voice lesson and a coaching since my last post. My teacher totally understood what I was talking about when I described the state of relaxed concentration I was in last week. I got there again at the coaching when we went over El Majo Discreto. My teacher would love for me to sing that at a future Opera Project recital because she says there are so few Spanish songs performed, plus she thinks it's good for my voice. I think so too. Now that I'm getting more confident with it, I'm starting to have fun with it.
Speaking of fun, I was unable to participate in last weekend's Opera Project recital because I was at the most amazing Halloween party, ever. Alcohol + karaoke = lots of silliness!! There are videos out there... if someone asks nicely I'll post a link as a reply to a comment.
In other news, apparently I'm being considered (or... possibly... have been cast????) for a part in a local composer's opera, for some future Opera Project date. It's all very mushy. Someone mentioned it offhand to me, "Oh, you'll be in that thing... maybe you'll play the part of my wife." So of course I'm all, "WHAT thing?" and then I learned that someone asked someone else if they thought I'd be interested in participating ... well YEAH!!!! And that's all I know. Not much. I haven't even thought about it that much because there's no info to think about. So instead I'll just wait, and maybe follow up with a "What ever happened with that opera thing..." if I don't hear anything in a few weeks.
Ok, fine. Here. Note to self: Step AWAY from the karaoke stage...
Showing posts with label el majo discreto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label el majo discreto. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Matching It Up
Every week I take Alex to a swimming class. The pool is indoors at a nearby school. It's echoing and chaotic. I sit sweating in the stands, taking advantage of the enforced sitting time to read my music.
I want to learn as much of the music I'm working on as I can while I'm NOT in a lesson, so that during the lesson we can focus on singing. I had been having trouble matching the words with the notes for El Majo Discreto so finally I read along while listening on YouTube. Then today during the swimming lesson I tapped out the rhythm and (very quietly) chanted the words, over and over. I realized after listening on YouTube that the triplets were mixing me up. Once again my lack of musical background is getting in the way. I sort of figured out and sort of remembered that the triplet has to fit in the space like a regular note (sorry to the musically knowledgeable, I know there are real terms for all this). Basically, what it boils down to is, I had been giving them too much time and then getting all off beat. So I adjusted how I'd been thinking about the syllables that are attached to those notes and suddenly it all made sense. I can now match the words with the music.
My teacher will be away this coming week so I'll have plenty of time to learn as much of that piece as I can, along with another one she suggested I learn called Songs As Mother Sang Them. Or Songs My Mother Taught Me. I've seen both titles. So in order not to confuse myself with the words, but to help me learn the melody (since my iPhone suddenly refused to record any more voice memos after the warmup of my last lesson, and I'm trying not to take that personally) I've been listening to this one. I'm learning it in English so I'll eventually match up the words to the melody by reading along. I don't always have the luxury of having the music in front of me, or of being able to sing along, or pause and repeat, so I do what I can.
Today I had some time home alone (a rarity!) so I recorded myself singing Lascia Ch'io Pianga to see how I looked and sounded. How I looked was, I had my eyes closed too much and how I sounded was, I still need to work on the legato, but I was able to get my voice on top of the air for most of it. So while the video came out ok, I'm not going to post it because I know I can do better. Legato, legato, legato. Next time I'll swan my arm back and forth as a reminder. Won't that look lovely. Hopefully I won't also sound like a swan.
I want to learn as much of the music I'm working on as I can while I'm NOT in a lesson, so that during the lesson we can focus on singing. I had been having trouble matching the words with the notes for El Majo Discreto so finally I read along while listening on YouTube. Then today during the swimming lesson I tapped out the rhythm and (very quietly) chanted the words, over and over. I realized after listening on YouTube that the triplets were mixing me up. Once again my lack of musical background is getting in the way. I sort of figured out and sort of remembered that the triplet has to fit in the space like a regular note (sorry to the musically knowledgeable, I know there are real terms for all this). Basically, what it boils down to is, I had been giving them too much time and then getting all off beat. So I adjusted how I'd been thinking about the syllables that are attached to those notes and suddenly it all made sense. I can now match the words with the music.
My teacher will be away this coming week so I'll have plenty of time to learn as much of that piece as I can, along with another one she suggested I learn called Songs As Mother Sang Them. Or Songs My Mother Taught Me. I've seen both titles. So in order not to confuse myself with the words, but to help me learn the melody (since my iPhone suddenly refused to record any more voice memos after the warmup of my last lesson, and I'm trying not to take that personally) I've been listening to this one. I'm learning it in English so I'll eventually match up the words to the melody by reading along. I don't always have the luxury of having the music in front of me, or of being able to sing along, or pause and repeat, so I do what I can.
Today I had some time home alone (a rarity!) so I recorded myself singing Lascia Ch'io Pianga to see how I looked and sounded. How I looked was, I had my eyes closed too much and how I sounded was, I still need to work on the legato, but I was able to get my voice on top of the air for most of it. So while the video came out ok, I'm not going to post it because I know I can do better. Legato, legato, legato. Next time I'll swan my arm back and forth as a reminder. Won't that look lovely. Hopefully I won't also sound like a swan.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Reading the Notes
Just glanced at the blog and realized that there's no way I can keep that monk photo from the previous entry at the top for any longer, so I decided to write about, what else, singing.
I'm learning a song in Spanish called El Majo Discreto. After all this time of my Spanish knowledge interfering with my Italian, now that I'm singing something in Spanish I find that the Italian is interfering! Go figure.
My teacher suggested that I figure out how to play it on the piano, so I sat down and actually did the "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge" and "FACE" thing to work out the notes and hand write them in on top of the staff. I even remembered the sharps... which I also had to figure out with the fudgeface saying. Then I sat at the piano and plunked it out. It definitely does help me to learn the melody faster than I would if I just listened to it. I actually like playing it on the piano. If I get myself into a certain state of relaxed awareness I can play along by looking at the music. Oh is that reading the music? I guess? But I have to concentrate and get to this place where my fingers just find the right notes on the keys. Normally I don't have enough time to myself to do that for long periods of time. And it's just the melody, not the chords or anything like that. But somehow my brain sees the jumps on the staff and can translate that to jumps in the keys with my fingers. I guess I can do it with my voice too. Wow... Am I actually learning to read music? I still have to count the staff to know the letter of the note, although I know where they all are on the piano without having to count from any specific location. Perhaps I just need more practice identifying the notes on the staff so I can do it at a glance. So maybe I've just suggested to myself that I learn to read music. Fascinating. Maybe I'll study up on that a bit. My problem is that I'll want to know all the fancy complicated stuff all at once, when I should go little by little. Then I'll get impatient, then frustrated with myself. Then I'll get over it, and then I'll learn it for real. Wish me luck.
I'm learning a song in Spanish called El Majo Discreto. After all this time of my Spanish knowledge interfering with my Italian, now that I'm singing something in Spanish I find that the Italian is interfering! Go figure.
My teacher suggested that I figure out how to play it on the piano, so I sat down and actually did the "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge" and "FACE" thing to work out the notes and hand write them in on top of the staff. I even remembered the sharps... which I also had to figure out with the fudgeface saying. Then I sat at the piano and plunked it out. It definitely does help me to learn the melody faster than I would if I just listened to it. I actually like playing it on the piano. If I get myself into a certain state of relaxed awareness I can play along by looking at the music. Oh is that reading the music? I guess? But I have to concentrate and get to this place where my fingers just find the right notes on the keys. Normally I don't have enough time to myself to do that for long periods of time. And it's just the melody, not the chords or anything like that. But somehow my brain sees the jumps on the staff and can translate that to jumps in the keys with my fingers. I guess I can do it with my voice too. Wow... Am I actually learning to read music? I still have to count the staff to know the letter of the note, although I know where they all are on the piano without having to count from any specific location. Perhaps I just need more practice identifying the notes on the staff so I can do it at a glance. So maybe I've just suggested to myself that I learn to read music. Fascinating. Maybe I'll study up on that a bit. My problem is that I'll want to know all the fancy complicated stuff all at once, when I should go little by little. Then I'll get impatient, then frustrated with myself. Then I'll get over it, and then I'll learn it for real. Wish me luck.
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