Verdi Requiem Getting Acquainted Update

Yesterday I spent 12 hours backing up my computer (had to start from scratch as I have a new hard drive). Most of it was while I was asleep, so I didn't "waste" too much time, also for some of the time I was having my hair done.

In any event, as I couldn't work for those hours, I sang through the first three sections of the Requiem. There will be seven all told that I need to learn:

Kyrie

Quid sum, miser

Recordare

Lacrymosa

Domine Jesu

Agnus Dei

and the magnificent
.
Lux Aeterna

(I already know Liber Scriptus).

The Kyrie is coming along. There are still some places where I need to pound the keyboard to get my note, but that will eventually pass. One or two more runthroughs and I will have it.

Quid sum, Miser is a little easier, for some reason, although I have not attempted it without the playing the keyboard while I'm singing.

Recordare is the easiest, probably because I have my own melody. I find if I'm singing something other than the top line (e.g., an alto part in choir) I do best if it's something with its own melody, not a harmony part. For example I always learn the alto parts in the Bach cantatas very quickly. This Recordare is a duet and although the tessitura is a bit low for me, it is very singable and I found myself able to sing with the recording without having to play my notes, except at the end when the soprano is on a high B flat and I am on a middle C, which is hard to hear.

But it is coming along. I want to be able to sing it note perfect with the book by January and then I will feel comfortable about trying to pull something together if I can get the church space without paying for it.

Otherwise I will have this in my repertoire. I need to have a series of big oratorio pieces in my repertoire because I have completely aged out of all things opera unless I produce whatever it is myself.

I also am feeling good that I have my big hair back. If I could figure out how to photograph myself I would, but I just tried, looking in the mirror with the cell phone camera, and I can't.

Again, I think some of my wistfulness goes back to what I call "Wizard of Oz-ishness" - I know I am very attractive for a woman my age (and I have a great wardrobe) but I don't move in circles where people take pictures of me, I don't take them of myself (I would if I knew how), and basically no one in my immediate environs really cares enough about how I look, what I'm wearing, blah blah blah to want to memorialize it in any way. If they take pictures, it's of scenery, or of people as incidental to scenery. I wonder if this is

A. an artifact of my not being a "professional" performer with costumes to show off (church singers aren't supposed to "show off" full stop)
B. generational (people over 50 or over 60 just don't constantly take pictures unless they're on vacation to an interesting place)
C. that I don't know enough shallow people who are interested in how I look (LOL!)