Note to Self: Pull Yourself Together

I never got a chance to post anything about my second concert, which went really well (I think I sang better than the first time) because the next day my partner appeared listless and complained of a bellyache so I had to rush her to the ER.  It turned out she had what could have been a life-threatening bowel blockage.  Then just when it seemed as if she was going to go home, she developed C. difficile.

All together, she was in the hospital for 9 days.  My number one priority was being with her so I didn't get much work done.  I did get a little practicing done but really wasn't focusing on singing.

Since she's been back, for whatever reason, I have missed my 5-6 practice time.  There is actually no reason why that should be my practice time, other than that because I am used to working in an office, if I am home any part of 9 to 5, I use those hours to do the editing that I do for a living.  Tuesday I missed my practice time to watch the election!!

Amazingly, my voice is still there (Wednesday I had a lesson), but I really need to get back in the saddle.  Yesterday (Thursday) I missed choir rehearsal and spent the whole day in such a nonstop state of stress that I thought I was going to have a heart attack.  First I went around the block five or six times with my case manager and an attorney to find out if my partner's Medicaid had been renewed, then I spent an hour trying to find out where our ambulance was (to take her to a follow-up appointment) only to be put on hold for a total of 30 minutes. Skipping choir practice was planned as I didn't know what time I would be back to the Upper West Side after bringing my partner home from the appointment (I got home at 7:30, which is when rehearsal starts, and as it takes 20 minutes for me to get there and at least 15 for me to warm up, not to mention that I was sweaty and needed to organize some things at home so I would not have made it there even if I were in any shape to sing which I probably was not).

It seems lately I have been practicing every three days (and some of these times are just warming up for choir, but I guess that's enough if I warm up at least to a B flat). 

Part of the problem, of course, is that I have no date on my calendar.  I don't schedule concerts between Thanksgiving and Easter partly because of all the singing that's going on at the church, but mostly because I don't want to plan anything major during the season when it might snow.  The number one way in which age has affected my physical well-being is that I feel unsafe in the snow, even with a cane.  Other than church and choir practice, any other commitment is up for rescheduling during those months.  So right now I've got my eye on December 30.  I have sung on that Sunday (last year it was the 31st and the year before it was January 1) for the past two years, but I won't know anything until I get the Advent/Christmas choir schedule and touch base with the Music Director about scheduling.  If someone else wants that date they should have it because I've had two "turns", on the other hand, half of the choir goes "home" for Christmas so there might not be any other takers, other than a man who likes to sing at the early service (he sang at 9 last year when I sang at 11).  I pulled out the Lauridsen "O Magnum Mysterium", which I sang three years ago some time in December, and have found a new song by Wolf, called "Schlafendes Jesuskind" that might be appropriate.  It would have been a "no" four or five years ago because it has an A flat in it (the previous Music Director didn't like "heavy voices singing in that range") but now it should be fine, with my new level of confidence and my slighly higher "sweet spot".  I will listen to a Youtube of it and see what I think.  And of course there's always "Rejoice", which is my favorite thing to sing in the whole world.  You know, it's one of those pieces that sounds difficult (and it also sounds high) to other people but it is actually not (high) and it has always been very easy for me to sing.

For another time, I found a song by Alma Mahler called "In meines Vaters Garten" which I really like.  I brought it to my lesson on Wednesday and my teacher said he liked it.  He said it reminded him of the Wesendonck Lieder (I guess I could also sing "Angel" in church but that's more suitable for Advent) and that because it's "tuneful" I could probably add it to a recital program.

So now I just need to get back to my practice routine.  I should be able to practice Monday.  Tuesday probably not because I may have to sleep over at my partner's if her podiatrist is coming Wednesday morning.  If he's coming Wednesday afternoon (I won't know that until Tuesday) I can practice Tuesday as well.  If I don't get to practice Tuesday I will pass on a neighborhood meeting I had penciled in for Wednesday evening and practice instead.

And I can't lose heart.  Last night (when I was already exhaused and feeling emotionally drained), I "re-encountered" one of the people on Facebook I had unfriended (or maybe she unfriended me) because the envy I felt for her led me to say something that she didn't like (that singers were self-absorbed maybe? well, they are! particularly if they don't have children or some other responsibility that's more important to them than flaunting head shots and photos of themselves in gowns).  Anyhow, that put my self-esteem back in the basement, somewhere it has not been for a while.

No matter how old and wise (?) I get, it never stops being painful to be surrounded by people who are doing in real life what I imagine myself doing, wished I were doing, can do a tiny bit of, and will never do a lot of no matter how hard I work (which isn't an excuse to stop working by the way).

We were having a conversation about neighbors and I was realizing that having a building full of people who go to the Met all the time (it's around the corner) including one who's a music critic with a wife who majored in voice at Manhattan School of Music who even though she doesn't sing any more has the snobbish attitude of 99% of the conservatory graduates I've ever met, nobody gives a damn if I sing because I'm so nothing.

I just can't think about that.  I can't lose heart. A friend told me that someone told her that if I sing I'm a singer, and if more than 50% of what I sing is operatic, I'm an opera singer, and all the "snitterati" on the Forum can't take that away from me.

When Beautiful Isn't Good Enough

Well, this afternoon I spent about 20 minutes solid on those ascending phrases in the Randall Thompson piece. It's called "Two Worlds" and it's about aging. We're singing it in a service dedicated to members of the congregation who are over 80. One of them is the beloved violinist I perform with sometimes. I'm not sure who the others are. That's even older than my partner, who will be 77 next month.

I produced numerous truly gorgeous shimmering high A naturals but none of them soft enough for this context, I don't think. A few nice mezzopianos but that's not good enough, certainly not from a voice like mine. The A flat really isn't a problem. Unless I'm having a very bad day I can sing softly on an A flat. But just that half step stretch is more than I can handle. In any other setting if it's a choice between singing too loud and not beautiful enough and choking and sounding like I can't sing the note at all I go for option 1. But I seem, as I said, to be much more inhibited now. So what kills me is that people probably think I can't sing that note at all which is not true!!!

Too bad I can't put those beautiful notes to some use. I guess I have a few arias I can use them in but there's no venue.

Actually by the end of the day, when I was supposed to be working on a bibliography and I turned the choir CD on (I never have music on when I'm editing an article but a lot of bibliographies are just rote work) and decided to go for broke and sing with it, the A flat was gorgeous (and probably quiet enough) and the A natural was quiet enough and if not gorgeous, I didn't choke on it. The problem is I can only do something like this if all the stars are in alignment, i.e. I'm well fed, well-rested, haven't been talking too much (my speaking voice, which is down in the basement, is my worst enemy....I developed a voice like that as an adolescent because it sounded both sexy and ladylike), and am not self-conscious, and that's not good enough.

I know a lot of my obsessive frustration about that note (which isn't all bad - as I said in an earlier post all the work I'm doing on this will have a payoff somewhere else if not here) is really about other things. Do you think if someone had asked me to sing "Mon Coeur" in a concert next week and I knew I could strut my stuff in a sexy dress I would be that bent out of shape because I can't sing a high A quietly enough for a choir? Or if I were singing a duet from Aida in a concert that someone else cast? Or if I felt my singing mattered to anyone enough to be steered in some direction not just vocally but situationally? So I think all this agonizing is a stand in for other things. I can't have the things I want but I can sweat and sweat and sweat until I can sing if not a perfect pianissimo High A at least a sweeter more beautiful one than I have heretofore, and this is something that I have control over not someone else.

This sort of thing makes me understand why women become anorexic or addicted to running when their lives are frustrating.

An Old Friend

As promised, I am now back "in training" to work on Amneris and Azucena. Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised by how well the dreaded page in the Amneris/Radames duet with the two high B flats went. I sang from "Chi ti Salva" several times and it sounded great. Not so great when I started at the beginning, but passable and after a small recoup it sounded good, meaning that there's a 99 percent chance that if I had to sing it in public now I would not totally disgrace myself. Possibly an off-night Borodina type scream on the first one, but a great spine-tingling note on the reprise, as I would have had time to rest. And I think I finally have an inkling of what I'm doing, which I never had before. I just drop my bloody larynx and let it rip! The way I have known how to do on an A for several years. This is what my teacher calls an "animal note".

I read an interview with Jane Eaglen in Classical Singer in which she talks about the need to rehearse difficult passages sometimes for as much as 30 minutes a day. I don't think I've quite done that - mostly out of fear that I would wreck my voice singing those notes over and over - but I've certainly given that page a good 15 minutes over and over. Maybe I'm starting to see a payoff? In any event, I am simply not going to give up. If one thing doesn't work I will try another. And this isn't the first time I've come back to something that gave me trouble. I used to not have the stamina to consistently nail the ending to "Acerba Volutta" and now it's my top aria. True, we were only talking about an A there, but nonetheless...

I called this piece "an old friend" not "an old foe" because the role of Amneris was written for a voice just like mine, albeit for someone with more stamina and a tiny bit more stretch in the upper register than I have now but I can see that I am getting there and that this is the rep I am meant to be singing.

On the other hand, the soprano line in the "Halleluia Chorus" is "an old foe" because that is not something I am meant to be singing. The alto part really isn't either but at least it won't squeeze my voice into the wrong place and have repercussions.

Anyhow, I can hardly wait to see my teacher and start planning our concert. I know he really really wants to sing this. So I just have to keep drilling and drilling it.

Tonight I almost didn't practice because it was 7 pm and I was feeling blah and had paying work to do. Boy am I glad I did!!

So now it's back to paying the rent.

You Don't Have to "Feel Like"

People who know me in the real world know that I have two elderly family members in a medical crisis at the same time that I'm looking for paying work (either freelance, or a full time job with a somewhat flexible schedule). This does not leave a great deal of time or energy for singing. When I took an "early retirement buyout" from my last (extremely boring and stressful) full time job ("early retirement" means I get health insurance from them not that I get a pension I can live on) I had envisioned spending a lot of time singing, learning music, and "making my own opportunities". It turns out I have had a lot less time for this than I had hoped due to family issues.

However this does not mean that I don't practice every day!!!

Yesterday I had spent the day at my mother's, had several lengthy phone calls with my S.O. about her upcoming surgery, engaged in numerous email exchanges about work, did a grocery shopping and a laundry, and then before I knew it it was 8:30 pm. I had planned to watch and listen to Carmen on P.B.S. (I will post about that later today or tomorrow) so at first I thought, "Oh, heck! I'll skip practicing and just go have my lesson on Friday [which is now today]"

But then I thought, well, "every little bit helps" and I remembered my Handel audition at the end of the month and how the aria is not memorized, the da capo ornaments are not completely sung into my voice and that when I get up there in two weeks I am determined to sing the expletive deleted out of this piece since I will be competing with women 30 years younger with YAPs and conservatory degrees on their resumes.

So I sang a few arpeggios and sang through the aria from start to finish. It's coming along, I'm able to do all the long runs without breathing (the woman on my recording isn't, FWIW!), it's all starting to fall into place, and wow! I felt really happy to have gotten something accomplished!

And I was done by 9:00. And yes, that half hour made a big difference in bringing me closer to my goal.