Only a few weeks after my disastrous lesson (I did have a decent lesson in between) I had a mishap with a church solo that took me into territory I had not been in since 2014: panicking and/or not having the right "spin" on my voice to sail up to a high note. Now, granted, this is not a note that I have ever sung in a church solo (more on that later) but it is certainly a note (A natural) that I have been singing well in arias and songs for the past four plus years.
So what went wrong?
I would tend to suspect winter asthma, but then the question is: what do I do?
First, this is not a note I would have chosen to sing. I was looking for an arrangement of the carol "I Wonder as I Wander" and found one that I thought was in the right key (with the top note being an F sharp; in the arranagement in the hymnal, the top note is a D) but after I paid for the arrangement and printed it out, I saw that the third verse went up into a completely different key where the high note was an A! The only reason I agreed to sing this in public is that when I sang it at home it sounded really good, sounded good at my lesson, and sounded good at my runthrough with the church accompanist on Thursday.
Then I had a huge asthma attack. I don't have these very often, although I have endless respiratory problems, including massive sinus drainage. On the rare occasions that I get a cold, interestingly, it's the bottom of my voice that gets knocked out and I can sort of "float" the high notes around it, although my voice sounds smaller.
The type of asthma that I have is called "cough variant asthma". I don't wheeze and gasp for breath, but my chest feels tight and when I exhale I have a dry cough and a feeling that there is sticky dry mucus in my bronchial tubes. If it's really bad I use an inhaler, which I did yesterday.
This morning I felt fine, and warmed up to a high B that was easy and shimmery. And I could hold it. Then I went out into the cold. When I got to the church I felt short of breath and my singing was very labored. I nailed the high note in the runthrough but it felt labored. Then I thought that if I exhaled a lot (often that helps my singing) I would be ok in the actual service, but I barely made it up to that note, held it about a half a count, and it sounded like a cat yowling when you step on its tail. So ok, the rest of the piece sounded good, particularly the last verse, and I got a lot of compliments, but I haven't been in this place vocally or mentally in a very long time.
Is it a health issue, period? I know I felt very tired singing through all the carols for the rest of the service (it was our annual "Lessons and Carols"). My voice didn't feel tired, but my chest felt very heavy. And I just felt such fatigue. Which followed me home and it's only now, about five hours later, that I feel normal.
I sang on this date last year when it was about four degrees out and didn't have this problem.
I just hope I can blow it off and start over.
Someone made a video and I told him to cut it off after the second verse (I listened to it and the high note sounded as bad as I had thought) but he said he would also give me a version that had the whole thing, which I really need so I can send it to my teacher. I know he has had all sorts of health problems of this nature and has sung some really God-awful high notes. But then he has the choice of switching to bass baritone. I'm already a mezzo. I'm not going to switch to contralto! I don't have a very low voice anyhow. The best part of my voice is from the middle of the staff up to an F or F sharp at the top.
Next time I see my primary care physician (I have my annual physical in January) I will ask her what to do; if she has any suggestions.
Sunday, December 30, 2018
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
The Bitter and the Sweet 2018 Wrap Up
I need to find a more imaginative title; this one is getting stale - maybe.
Of course I need to start with the Sweet; to quote Stephanie Ruhle "Who doesn't like good news, right?"
My life is sweet. I am enjoying Christmas. I bought both my partner and myself a small Christmas tree.
I have learned to enjoy Christmas. If I consider myself a Unitarian theologically, I can celebrate any holiday I like. Also, my therapist told me something interesting. She said that probably the reason my mother always had a Christmas tree (and loved Christmas) despite considering herself a secular Jew was that in Germany before the Holocaust, most Jews (who were not Orthodox) celebrated Christmas. It was considered a German holiday, much as Thanksgiving is considered an American one. My maternal grandfather came from Austria-Hungary. My maternal grandmother's family had been in Philadelphia for generations and most likely originally came from Germany in 1848.
I have a solo. On Christmas Eve I will get to sing lovely music with the choir. I am surrounded by beauty.
My voice seems to be back on track. "O Mio Fernando" is back in my voice. Right now I'm not sure where I'd sing it; maybe I can swap it with "Mon Coeur" in one of my nursing home concerts. If I do the 30 minute demo concert that I had discussed with the recreation director at a new residence, I would use "The Drinking Song" as my aria because it's bouncy and "party-ish".
As for future church plans, I was speaking with the new dramatic soprano in the choir. and we may do a duet together next year. (For whatever reason, I don't feel envious about her the way I did about "Little Miss"; probably because she's older, much more modest, and does not want to use church as an arena for showing off. She helps with the choir or sings a solo when asked, period.) Anyhow she mentioned to me that she had made a recording of "Inflammatus" from the Rossini Stabat Mater and so I told her that I had sung "Fac ut Portem" at church several years ago. I mentioned that there is a duet in Stabat Mater and that maybe we could sing it during Holy Week 2019. I will take a look at it and when the time is appropriate, see if the Music Director could find a spot for it. She seemed to be interested.
As for the Bitter.
Last night our chamber music series featured a one act opera that starred a mezzo whom I had been in one of those meetups with long ago. (I didn't go to it; I said I would be tired after teaching all afternoon, but I suppose in addition I didn't think seeing this particular woman would be all that great for my resolve to love my life and mind my own business.) In retrospect, I can say that what I learned from those meetups was that they were for people like her not for people like me. At the time she was very young and just doing audition rounds. I was struggling with my large unwieldy voice and my nerves. She was probably in her 20s. I was about 58. Now, 10 years later (I looked at her resume) she has not only received acclaim for her world premieres, she seems to have an extensive resume of roles from Rossini to Wagner, both soprano and mezzo, and to top it all off she is no bigger than a size 8!! (I know this not just by looking at her picture but because the stage manager was trying to find the right kind of skirt for her to wear in the performance.) Digging deeper (boy am I a glutton for punishment!) I read that she grew up with musician parents and spent every summer at a prestigious music festival, beginning with the age of four (sounds like the children of my choir director and his wife). So this is my "competition". Not for roles - I don't have that much hubris!! - but for attention, for getting to perform in free spaces, for audiences. And people like her are everywhere. And with each year that my singing technique improves, these people multiply and, say, go from A to M in the time it has taken me to get from A to D and I am between 30 and 40 years older than they are and time is running out!! So again, it's really an issue of struggling to make myself believe that I matter.
Of course I need to start with the Sweet; to quote Stephanie Ruhle "Who doesn't like good news, right?"
My life is sweet. I am enjoying Christmas. I bought both my partner and myself a small Christmas tree.
I have learned to enjoy Christmas. If I consider myself a Unitarian theologically, I can celebrate any holiday I like. Also, my therapist told me something interesting. She said that probably the reason my mother always had a Christmas tree (and loved Christmas) despite considering herself a secular Jew was that in Germany before the Holocaust, most Jews (who were not Orthodox) celebrated Christmas. It was considered a German holiday, much as Thanksgiving is considered an American one. My maternal grandfather came from Austria-Hungary. My maternal grandmother's family had been in Philadelphia for generations and most likely originally came from Germany in 1848.
I have a solo. On Christmas Eve I will get to sing lovely music with the choir. I am surrounded by beauty.
My voice seems to be back on track. "O Mio Fernando" is back in my voice. Right now I'm not sure where I'd sing it; maybe I can swap it with "Mon Coeur" in one of my nursing home concerts. If I do the 30 minute demo concert that I had discussed with the recreation director at a new residence, I would use "The Drinking Song" as my aria because it's bouncy and "party-ish".
As for future church plans, I was speaking with the new dramatic soprano in the choir. and we may do a duet together next year. (For whatever reason, I don't feel envious about her the way I did about "Little Miss"; probably because she's older, much more modest, and does not want to use church as an arena for showing off. She helps with the choir or sings a solo when asked, period.) Anyhow she mentioned to me that she had made a recording of "Inflammatus" from the Rossini Stabat Mater and so I told her that I had sung "Fac ut Portem" at church several years ago. I mentioned that there is a duet in Stabat Mater and that maybe we could sing it during Holy Week 2019. I will take a look at it and when the time is appropriate, see if the Music Director could find a spot for it. She seemed to be interested.
As for the Bitter.
Last night our chamber music series featured a one act opera that starred a mezzo whom I had been in one of those meetups with long ago. (I didn't go to it; I said I would be tired after teaching all afternoon, but I suppose in addition I didn't think seeing this particular woman would be all that great for my resolve to love my life and mind my own business.) In retrospect, I can say that what I learned from those meetups was that they were for people like her not for people like me. At the time she was very young and just doing audition rounds. I was struggling with my large unwieldy voice and my nerves. She was probably in her 20s. I was about 58. Now, 10 years later (I looked at her resume) she has not only received acclaim for her world premieres, she seems to have an extensive resume of roles from Rossini to Wagner, both soprano and mezzo, and to top it all off she is no bigger than a size 8!! (I know this not just by looking at her picture but because the stage manager was trying to find the right kind of skirt for her to wear in the performance.) Digging deeper (boy am I a glutton for punishment!) I read that she grew up with musician parents and spent every summer at a prestigious music festival, beginning with the age of four (sounds like the children of my choir director and his wife). So this is my "competition". Not for roles - I don't have that much hubris!! - but for attention, for getting to perform in free spaces, for audiences. And people like her are everywhere. And with each year that my singing technique improves, these people multiply and, say, go from A to M in the time it has taken me to get from A to D and I am between 30 and 40 years older than they are and time is running out!! So again, it's really an issue of struggling to make myself believe that I matter.
Thursday, December 13, 2018
A Bummer
Yesterday's lesson did not end well, which is something that has not happened for a long time.
The short version is: after doing my regular exercises and singing through my solo for December 30 (a solo version of the carol "I Wonder as I Wander", which I transposed up so that the top note is an F sharp), I tried to read through "Non piu di Fiori" from La Clemenza di Tito. I did a great job until I got to the last page at which point I ran out of steam and realized that no way could I get up to that high A and hold it for 5 counts. Yes, I can now hold a high A for 5 counts (did it in the opening to the Bolena duet that I sang with my teacher in several concerts) but this A comes after two pages of singing without a break. And no ad libbing.
As I've said, my high register has gotten a lot better, and I've sung a lot of flashy and challenging things, but I realize that these are mostly bel canto arias where the singer can take lots of liberties leading up to difficult passages (or the passages themselves are improvised cadenzas), including dropping out of the vocal line for 2-4 measures before the final climax (which is an old tradition).
Anyhow, my teacher was annoyed with me for "giving up" (I had no trouble singing the phrase with the high note if I just sang the note and the few measures leading up to it) but then we agreed that if I was not "madly in love" with the piece it was not worth putting in all that hard work. (As a contrast, I was madly in love with "Tanti Affetti" and was able to master all the florid passages with the high B flats, but as I said, most of those were a piacere).
And whether or not I was madly in love with "Non piu di Fiori", I don't think it would have "mass appeal" for the only non-church audiences I now sing for: in nursing homes. "Tanti Affetti" did have mass appeal, because like all Rossini, it's bouncy.
So my teacher and I decided that I should go back to "O Mio Fernando", something I have not sung in years, but that I always sang well. And maybe I'll go back to working on "Bel Raggio", the (putative) soprano aria from Semiramide (I say "putative" because it only goes up to an A and I found it in one of my mezzo aria books.)
The irony at my lesson, come to think of it, was that I had wanted to sing through "Bel Raggio" but my teacher didn't have a copy of it.
I think another problem is that I have been hit hard with my winter respiratory problems. My bronchial tubes are full of dry mucus. I cough, I wheeze, I blow my nose constantly. And this despite using my Neti pot every morning (I won't be scared away by stories of fatal amoebas; I boil the water first.) So at my lesson, even in the beginning, singing was hard work.
And to end it all, it doesn't help that I am seeing posts on Facebook that often involve conversations among some of the people I had unfriended because I was envious of them (or maybe they unfriended me because I said things that were nasty; see previous post) so I am deeply engaged with the green-eyed monster again.
Recently I have disengaged from him/it by staying away from "real" singers, other than my teacher, and what I can watch on Youtube. I don't need to hear women in their 30s talk about repetoire and all the auditions they are going to and (among the worst of the worst) how much they despise amateurs and pretenders. I am much happier when I confine my performing arts consumption to instrumental music and ballet, with the occasional stop to hear lieder.
So, OK. now it's time to pull up my socks and look forward to spending January networking to schedule a concert.
The short version is: after doing my regular exercises and singing through my solo for December 30 (a solo version of the carol "I Wonder as I Wander", which I transposed up so that the top note is an F sharp), I tried to read through "Non piu di Fiori" from La Clemenza di Tito. I did a great job until I got to the last page at which point I ran out of steam and realized that no way could I get up to that high A and hold it for 5 counts. Yes, I can now hold a high A for 5 counts (did it in the opening to the Bolena duet that I sang with my teacher in several concerts) but this A comes after two pages of singing without a break. And no ad libbing.
As I've said, my high register has gotten a lot better, and I've sung a lot of flashy and challenging things, but I realize that these are mostly bel canto arias where the singer can take lots of liberties leading up to difficult passages (or the passages themselves are improvised cadenzas), including dropping out of the vocal line for 2-4 measures before the final climax (which is an old tradition).
Anyhow, my teacher was annoyed with me for "giving up" (I had no trouble singing the phrase with the high note if I just sang the note and the few measures leading up to it) but then we agreed that if I was not "madly in love" with the piece it was not worth putting in all that hard work. (As a contrast, I was madly in love with "Tanti Affetti" and was able to master all the florid passages with the high B flats, but as I said, most of those were a piacere).
And whether or not I was madly in love with "Non piu di Fiori", I don't think it would have "mass appeal" for the only non-church audiences I now sing for: in nursing homes. "Tanti Affetti" did have mass appeal, because like all Rossini, it's bouncy.
So my teacher and I decided that I should go back to "O Mio Fernando", something I have not sung in years, but that I always sang well. And maybe I'll go back to working on "Bel Raggio", the (putative) soprano aria from Semiramide (I say "putative" because it only goes up to an A and I found it in one of my mezzo aria books.)
The irony at my lesson, come to think of it, was that I had wanted to sing through "Bel Raggio" but my teacher didn't have a copy of it.
I think another problem is that I have been hit hard with my winter respiratory problems. My bronchial tubes are full of dry mucus. I cough, I wheeze, I blow my nose constantly. And this despite using my Neti pot every morning (I won't be scared away by stories of fatal amoebas; I boil the water first.) So at my lesson, even in the beginning, singing was hard work.
And to end it all, it doesn't help that I am seeing posts on Facebook that often involve conversations among some of the people I had unfriended because I was envious of them (or maybe they unfriended me because I said things that were nasty; see previous post) so I am deeply engaged with the green-eyed monster again.
Recently I have disengaged from him/it by staying away from "real" singers, other than my teacher, and what I can watch on Youtube. I don't need to hear women in their 30s talk about repetoire and all the auditions they are going to and (among the worst of the worst) how much they despise amateurs and pretenders. I am much happier when I confine my performing arts consumption to instrumental music and ballet, with the occasional stop to hear lieder.
So, OK. now it's time to pull up my socks and look forward to spending January networking to schedule a concert.
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