Not Giving Up Today....

I now - for now - seem to be back in the swing of things.  I have three things going on right now: the Christmas concerts, choir (I now have two solos scheduled between now and Epiphany), and the Requiem.

The Christmas concerts have turned out to be a little disappointing.  The pianist is not proficient enough to play the Spanish art songs so instead of singing three I will be singing only one, which the director may very well play herself.  And one Spanish Christmas carol as a solo.  Otherwise it is six women singing Christmas and Chanukah songs in two part harmony.  The director seems to think I am a soprano, which is fine.

I have gotten so much conflicting information about my voice type over the years.  If I can barely reach a high C (and this is something that never changes; all that has changed is that the notes I do have - up to a B - sound better more consistently and I have lost the break I used to have above middle C) I am not a soprano, at least not where opera is concerned.  On the other hand, I am most comfortable singing in the upper middle part of my voice, which means for choral purposes I am a second soprano not an alto.  I would say even for oratorio solo purposes.  I am not someone who sings "O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion" well.  I sound  much better singing "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth".

But when I posted something about my vocal "sweet spot" (F to F on the staff) on the the Forum, a well-respected voice teacher said that meant I was a "low mezzo". Huh? I think of low mezzos as, well, women who love singing "O Thou that Tellest".

Interestingly, the woman who runs these seasonal concerts is always telling me to sing "brighter" vowels, while my teacher tells me to sing "darker" vowels.  Both of them want my voice to be freer, so who is right?  I know when I first started studying I had been artificially "whitening" my voice to sound like a soprano (what I call my "fake Julie Andrews voice", which actually serves me quite well up to a G or G sharp but does not easily go higher) which my teacher said was choking off the higher notes by making them "spread".  Although now I find if I sing "happy", on some of the high climaxes (involving As and A flats) it makes those notes easier.

And I seem to have finally found a real head resonance.  Is that because I am being diligent about blasting all the crud out of my sinuses?  I think I was always congested behind my nasal passages, which is not something I ever noticed until I began trying to figure out why I had such a "gargly" sound in my upper passagio.  Anyhow, after the New Year I am going to get a referral to an ENT. I have always been leery of getting on the merry-go-round of medication for nasal stuff because it either makes you speedy or makes you sleepy and I have seen my partner spend a lifetime, more or less, being partially dysfunctional due to the combination of asthma medicines and allergy medicines.  But who knows?  Maybe the ENT will have some other kind of advice.  I am using nasal spray but what happens is it loosens up all the junk and then I spend hours "snuffling" although eventually it gets cleared out.

But getting back to the Christmas concerts, I really like the woman in charge of these because she is nice and friendly and treats me with respect, which I find people rarely do in the talent-stuffed New York singing scene.

As for choir, I am definitely singing a solo (one of the Spanish art songs) on Epiphany, and will probably sing Wagner's "Angel" song on Annunciation Sunday (the third Sunday in Advent).  That is one of our pastor's favorite songs.  It was the second solo I sang after I was "discovered" ("Mon Coeur" was actually the third - the first was "Dido's Lament") and was chosen for me by the choir director at the Unitarian church to sing at Christmas and I have kept it in my repertoire ever since.  It will be interesting to hear how that pianissimo high G sounds with my improved technique.

Last but not least, tonight is the kickoff rehearsal for the Requiem.  At first my partner was teed off, but it is only an hour, and this is something I have been planning for over a year.  I am responsible for assembling the singers and pianist and arranging rehearsals, the church will donate the space and give the ticket money to the social outreach program of their choice, and will handle the marketing and promotion.

The purpose of this rehearsal will be to finalize cuts and sing through the big ensemble pieces.  The soprano is the one who sang in my Verdi concert and the tenor is a friend of my teacher's who sings in the Met chorus.  I am lucky to have him.  The only problem is the bass.  He is someone I know from Facebook (I think he friended me after meeting me at an audition) and he said he was working on the Requiem and yes, would be interested in this (he can just view it as a big rehearsal) but that Thursday was not a good day to rehearse.  So I said we could probably switch to Tuesday after the New Year but that I just wanted to know if he could make the rehearsal today.  Over the course of two weeks I have sent him emails and left a message on his cell phone but have not heard anything. I am pretty sure he is still in the land of the living because I think he has posted things on Facebook.  So - huh??

Well, if I don't hear from him by the end of 2012 I will try to get someone else.

And I will line up someone to be on "partner patrol" in case she has a (real or manufactured, but not life threatening) crisis the week leading up to the concert.