Someplace New

This morning I was responding to a post congratulating someone on a major accomplishment and I mentioned how "all the little successes add up and suddenly you're somewhere you never dreamed you could be".

Well, even if I'm not there yet, I'm somewhere I never dreamed I could be. The other day, I was vocalizing, then walking around my apartment, and I realized my core felt like iron. That it was strong enough to "let" me sing with a big sound without all the hard work. It was as if the hard work had been already done and I was reaping the rewards, instead of feeling that I was puffing myself up and bracing myself for each phrase.

So yesterday my bass colleague and I sang through our concert program, which for me began with the Habanera and ended with "Mon Coeur". Yes, I still sing an F at the end, unapologetically! The accompanist had the mezzo aria book with her to play from and that's the note that's there, so if people don't like it they can lump it.

We sing the Judgment Scene right after I sing the Habanera, so I was careful not to pull out all the stops and get "hammy" with the Habanera, which for me means always skirting the edge of treating it like a rock song, with lots of bombastic chest voice. It was also always a way I used to have of telegraphing "well, my voice is far from perfect, but I sure am hawt!". So I sang it with the same attention to technique that I would sing, say, Dido's Lament.

No problems with the Judgment Scene except I have to remember to count during the opening monologue (we're using books, which is fine).

Then we did the Gioconda duet which I laughingly think of as the "domestic violence duet", then the bass sang an aria from Eugene Onegin in Russian! and then we launched into the Vengeance Duet from Samson et Dalila. I figure if they applaud a lot and want an encore we can sing the fast part again. We were thinking of making it the last thing on the program but it wouldn't make sense for me to sing "Mon Coeur" first since it comes after in the opera.

This morning during the service my choir sang the spiritual "Bye and Bye". I was singing second soprano but there were a few sections in four parts where all the sopranos had to sing pianissimo high G sharps. And I did it without getting tired, because my new abs of steel were holding me up!! So, ok, I didn't sing the bar before each time, but so what? That's the great thing about choral singing.

I was almost on the verge of starting to feel inferior again because there are several people in the choir who went to big conservatories and that often feels like an "exclusive club" like the Ivy League. I mean I don't think studying voice in a academic setting really makes a person sing better, to me it's more important to have a teacher who is a good fit for one's individual vocal issues, but it's a place to make connections and it's a "credential" that makes people take you seriously.

I think at times a lot of my feeling blue about singing is "Wizard of Oz-ish" in that the issue isn't how well I do or don't sing but that people don't take me seriously. If I didn't go to a conservatory, don't get paid for whatever singing I do in church, and sing the "big girl stuff" in homemade concerts, why should anyone care? People who know me want to talk to me about my editing work but they rarely even ask about my singing and that includes people who sing that I bump into in the blogosphere.