Little Things

Sounding better and better after each lesson. Funny that.

The lesson takes place in my teacher's living room. A few weeks ago, instead of standing in one spot next to the piano, I decided to use more of the room. I mean it's not a huge room, but there is space in the middle with no furniture. And once I started doing that, I started sounding better. Suddenly I wasn't just standing there. Walking and moving somehow helps me to focus. I don't move the entire time, but I have given myself permission to not just be a statute next to the piano.

A couple of weeks ago my voice teacher's friend, also an opera singer/voice teacher, came to the lesson. He said he was amazed at the difference in my voice since the last time he heard me. He gave me some really good pointers. Sometimes they talked about me like I wasn't in the room! It was nice, it was all good.

Anyway, so once again it comes down to consistency. I am able to hit higher notes than I've ever dreamed possible (for me) but something inside me is afraid. Afraid of the note, afraid of having it sound wrong, afraid of something. I look back at my own history and see a pattern. When I was learning Una Donna a 15 anni I was afraid of the jump "finger ri=so... finger pia--nti" to the "so" and the "ti." The fear would cause me to close down on it and then I wouldn't be able to hit it. Now I have no problem with it. But here I am learning Ombra Mai Fu, (with that recit at the start, but I think I'm learning it in a slightly higher key than that, because I can do that one no prob but the low notes are a bit low for me) and there's a note at the end, the 2nd to last "soave piu" where the "piu" is a jump up to a note that I fear. I fear it, and I close down. I have to get over the fear and just do it. Sometimes I can hit it nicely. I can't (yet) hold it out as long as I'd like, or as long as I guess I'm supposed to, without closing down on it. So I'm hoping that I'll get over it, be able to do it, later while learning (and fearing) some new jump, wonder why I ever had trouble with it. At least I'm consistent with that...

Getting High on Vowels

I've been practicing and practicing both Batti Batti and Gretchen Am Spinnrade. Without my voice teacher to guide me I'm still plugging along trying to figure out how to fix what I perceive as problems. I'm absolutely sure that there are problems that I'm not perceiving. That's why I pay someone to teach me. But really what still gets me is certain vowels on the high notes. Why??? Why can I hit a note nicely with one vowel, but it sounds like a tortured cat on a different vowel?

My latest attempt is to remember to drop my jaw and sort of fudge the vowel. I don't mean that I'll compromise diction - I really don't want to do that - but I do know that for some vowels, like, the word "you," for example, I can open my mouth wide, which makes it less U-ish, yet it still sounds ok. I just have to:

A. Remember to do it and
B. Allow myself to do it.

By allow, I mean, allow myself to almost pronounce it wrong, if that makes sense. Not wrong, but... modified.

One thing I am improving at (I think?) is keeping the energy in the vowel sound more consistently.

I've written this before, but I'll say it again - thinking about what my teacher might tell me, or imagining how she might demonstrate something, helps. It forces me to remember different things she's taught me, some of it several months ago. I'm also getting much better at holding all the various aspects of singing in that imaginary three-dimensional space in my brain. I know I've written about that before.

Then when I'm feeling frustrated I'll sing Una Donna, to remind myself of the trouble I used to have with some parts that seem easy to me now.

Going Forward With a Short Inspirational Rewind

Remember all summer I kept talking about how wonderful a performer Elizabeth Caballero is? Here's one of her recent YouTube uploads:



Too bad there's no video. As awesome as she sounds, watching her is even more ... what's the word... emotional? Enjoyable? Inspiring? Quick, someone break out a thesaurus!

And speaking of inspiring, I haven't forgotten about my own singing aspirations. This week I had some sort of vocal breakthrough - I was doing a warm-up along with a taped lesson and suddenly I was able to sing higher than I ever had - beyond where I went in the recording of the lesson. (I believe the high note of the lesson was a C or C#, not sure because I don't let myself look at the piano) I felt the change in my throat, in my abs, in my insides, in my head. It was mental and physical. I've been able to repeat it a couple times. Now that I know it's in there, in me, I just have to figure out how to get to that place again. And I think that part of my ability to even get there at all, besides having a break from lessons and the pressure I put on myself with them, was from paying attention this summer, watching Liz do her thing, watching her not only throw herself into the character, but also watching her physicality - the shape of her mouth as she sang different notes and different vowels, how she held her shoulders, her posture, and so on. I paid attention to all of it. So she doesn't even know it, but she helped me increase my range. Thanks for the inspiration!

Now the question is, how do I reproduce what I've done? It's a zone and I have to enter it. This is so frustrating because I can't adequately express how I got there, and that's part of the problem of trying to do it again. Maybe that's it - I have to not try and express it, and instead, just, I don't know, experience it.