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.
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