I had an exceptionally good voice lesson yesterday. Now we all know, I have had these before, and made breakthroughs, and then they have not entirely held, and I have felt back to square one. Well, not quite, just back to not having mastery over my breathing, my centeredness, and my groundedness, which is where the problems lie, basically.
For the umpteenth time, my teacher pointed out that if I "croon" my way through sections of a piece (the sections that sit, let's say, in the octave from middle C to the C above) thinking I am "saving" my voice for the high climax, all I am really doing is getting everything out of alignment so the high climax will be harder. He pointed out that I can easily sing an arpeggio up to A and back, even holding the A for four counts before I come down, so that is all this difficult passage is, and I have enough time to take a breath beforehand! So today I sang through the the scene going three pages back (I have already mastered it going two pages back). Next time I will try it going four pages back, etc. And that is really it, because there is a big break after "Va".
And I took out the score of Hamlet and played through the scene I am thinking of doing. So it has a B flat in it. It is at the end of a long scale, which is something else I can do. My B flat has really improved lately. I still don't think I can open my mouth and sing it off the cuff (and right now I don't have to) but I can now hold it easily for four counts in the middle of an arpeggio.
In other news, I have signed up to take a writing class which is being given at the church by a woman there who is a playwright. She is one of those people with an "interesting life" who has written a play and has traveled all over the world with it. The focus of the class will be on finding your voice as a writer. I don't think that is my problem: I already have that. My problem is finding the right audience. I mean if a woman my age who became obsessed with playing the cello in her 50s ended up with her picture in this article in the New York Times I don't see why I can't end up with mine there too!! It's all a question of whom you know, I guess. The main thing I hope to get out of this writing class is to reinforce that my story matters and is interesting even if I don't have an interesting job or go to a prestigious school.
And I wrote something on the Forum on the subject of being "discovered", which is one dear to my heart. There has been a lot of talk about the myth of being discovered, like Lana Turner, which is how I describe my experience. I believe it can happen, but it is not a substitute for hard work. What the "discovery" does is give you someone in your corner, sort of like an AA sponsor, or really any kind of mentor who takes a holistic interest in your life and checks in with you about the choices you are making. The main reason I feel proud of myself for posting something there is that it is part of my determination to nurture my self-esteem. This is my story. I am not just a superannuated joke, or a "troll". I work very very hard.
Now I just need to nail down a date to do "Laudamus te" with the violinist in the summer. If I don't at least one thing on my calendar I feel antsy.
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