Continuing to Slog Along

Yesterday I had a lesson and didn't really sing all that well. It's unusual for me not to sing as well at a lesson as I do at home, but maybe I was just tired. It was in the mid-80s and very humid. And I had had a busy day beforehand.

I am still struggling with "Chi ti Salva". It seems that no matter what approach I try, what technique I use, blah, blah, blah, singing B flats (never mind anything higher, which I wouldn't attempt in public) is just bloody hard and sometimes the note is there, sometimes not.

I thought I had gotten past that when I did so well with "O Ma Lyre Immortelle". I always nailed that B flat at the end, even if it was just a scream on pitch.

The problem with this scene seems to be when I start at the beginning. So after 45 minutes of hard work on exercises, my teacher made me begin at the very beginning, with "L'abborita rival". And then he went over a lot of it with a fine tooth comb. He says he is now acting as a coach not just a teacher and he wants to make sure everything is stylistically correct. So we went back over a lot of the phrases and did them several times. I mean there's nothing up until "Chi ti salva" that's vocally difficult, but it is a lot of singing.

So when we got to "Chi ti salva" I literally could not sing that note - it was in danger of being a hideous yell. That scares me. I can't risk ever singing like that in public. Well, I don't have to think about it. I have until April to get this in shape and on a day I would be singing it in public I would be well rested and I would know exactly what I was doing every minute.

My teacher didn't seem to think it was serious. He said some of the problem is I'm still learning the piece, fumbling for notes, words, etc.

Then we tried something different. I realized I never have trouble singing long scales. In fact I can usually do those up to a C. And when I've felt like interpolating a B flat as part of a run in "Rejoice Greatly" it has not been that hard (I usually don't bother). So I've decided to approach that progression by not taking a breath and just starting "Or dal ciel" on the C and not breathing until I've gone up and back. If I keep my mouth closed up until the G I will save my energy.

Oh, I totally forgot. I had mentioned "cheating" a while ago. My teacher said that's a no no.

I mean the thing is bloody hard. There's no place to take a rest beginning at "Ma, s'io ti salva" and it's heavy singing going on from that.

My teacher and I also talked about strength, girth, and stamina. He referred to me as "small" which makes me laugh since I'm 5 3.5 and weigh 143. As far as BMI is concerned I'm on the borderline for being overweight. My teacher said singers don't need to be "fat" but most good singers, certainly with big voices, have a lot of muscle mass around the middle, like Dolora Zajick.

In other news, I have been watching the US Open. I am not a big sports fan but I love women's tennis and also listening to talk about how athletes train and isolate weaknesses and train over and over to improve a skill is very inspirational to me working on my voice. I may be old, tired, weak(er - compared to younger singers with years of training) but I can work and work and work and perfect my art until I drop dead, if that's what I want to do.