Why Can't I Bottle It?

Often when I write here, I am writing about a problem I'm having and how to handle it.

Today I'm writing about something positive that I experienced yesterday, and wondering how I can hang onto it.

Yesterday was one of those days, when, singing in my bathroom, everything worked! So why can't I make this happen when I sing in public? I mean I do sing that well in public, but only when I'm singing church solos that don't go above a G.

But when I sing in public (and although my singing keeps improving, my confidence level does not) I at best take breaths where I shouldn't (which actually does not help any subsequent top notes) and at worst panic and turn into a block of wood with no buoyancy in my middle.

Last night I sang through "Stella del Marinar". It had always been an easy aria for me but having that scare last week made me stop taking it for granted. When I first learned it my voice was much smaller and I just sort of crooned through the long legato line and then saved my energy for the high A at the end, which always seemed to be there if I just girded my loins and let it rip. A few months ago I sang it for my teacher and he mentioned how different my voice sounded throughout (bigger and darker) but I still found the ending easy.

Well, yesterday everything was in place and then I went back and sang the duet with Enzo that begins with Laura singing a progression that goes up to a high B flat. And it sounded fabulous.

So the question is - why can't I do the right things all the time when I need to?

I now have fear operating at two levels: the old one about not having secure top notes, and a new one that everything that's wrong is caused by age-related decline, which is pulling me backward as better technique is pushing me forward.

Certainly my best singing is better than it ever was, but it is hard to be consistent with it. It requires more physical stamina and coordination, things that I don't seem to be able to rely on consistently.

Not just making sure I get enough sleep and healthy food (I'm pretty good about that) but also I have been plagued with sinus problems to an extent I never was before. A lot of people seem to be mentioning this, so it could be something in the air. Certainly at least half of my problems in the concert (and the first recording session) had to do with dry air, dry mouth, and sinus problems.

So we will see. My main reason for wanting to go to this January audition isn't that I think I will be cast as anything, but to see if I can do well at an audition - something I was able to do fairly consistently two years ago.

I Got My JuJu Back!

I guess all it took was a full night's sleep. Two.

Today's recording session went well. I would say I sang close to my personal best (which is not perfect). The engineer said he had never heard me sing that well on the other hand he hasn't heard me that often.

First he wanted to test the equipment, so he asked me to sing the loudest thing I would be singing. So I said "why don't we do the coda from the Sappho?" And if I like it, we can use it. So I did and it went well.

Then I sailed through "Acerba Volutta", at least in terms of the ending with the high A. I did make a mistake in the middle section "Verra? M'Obblio", so I did a do-over and we will splice it in. Fenena had no problems although I can hear that I sound lovely until I get to that high A and then it's just loud. But it had topspin on it and the run coming down must have been ok or the engineer would have asked me to do it over. Then we went back to Sappho and sang through the piece and did the coda just for the heck of it. I don't think the high note was as good as the first one, but I told the engineer he could pick.

Last but not least was "Mon Coeur" which I know like the back of my hand. I decided that rather than singing the ending with an F, I would just not sing the ending at all. It is written for Samson not Dalila, so I don't see why I shouldn't just skip it.

Then we had some extra time, so I decided I wanted a do-over of the end of the Favorita cabaletta "Scritto in Ciel" so I sang the last page and sang probably the best high A of the session.

I am still smarting from having had problems with the Laura and the Verdi Requiem pieces, but we have good notes to splice in and I just have to chalk Tuesday's problems up to the fact that I had been sleep deprived.

So this reinforces that I need 8 hours of sleep (shouldn't be a problem since I almost never have to set the alarm in the morning), and that I have to keep the floor around my computer desk dust-free. If I hadn't had all that sinus drainage from the dust, I wouldn't have used the nose spray and I'm sure that that is what kept me up in the middle of the night.

The "Muscle Milk" helped too.

So now I can enjoy singing my solo (the mezzo aria from the Saint Saens Christmas Oratorio) and also singing with the choir in a Magnificat written by the choir director this Sunday.

Then I am going to live Laura for a few weeks (am still thinking of a strategic time to tell my partner about that audition). That probably means re-working the aria. This is a role I sang 31 years ago when my voice was smaller. My teacher (and the engineer, now, as well) keeps saying I sing much better even than I did two years ago when I did the Dalila, but the thing is my voice is bigger and requires more strength to support, so singing is not easier although it sounds better when it's good.

Then if nothing comes of my January audition, I will dive into the Verdi Requiem.

Now I need to get back to work (my livelihood work) and then I will put up my small artificial Christmas tree with the cat-proof ornaments.

Whither, If?

Although I know I will be mostly happy with the recording, the way I sounded yesterday was a wake up call that I need to make some serious fixes (I can't think what right now, as I feel I am going in the right direction technically, the problem is that it doesn't "stick" under adverse conditions) or rethink my goals.

There is no reason for me to give up singing, even if I never again want to sing anything above a G in public. There's lots of lovely church music for altos and mezzos that I can still sing well, probably for a long time.

I don't like art songs. I know there are people who love them, and I don't want to offend anyone (one thing I learned from my bad experience with the pseudonymous blog was that apparently there were instances in which I thought I was writing about my feelings - or, less often, my opinions - and other people thought I was being heavy handed and "laying down the law" so I need to tread carefully), but I find them "academic" in a way that leaves me cold. Opera appeals to my gut (it's about sex and violence, after all, with lots of cleavage permissible, even for middle aged characters and beyond) and church music appeals to my soul. I am never cerebral about music.

I also don't see myself as a musical theater singer or a cabaret singer. My mother and my partner were always at me about doing this, but it's just not my style. Now I do love musical theater and go to see it often (less so recently as I don't have a full-time salary), but other than throwing in a "legit" MT number into a concert at the end, I have no interest in singing it.

What I had hoped to be able to do was sing arias and scenes from operas in concert with other people, but the fact that I sang two pieces badly, which are pieces I never had trouble with before, really frightens me.

I think my voice is changing.It is much bigger, fuller, and more operatic, but I seem to lack the stamina to carry that sound up. Just to be clear I don't "push", except on those top notes when I feel I am not going to make it. So the problem is not that I am dragging too much weight around. I still often feel like I am going to break in half in the middle, which is absurd, as I have put on weight there, but I still feel like there's not enough brawn there, despite the Pilates. I listened to an old recording of my singing O Mio Fernando and the top note has plenty of spin on it. Actually, I think the middle register will sound better on the new version, but this one is pretty good.

I didn't like the old version of Liber Scriptus and do think the new one (with the spliced in high note and subsequent low notes) will sound better. In the old version you can hear register breaks and a huskiness on the bottom.

But this is disturbing nonetheless.

I have the notes, or I wouldn't be able to sing them at all.

It seems to be the ability to recall "muscle memory" under stress that is the problem.

Some of it might be respiratory but why now?

This morning I think I identified one of the culprits - the mounds of dust kittens under my desk. I am pretty assiduous about vacuuming (I use the sound of the vacuum to muffle my warmups so I do a lot of it and I also hate seeing lint on my navy blue rug) but I had been afraid to vacuum or even dust amid the wires connecting the various parts of my computer. So this morning I bit the bullet and took a wet paper towel and got up the dust.

Is there something "going around"? It's definitely not a cold. Although my partner has had a phlegmy cough that has lasted for at least three months, with no other symptoms. She has been to several doctors none of whom can find anything else wrong. I don't have a cough, but I have had sneezing and rhinitis off and on for a while. Many of the vocal problems I had in the concert were caused by the dry air in the room which seemed to bother me more than the other people.

I am not going to give up yet (although I am now really scared about tomorrow's session - will I be able to get through "Acerba Volutta"? an aria I used to sing well enough in auditions to get a brava if not a role) but I want something in my back pocket for a Plan B.

I keep seeing postings on Facebook about "loving the life you have" and being grateful before it's too late.

But there has to be something.

I Have Some Serious Concerns - But I Will Have a Nice Recording

Although my cough and laryngitis are gone, I continue to have problems with nasal allergies (to what, I have no idea as I have lived six decades without any) and sinus drainage. My primary care doctor prescribed fluticasone, which is supposed to help this without the rebound affect of nasal sprays. It seems not to agree with me. I took it last night to stop endless sneezing and blowing my nose, and something (a side effect?) kept me awake for two hours in the middle of the night.

So when I went to my recording session I was very tired.

My warmup went well. I still am vocalizing up to High C every day and I sang the treacherous long run in "Amour Viens Aider" and that sounded good.

But from then on it was downhill all the way.

What I want to stress is that I will end up with a good recording because we got a really good take of every difficult phrase with a high note (except for one, where we decided to go with what we had and not isolate the phrase and splice it in), but what is upsetting was my inability to sing any of those notes decently even in pieces that I have sung well all my life, like "Stella del Marinar".

Overall, I know I am singing better. But I seem to be much more prey to fatigue (the panic is an old story) and it's harder to make a decent sound up there. I find that I can sing more reliably on a B flat (it's been a long time since my throat closed up) but if the B flat is 30% better, the A is about 30% worse. We're talking about notes that are the climax of a phrase. Probably the worst note was the A flat in "Liber Scriptus" which is really scary, as an A flat for me has always been no big deal.

I mean the whole scenario with the recording was the sort of thing that sapped my energy before we even began.

The first thing the engineer wanted to do was see what was "the loudest" phrase I was going to sing, so we went right for the run in "Amour". The first time it sounded fine, then not so. So I felt off to a rocky start. When we did the aria itself it sounded so-so. The engineer (who in the past never commented on my singing) said it didn't sound good and that the run coming down sounded "sloppy". So I did it over and he really liked it so we will splice it in.

I thought I had my energy back up for the Favorita aria, but again, I just didn't have enough oomph for that high A at the end. Listening to the recording, I decided it was good enough (it sounded a little "straight" but I did a nice portamento down from it).

But then things got a lot worse.

I started "Stella del Marinar" and then the engineer said his equipment wasn't working properly so we started again in the middle. I think I was just very tired, very "off" in terms of my body. So we did the ending separately. Now this is an aria I have sung well every time I've sung it. Now this one is not a sure thing. Really nothing any more is a sure thing. I feel like I'm back to square one. Not with everything but with these top notes. I just don't have the energy to make then spin. I never know when they're going to be ok and when they're not. It's like once I get above a G (in the past I would have said an A) all my technique goes out the window, time and time again.

Basically the same thing happened with "Liber Scriptus" although the engineer said the whole thing overall sounded good.

I think my voice (up to a G) has fewer holes and weak spots in it than it did two years ago, but the top notes do not sound as good, and this makes me so angry and distraught as I have been studying and studying and when they sound good, actually they sound better than two years ago but my body is less reliable.

When I complained to the engineer about getting tired he said "well, that's because you're old". I don't think he meant to be mean, he was just being factual.

And my teacher said the same thing. I called him up and he said a lot of this is that as we get older we lose muscle mass, cartilage flexibility, etc., and so this is something I am fighting even as I am working hard in the studio.

I just feel afraid now to do anything in public except sing church solos in a limited range, but I don't want to give up.

Church solos are nice, and I always sound professional singing in that limited range, but I am not a church singer personality. Or that is only part of me - the same part that reads Victorian novels and watches PBS Masterpiece, and snuggles with my cat.

But I am also a drama queen, someone who doesn't want to behave and be quiet and wear a black dress with a high neckline.

Well, I won't give up. I will go to sleep, be quiet all day tomorrow, go to choir practice and rehearse my solo (my teacher said this was ok) and then face Thursday's recording session fresh.

And then to January's audition. And I'm going to sing the mezzo solos from the Verdi Requiem somewhere somehow.

And not take any more Fluticasone.

Eve of My Recording Session

I haven't written much lately. I have been mostly focusing on trying to enjoy the life I have, which includes singing, but for better or worse is not spearheaded by it.

I have, however, been practicing diligently in preparation for tomorrow's (and Thursday's) recording sessions.

I am sounding much better than I did, even at October's concert. My upper register is darker and rounder, thanks to my being able to maintain the low larynx position. Sometimes it feels "straight", and as if I'm not going to be able to make it up there or maintain any kind of space, but according to my teacher it sounds much better than even a few months ago. It seems to be all about the low larynx position, the raised ribcage, and the buoyant midsection.

I seem to keep getting bigger around the middle and in fact have gained about two pounds since last year, but I am not going to worry about that now (although yesterday I was late to a party after trying on two pairs of pants and finding that they no longer fit me). When I began singing again at age 54, I promised myself that I was really going to give myself my best shot at this which I never had before. And this would include not starving myself and feeling weak around the middle, which seemed to make it harder for me to sing.

So here's what's on the agenda for tomorrow:

"O Mio Fernando" from La Favorita: always a good showpiece for me. OK, I sing only one verse of the cabaletta and a high A at the end, while I know some mezzos do both verses and add a crazy cadenza with a high C. But that is not necessary. The main issue here is not to let myself get tired at the end, which I shouldn't, as there are plenty of breaks.

"Amour Viens Aider" from Samson et Dalila: the long run going up to a high B flat and down to a low B flat seems to be OK!! I now find a B flat as easy to sing as an A (did I mention? I've been vocalizing up to a high C in arpeggios every day?) and my voice doesn't hit a "speed bump" above middle C when I come down that run.

"Stella del Marinar" from La Gioconda: I could sing this in my sleep. Now I wish I were singing it a little better (there are some spots in the lower middle register that I probably just "croon" through the way I did when I was 30) but it will do for now. I just need to come in in the right place in the recit.

Last but not least "Liber Scriptus" from the Verdi Requiem. This is sounding much better than when I recorded it before. The lower passages sound more "sung" and less "talky and squawky".

Tonight I didn't want to over-sing, so I just did the long run from "Amour" and the cabaletta from "O Mio Fernando". I was pleasantly surprised by how they sounded.

So wish me luck tomorrow!

In other news, I have a real audition in January. After that terrible experience with that Carmelites production, I stopped looking for audition postings. But this is something someone told me about, for a dream role. I don't want to say too much, until I know whether I got cast (either in that role or another leading role in the same opera, which is an older character, but for a voice that's lower than mine), but I am going to do this. My partner will probably be angry, so I am not going to mention it until after Christmas, which I want to keep pleasant for us (neither of us has anyone else to spend Christmas Day with anyhow). I tried to look online for information about this but couldn't find anything. I don't know, for example, if the opera is in concert. If it is, it would make me a more attractive candidate as my inability to easily walk up and down stairs would not be an issue.

Lastly, I am not singing a solo on Christmas Eve (the choir director says he doesn't want solos) but I am going to sing "Expectans" from the Saint Saens Christmas Oratorio this coming Sunday. He wants me to sing it in English, which is fine. Even not singing a solo, though, I am happy to be singing on Christmas Eve. I used to feel depressed about Christmas as a person with no religion and no money, but now I can be a Unitarian (albeit one who sings in a Lutheran church) which means I can celebrate all holidays or a melange of any that I choose. And the Lutheran church (and other people) are advocating abstinence from gift giving unless it's to people who are needy. It's nice to be in an environment where the spiritual message of Christmas (whether or not you think the birth of Jesus story is true) is what is important not the material one.