The second recital went well. The setting was less formal than that in the other nursing home and senior centers where I've sung, but that was OK. Most of the "noise" came from the area near the front door of the facility. The people in the room (including a girl who looked about 8 or 9) were very quiet.
I felt as if I sang better than before, but as there won't be any videos, I can't be sure.
I like the new accompanist. He is a wonderful musician and very supportive. I will probably stay with my primary accompanist as a first choice (he charges less and lives in a more convenient location, for one thing) but it's good to have a backup. Of course I had a tiny "ouch" moment when he said he would like to come back there and play because a setting like that is "a good place to try out" repertoire that he is going to be playing in a more formal setting. This made me wince because it is precisely that phenomenon that has shut me out of so many of even the humblest venues. The most blatant example to me is "Sing-Through Central" (a chance to sing operas from a book with other people, for a coaching fee) which is used by professionals and emergings to learn or test-drive roles, when an outfit like that should really be for amateur "living room singers" like me who want a chance to do something they love that they will never be able to do anywhere else. Will all the "outreach" venues go that route, I wonder?
But I can't think that way. I am now getting back into gear to find a new place to sing. I guess singing for seniors is my "niche". I have an affinity for the elderly, partly because I take care of one, and doing this is a chance to "give back" (although I don't really see it that way as it's my only chance to sing for an audience other than church, not something I do out of the goodness of my heart despite other opportunities beckoning) and a low-stress setting in which I can sing whatever I want to, more or less. And I refuse to think of what I'm doing as "second best" any more than I would ever think I've settled for "second best" because the charming, funny, sweet, romantic love of my life turned out to be someone bone idle and totally unable to manage time, money, or a living space. And now she's a frail senior. Which makes it easier because a frail senior by definition no longer can manage those things, so I no longer resent doing them for her. I can't see myself as a failure because neither I nor my spouse was ever an "upper-middle class professional". Our minister said something interesting in last Sunday's sermon. She said we as a society shouldn't only value people according to their ability to be "productive". That the "endless cycle of producing and consuming" is not what life is about.
Speaking of church, my voice keeps getting higher and I am more and more comfortable singing even a high soprano part if the alternative is a low alto part, or in any event, one that has such a minimal "arc" that I can't get my voice to do what it does best: make a big beautiful sound somewhere between the middle and the top of the staff. We sang the final chorus from Elijah, and the compromise was that the second sopranos sang soprano until we got to the little chunks of music where the sopranos were singing a high A at which point we sang with the altos. Of course I got completely lost. I wouldn't have if I had had time to rehearse, which I hadn't. I am not a natural harmonizer, don't sightread, and know nothing about music theory, so unless I am singing the top part (which is all I hear if I listen to any kind of recording) I have to drill my part over and over, singing "against" a recording with the volume turned way up. I probably should have just stuck with the soprano part and might even have been able to sing the high As. At this point I am not only "reaching" but blossoming on B flats, B naturals, even the occasional C, when I vocalize. Next week we are singing a tiny snippet of Bernstein's Mass. The sopranos have four piano/pianissimo high As, which I can definitely sing because there is a big break before each set of two.
As for the "random thoughts", I posted an article on Facebook about all the downsides to marijuana use. Yes, I begrudgingly (very begrudgingly) support legalizing recreational use if only so that young people of color don't end up with a criminal record for being caught smoking it or carrying it, but I am dubious. Social drinking is one thing; it can be considered part of fine dining. But the only reason for nonmedical use of marijuana is to get "high" or "stoned" and to me that is such a waste of human potential (ditto for drinking to get drunk or "wasted") that why make it easier for people. The people who will go hog-wild with it will mostly be under 25, which is the time period when young people need to be alert and at their best so that they can make plans about their future and carry these out. I know that the tragedy of my life isn't that I drank alcoholically and abused diet pills (I was never much of a marijuana smoker - I didn't like the way it made me feel; never mind that it made me hungry which was a deal breaker) but that I did it during the years between 18 and 25 when I could have been going to college, exploring extracurricular activities, making connections with people that could last a lifetime, and charting a course through adulthood. And I saw this with a great many of my peers. And some of them ended up dead, in prison, or permanently psychotic from taking LSD or even smoking hashish. Scrambling to earn a living and get a college degree at night between the ages of 27 and 40 did not allow me to accrue any of the advantages that young people are accruing today beginning in high school (at which point in my life I was so deep in an eating disorder that I might as well have been out of it on drugs). Theater kids? Did that concept even exist when I was growing up? That's who I'm competing with if I want to perform somewhere. The conservatory kids and theater kids who are now in their 30s, even 40s. Even the ones who never made a profession out of performing have that to draw on when all I have is a lovely voice and a good ear. And the nonperforming young people were deep into summer immersion programs when they were as young as 12 or 13. Those things stay with you. Which brings me back to my original point about marijuana. Smoking it when you're young and impressionable (a phase that neuropsychology believes lasts until the age of 25) is like deliberately saddling yourself with a handicap. The world is a harsh, difficult, treacherous, and competitive enough place to navigate. Why make it harder for yourself? If I remember and repeat to myself daily any slogan from AA it's "There's no situation so bad that drinking won't make it worse." Yes, there's no situation so hard that doing it stoned (or hung over) won't make it harder.
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