Let's Twist Again... On 2nd Thought, Let's Not

Great voice lesson this morning!

First, of course, she asked me WHY I was trying to sing Gretchen when we hadn't gone over the pronunciation and rhythm and all that. She basically gave me the same lecture/advice as SEY did in the comment here. Patience, patience, patience, layer by layer, one thing at a time and so on. Then we went over the first two pages of music, IPA, pronunciation (yeah of course I was pronouncing a few things WRONG!!) and rhythm, then I sang just those two pages and we worked on that a bit. Oh even before all that... well, AFTER the lecture but BEFORE the singing, we did some warm-ups to work through what she calls "the valley of the shadow of death," those low-ish notes where my voice (and other people's voices too, I imagine) tends to break and crack. Then we were doing things up and down with a glottal stop to prevent me from adding an H to the beginning of the vowels. At one point she stopped me and asked if I realized I was doing a bit of what she called a "washing machine twist." For certain parts of the scale, but not all, apparently I was doing this little sway back and forth as I sang. I'll have to look back at the videos to look for it. So I concentrated on standing still, keeping the breath low, using the low abs and all that, not adding that H to the beginning, up and down and up and down to iron out that break... THEN we worked on Gretchen. Ok that's not true either... she said something about the A vowel being difficult at certain notes, which reminded me that I wanted to ask her about one section of Batti Batti, the "sapro baciar" part, where I have so much trouble with "baciar." At least I thought I did. I think I do. She had me sing it and said it didn't SOUND like I had trouble with it. She said that the CH causes us to close down when we need to be open for the next vowel, the A. She suggested practicing those measures without the CH and then adding it back in. Same old story. So back to Gretchen because AFTER that, we did work on it. My homework for Gretchen is to keep the vowels going to the end of the words. Some of the notes are held for a bit, and I tend to let down as if I've run out of energy. Thinking about it now, I think it's because I'm unsure of the song, so hopefully I'll be able to practice now, along with the cassette recording I made of the lesson, and gain more confidence. My other homework is to read about Faust, to see where Gretchen's lament about losing her lover fits into the story. My teacher said she loves how I can carry the emotion in the music, and it'll be better if I really understand the character and the story beyond, "She's distraught because she lost her lover."

So that's my homework for the week. Oh and to focus on standing STILL. I guess it's back to the mirror for me.

Oh, and she read/watched (and commented on) this. She thought it was great. She knows Alex because she used to each in the Early Childhood department and was his teacher for two years. That's how I met her, and when she switched to teaching voice she recruited me as one of her students. Read about that here.

When I got home, Alex asked me for a blank tape to record some CDs, just because it's fun to play with the boom box, so I gave him an old voice lesson recording. Well, before recording his songs onto it, he listened to the whole thing. I was in the next room and it was strange (and almost creepy, for some reason?) to hear my voice doing scales and what-not from the next room.

I'm so happy to have my voice lessons resume!

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.

Starring, the Vowels!

I'm not thinking about the voice evaluation tomorrow. Nope. I wasn't even going to blog about it, not directly. I'm afraid if I say I feel comfortable with the songs, I'll jinx myself, and if I say I don't feel ready, I'll believe it. So I'm saying nothing.

Except this - Vertical space. I have to remember to open open open and create vertical space. I was paying close attention to the singers in La Cenerentola. There was a whole lotta vertical space going on, for both the high and the low notes.

And this - Caressing the notes. How to caress the notes? I decided to go with the vowels and almost ignore the consonants. They're just there to bog me down. I'll use them as much as I need to, and no more, in order to connect the vowels and of course aid in the legato. They will not affect my vowels. They will not upstage the vowels. They will support the song like a bird's skeleton. Or like a mouse's - can't they squish their bones to fit through tiny holes?

Yes it's obvious to me too that I'm rambling.

Changing My Mind (again)

I retract my previous post. [so much so that I've deleted a chunk of it] I'm not asking for anything except, what? My money's worth from any performance I attend, anywhere. From anyone, really. Hm what does that mean for the free ones? After all, you get what you pay for and all that? But either way I'll get my own pink girl-drink and will say some variation of, "Why, you're welcome, it was my pleasure" if I ever hear a thank you. And that's to anyone who thanks me for anything. After all, my mother raised me that way. That reminds me -the experiment is still running. I will report the results, maybe, one day. Maybe.

Vowels: Followed Johnny O's advice and sang Una Donna, vowels only. In the shower. Ok that's irrelevant, but not really. The bathroom has great acoustics! So I did it a few times, then added the consonants back in, and I can feel the difference more than I can hear it. Although I can hear it too. Thanks Johnny! BTW, I Puritani opens this week. I think it's this week. For some reason I can't keep numbers in my head these days. That includes dates, addresses, telephone numbers, driving directions, whatever. These days? Ok it's been forever. I'm good at math though, go figure. Heh unintended pun.

Okayyyyy I am going off the deep end here. Rambling about nothing, boring everyone to tears. Stop crying and go read a more interesting blog from the list on the right.