The Payoff

Well, at last night's choir rehearsal I sang about 10 pianissimo high Gs in a way I never had before! In fact the choir director liked it so much he asked if I could please sing that anthem on December 5. I was flattered, but I told him I had to honor my commitment to my partner (and myself) that when I was rehearsing Carmelites I was going to take a break from choir if for no other reason than I owed it to her to spend Saturday evening and Sunday morning with her, as I would be really tired on Friday night, which is when I usually stay over.

Although I still don't think it's sunk in with her that no, I'm not cancelling this commitment. I will find plenty of time to do the work (copyediting work for pay)that has been pouring in as well as getting enough rest! And because the rehearsals are in Brooklyn, if I have to I can stop by my mother's apartment. Although I think I have done the right thing in letting an "apartment dismantling" company handle most of it.

Today I sang through the treacherous ascending phrase in Aida and it really went well! I didn't start too far back in the scene because there wasn't time. I must get a handle on those last two pages of Carmelites!! They're the hardest. The final section is me alone with Sister Constance and it's completely atonal (this for a gal who's never studied music theory and basically has always just winged it).

It's interesting. I was realizing that I have become totally inured to all the guillotine sound effects (which used to freak me out). So I see how people can become inured to the sights and sounds of certain kinds of violence and they might lose the potential to shock. I hope that never happens to me.

An Interesting Lesson - Something New

Yesterday I did some totally new things at my lesson, which was very interesting. I'm not sure why my teacher suddenly came up with some new exercises - whether it was because of my ongoing problems with my extreme upper register and finding a "light" position, or whether it's because he's been experimenting on his own going back to singing tenor.

Anyhow, he had me singing descending scales on a "v" sound with no vowel. My mouth is closed, so once I get up to an E (top space of staff) it gets hard. In the studio I was able to do it securely up to an A flat (the highest note I've ever really been able to sing pianissimo)but I got up to an A natural finally. Then he had me open up and sing "vaw" on the note that I had just phonated a "v" on. And surprise! The note had a lot of topspin and felt lighter and freer.

So he told me I should do this at home instead of some of my regular exercises singing descending scales on blu blu blu.

I sang among the best High Bs and even a few Cs that I have ever sung and then I did a bang-up job with the Amneris/Radames duet.

So I hope it sticks.

Even though my singing has kept improving over the past 6 years that I've been studying I still don't have a handle on the extreme high notes (for me anything above an A).

Tonight is my last choir rehearsal until Christmas Eve, because I'm taking a break to rehearse Carmelites. My partner is doing everything she can to discourage me, telling me if I fall or have some kind of accident I won't be able to work (or take care of her) but I am not budging. She also (to a friend) said my whole involvement with singing was a "fantasy". The friend, to her credit said "well, it's a nice fantasy".

The memorization is actually coming along, now that I'm drilling it (I guess I can't learn things by osmosis any more, certainly not anything later than Verdi).

Tonight the choir is singing a piece where both soprano parts have to sing a sustained pianissimo high G. I actually won't be singing the piece in the service but I'm going to challenge myself re: doing it tonight.

Back "Into" Singing

I think I am finally "into" singing again. I still don't have a lot of time. Even though I've made a decision to turn the task of dismantling my mother's apartment over to professionals (which means that when their fee plus the rent and utility payments on the apartment are deducted from the gross sales it will zero out)I still seem to be busy busy busy.

I think I finally do have enough work to keep me busy for 30 hours a week, I just need to be left alone to do it! So as singing breaks no longer naturally occur (breaks like running out of work until the following morning or the following Monday, or, in the old days, coming home from the office) I need to take at least one a day on days when I'm not rehearsing or having a lesson.

My small role in Carmelites is coming along. I can't believe how hard it is to memorize two bits of extended recitative and a choral section that mostly repeats itself over and over, on the other hand it is totally unfamiliar (unlike, for example, excerpts from Carmen, which I've had in my ear for over 40 years!)

My solo yesterday went well. One of the other singers there, who hadn't heard me for close to a year, told me I was sounding good. I said I had been working hard and she said she could tell. I just wish I were 20 years younger (I'd kill to be 40 again, never mind 28) so that I could do something with all this.

Saturday I gently broke it to my partner that I would be in an intensive rehearsal period and she wasn't thrilled but didn't do something ugly like refuse to have Thanksgiving with me, which she might have. It's sort of like here's where I came in 35 years ago - arguing with her about making time to sing.

What I haven't had time for is work on my big pieces, like the Amneris/Radames duet. That went very well at my last lesson, but I see I have a lesson tomorrow and I haven't touched it. Well, maybe that's for the best. I made a note in my 2011 calendar that in February, after Carmelites is over and after my mother's apartment is empty and "broom clean" (we promised the landlord to be out by January 31) that I need to start planning the concert with my teacher, the Carmen with this guy, and the Amneris/Aida duet, which I am planning to sing in one of my evening classes.