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.
No comments:
Post a Comment