The Payoff

Well, at last night's choir rehearsal I sang about 10 pianissimo high Gs in a way I never had before! In fact the choir director liked it so much he asked if I could please sing that anthem on December 5. I was flattered, but I told him I had to honor my commitment to my partner (and myself) that when I was rehearsing Carmelites I was going to take a break from choir if for no other reason than I owed it to her to spend Saturday evening and Sunday morning with her, as I would be really tired on Friday night, which is when I usually stay over.

Although I still don't think it's sunk in with her that no, I'm not cancelling this commitment. I will find plenty of time to do the work (copyediting work for pay)that has been pouring in as well as getting enough rest! And because the rehearsals are in Brooklyn, if I have to I can stop by my mother's apartment. Although I think I have done the right thing in letting an "apartment dismantling" company handle most of it.

Today I sang through the treacherous ascending phrase in Aida and it really went well! I didn't start too far back in the scene because there wasn't time. I must get a handle on those last two pages of Carmelites!! They're the hardest. The final section is me alone with Sister Constance and it's completely atonal (this for a gal who's never studied music theory and basically has always just winged it).

It's interesting. I was realizing that I have become totally inured to all the guillotine sound effects (which used to freak me out). So I see how people can become inured to the sights and sounds of certain kinds of violence and they might lose the potential to shock. I hope that never happens to me.

An Interesting Lesson - Something New

Yesterday I did some totally new things at my lesson, which was very interesting. I'm not sure why my teacher suddenly came up with some new exercises - whether it was because of my ongoing problems with my extreme upper register and finding a "light" position, or whether it's because he's been experimenting on his own going back to singing tenor.

Anyhow, he had me singing descending scales on a "v" sound with no vowel. My mouth is closed, so once I get up to an E (top space of staff) it gets hard. In the studio I was able to do it securely up to an A flat (the highest note I've ever really been able to sing pianissimo)but I got up to an A natural finally. Then he had me open up and sing "vaw" on the note that I had just phonated a "v" on. And surprise! The note had a lot of topspin and felt lighter and freer.

So he told me I should do this at home instead of some of my regular exercises singing descending scales on blu blu blu.

I sang among the best High Bs and even a few Cs that I have ever sung and then I did a bang-up job with the Amneris/Radames duet.

So I hope it sticks.

Even though my singing has kept improving over the past 6 years that I've been studying I still don't have a handle on the extreme high notes (for me anything above an A).

Tonight is my last choir rehearsal until Christmas Eve, because I'm taking a break to rehearse Carmelites. My partner is doing everything she can to discourage me, telling me if I fall or have some kind of accident I won't be able to work (or take care of her) but I am not budging. She also (to a friend) said my whole involvement with singing was a "fantasy". The friend, to her credit said "well, it's a nice fantasy".

The memorization is actually coming along, now that I'm drilling it (I guess I can't learn things by osmosis any more, certainly not anything later than Verdi).

Tonight the choir is singing a piece where both soprano parts have to sing a sustained pianissimo high G. I actually won't be singing the piece in the service but I'm going to challenge myself re: doing it tonight.

Back "Into" Singing

I think I am finally "into" singing again. I still don't have a lot of time. Even though I've made a decision to turn the task of dismantling my mother's apartment over to professionals (which means that when their fee plus the rent and utility payments on the apartment are deducted from the gross sales it will zero out)I still seem to be busy busy busy.

I think I finally do have enough work to keep me busy for 30 hours a week, I just need to be left alone to do it! So as singing breaks no longer naturally occur (breaks like running out of work until the following morning or the following Monday, or, in the old days, coming home from the office) I need to take at least one a day on days when I'm not rehearsing or having a lesson.

My small role in Carmelites is coming along. I can't believe how hard it is to memorize two bits of extended recitative and a choral section that mostly repeats itself over and over, on the other hand it is totally unfamiliar (unlike, for example, excerpts from Carmen, which I've had in my ear for over 40 years!)

My solo yesterday went well. One of the other singers there, who hadn't heard me for close to a year, told me I was sounding good. I said I had been working hard and she said she could tell. I just wish I were 20 years younger (I'd kill to be 40 again, never mind 28) so that I could do something with all this.

Saturday I gently broke it to my partner that I would be in an intensive rehearsal period and she wasn't thrilled but didn't do something ugly like refuse to have Thanksgiving with me, which she might have. It's sort of like here's where I came in 35 years ago - arguing with her about making time to sing.

What I haven't had time for is work on my big pieces, like the Amneris/Radames duet. That went very well at my last lesson, but I see I have a lesson tomorrow and I haven't touched it. Well, maybe that's for the best. I made a note in my 2011 calendar that in February, after Carmelites is over and after my mother's apartment is empty and "broom clean" (we promised the landlord to be out by January 31) that I need to start planning the concert with my teacher, the Carmen with this guy, and the Amneris/Aida duet, which I am planning to sing in one of my evening classes.

Coming Back to Life

I haven't written anything for a while because my mother died on October 10, and I have been both grieving and busy.

I also have suddenly gotten in a lot of freelance editing, which is what I do to pay the bills. (In fact I have had to turn down work that people wanted back in 5 days.)

We have a good lawyer who will be co-executor of the estate with me, so I will have less to do. I will get less money, but I will waste less time. There isn't a lot, but there will be something I can add to my nest egg, plus a little for my personal savings account, in case I can't manage to work full time for a while, whatever the reason.

I want to say here that my mother died without pain or fear. I spent her last 12 hours with her, holding her hand. Despite her having been an atheist her whole life, she smiled as she was leaving us, and inasmuch as it was possible, she had a "good death", meaning she died at home, pain-free, with no medical interventions to prolong things pointlessly. She died in her enormous living room in the Brooklyn Heights apartment where I grew up, facing the trees.

I haven't felt much like singing. Not because I'm too sad, but because I'm too busy. My mother never really cared about my singing. She loved classical music, but mostly as a spectator or listener. Her thing was language and literature. I want to read, I want to write, and I want to work (with the written word, which is what I do, for an hourly rate scarcely more than that of a cleaning lady).

I haven't done any blogging either here or at the other place because my priorities are work first, then sing, then if there's no paying work on my plate, I can write. (This is a stolen bit of writing, because I have been working all day since 10 am with a small break for lunch.)

Yesterday I went back to choir practice. I am, I suppose, the de facto alto section leader on a Bach cantata. It is going well. I am in a quandary about where to put myself, section-wise, since as a mezzo I'm neither one thing nor t'other. Luckily, we sing a lot of pieces with two soprano parts, so I can sing second soprano. My problem isn't the tessitura (I'm solid up to an A) so much as having to keep the volume down, which fosters tension and undoes all the good work I do with my teacher and in my own practice.

Next month I start rehearsals for Carmelites. It's a very intensive rehearsal period, ironically, right near my mother's apartment, which I will probably be clearing out for the next several months. I have a very small part and it will be memorized by November 29!! And I have a choir solo on the 14th, a nice version of "The Lord is My Shepherd" by Dvorak. And when I can squeeze in a period of vocalizing I continue to use the dreaded ascending phrase from the Amneris/Radames duet as an exercise.

Now back to work!

Above is a photo of me and my mother, taken several years ago at Fiorello's, a place where we spent many Thanksgivings and Mothers Days.

Time Out for My Mother

My mother really is dying. They have set up a hospice in her apartment. I know this is mostly a blog about singing, but I just wanted to check in.

I know I have said many hateful things about her, and she was a very difficult person (not just with me but other people too) but she was always a lovely mommy to me when I was little, always comforting me when I had a nightmare, arranging birthday parties, understanding my grief when our dog died.

So I want to be sweet to her for the remainder of her life, however long it is - two weeks, two months, I don't know.

Unfortunately I can't be physically there for her all the time because my freelance editing business has just taken off and I desperately need money. Not just in the short term, but I need to earn a decent amount (which means satisfying clients) over the next several years so that I can collect a decent amount of social security.

I haven't really felt like singing at all. But I know I must do just the basic minimum, which means singing exercises at least up to a B flat (I can't lose that hard won territory) and being sure I am spot on with the alto part for the Bach cantata if I see myself as a de facto section leader. What's interesting, is that all the crying I've done (which I think has been spiritually cleansing) has done a lot more harm to my lower register than anything else (similarly to how a cold functions - I'm blessed that I get one about every three years if that). But this alto part is not low (which is why I'm singing it!) it's mostly middle voice (and the soprano part sits around high F and G!!)

I also haven't felt much like eating. Maybe I'll lose a pound or two, who knows. I do make sure I have something with protein three times a day. In between I have my beloved flavored coffee or juice. I just don't have the stomach for anything like an apple or a salad.

So I may not be writing much here. I just didn't want my last post here to be something cynical about my mother. I feel blessed to have time to make peace.

Today's Concert

I am really too tired to write much (more on that later) but I wanted to just say that this afternoon's concert in the nursing home went well enough. My bass colleague had a bad cold that affected his hearing, so at some point in the middle of the duet from La Gioconda we were not in the same measure. Probably no one noticed it and the pianist did a good job of covering it up.

I had a ball, as always, with the Habanera and "Mon Coeur". I did a bit of a vamp, but not too much, as this was not the venue.

I found the seniors very moving - they reminded me of my partner as most of them were frail and fairly quiet and you could see the appreciation on their faces. No, it's not the kind of concert venue the Forum crowd sings in, but it's a chance to sing the music I love and make some people happy, so what more can you ask?

I "did the right thing" and thanked the woman who had helped coordinate this. Last week I was annoyed at her for forgetting that we were going to be rehearsing but everything worked out in the end, so I would be happy to do something there again.

So next up:

January Mother Jeanne in Dialogues of the Carmelites. This will entail a very intensive rehearsal schedule but it's my first time ever singing in an opera with an orchestra.

Spring 2011 concert with my teacher. We will do the deadly Amneris/Radames duet but I know by then I will be as comfortable with those B flats as I am with the As in the Judgment Scene. Wimping out is not an option. I don't know what else we'll sing, maybe a scene from La Gioconda. I also don't know if it will be just us, or if some other people will participate too. The purpose of this concert is mainly to celebrate my teacher's return to singing tenor, after several years going back to bass-baritone.

Fall 2011 Carmen with my "Samson" (shown here)?

The reason I'm so tired is that my 94 year old mother is dying of cancer. We never got along very well, and I am probably not doing everything I could or should, but she lives in Brooklyn and I need to spend time editing manuscripts to earn money. My severance check will have run out after I pay the November rent, so I am literally living from hand to mouth (I have a 401k but the money in it has to last for the rest of my life, and anyhow if I take money out of it now I'll be screwed for taxes).

This is a critical period in my life in terms of my financial profile. If I don't keep earning enough money over the next five years I will not get a decent amount from Social Security, which will affect the rest of my life. And the relationships I'm building with freelance clients will affect my livelihood for the next decade, if not more. I can't make a false move here.

I know this sounds callous but my mother is 94!! It's not like I need to savor every last minute with her because she's leaving too soon.

So I do what I can. The most draining thing is fielding endless phone calls and emails from people who are concerned, are visiting her, have visited her, etc. Luckily there are many people in Brooklyn who are close by who can visit her on the spur of the moment which I really can't. Rather ironically, my rehearsals of Carmelites will be in Brooklyn so maybe I can spend more time with her then, at least sleeping over and having breakfast.

So I'm very tired.

Of course I feel defensive about continuing to sing (not to mention spending money on lessons) while all this is going on, but I'm 60 and this is my last chance, even to do this on a tiny scale. I love the way it feels to sing the Judgment Scene from Aida and how many more years will I be able to do that?

Playing the Age Card before Someone Else Does

This evening I went to my monthly group coaching. They have one every Tuesday night but I only go once a month. It's open to about 7-8 people and for $20 we get to sing three arias or whatever with a pianist.

I brought the Judgment Scene and ran through two sections of it. I sang well. I sing this well. And I got quite a bit of applause. I also sang all the way through my part of the "Vengeance Duet" from Samson et Dalila which also went well (my voice really moves, which comes as a surprise to many people), and then ended with the Habanera.

I told people that this was my 46th anniversary of singing the piece, since the first time I sang it I was 14. And I know I am still a hot Carmen no matter how old I am.

I think I'm really past the age when I care who knows how old I am. I mean 60 is a big number, and being able to sound as fresh and young as I do at my age is something to be proud of, not something to hide.

If I were, say, 42, and still hanging on by my fingernails hoping for a big break, knowing I was competing with people ten years younger, it might be another story. But at my age who cares? No one is going to "hire" me for money to sing anything and in fact no matter how good I sound no one is even going to cast me in any of the "emerging pro" performances (unless it's a character my age, in which case my age shouldn't matter).

I think I'm as sexy a Carmen as women half my age.

I mean I see so many women my age who obviously have just "given up". It isn't a question of God-given body size or shape, it's a question of attitude. I see these women (there are a lot of them in offices) who are either never-married or divorced or married for decades and what's the new acronym - DINS (that stands for double income, no sex). They have bad posture from sitting at a desk all day and walk like they're uncomfortable with their bodies. I am not like that. I remember reading somewhere that if you're over 50 sexuality is supposed to be "a giggle". Hello??? Not for this sexy sexagenarian. I take myself very seriously as a seductress. That's why Carmen and Dalila are my favorite roles. (Not to mention that the famous arias don't have any scary high notes.)

So in any event I just let it rip and had fun tonight "doing" Carmen.

Of course no matter how well I sing most of the people sing better. There was one young woman who sounded glorious, who is auditioning for a company that not only threw my audition materials in the garbage, but whose "head" called me up and insulted me for even sending them. Was that really necessary?

And of course this woman could just soar up into the vocal stratosphere with no fears at all!

It never ceases to amaze me that there are all these people (sopranos) for whom high notes hold no terrors. They may be afraid of long phrases, the passagio break, French, or forgetting their music, but not of a high C and certainly not of a high B!

Speaking of which that deadly phrase in the Amneris/Radames duet is getting easier and easier. I just pretend I'm singing the one in the Judgment Scene that's one half step lower!!

So tomorrow it's on to sing the alto part in a Bach cantata. At least it has a decent range (sort of) and lots of long phrases requiring good breath control, which I have.