Singing in Other Languages Lecture

Once again in my opera workshop class I had the opportunity to listen to another helpful lecture. This time the professors of the class spoke on the difficulties of singing in different languages. They provided helpful tips as well. Here are a few I find really helpful and interesting:

-You must sound stylistically different in each language you sing. German shouldn't have a French feeling and vice versa.

-Be careful of which native singers you listen to. Some of their singing diction isn't always correct.

-In French if you master the schwa and the umlaut perfectly, you can usually coast through the rest of the language.

-German and other Germanic languages are so different than English because they use pure vowels Americans are not used to. Americans need to master pure vowels to sing successfully in German.

I should be back with more information after next week's lectures!

Glee Contest

So I did in fact make the top 10 for the Glee Local Casting Call contest I auditioned for over spring break. I need the most votes to win and here's the link to the contest page:

http://www.fox11online.com/generic/good_day_wi/glee-casting-call

Happy voting!

Singing Career Lecture

So this week in my opera workshop class, instead of rehearsing I had the chance to listen to a very important lecture that focused on upholding a singing/opera career. Three of the experienced professors in the class reflected on topics from creating a career in music to music memorization techniques. I found a lot of what they said useful and meaningful. They really made me start to think about what I want to do with my life and with music. Below are a few things that stuck with me from the lecture.

-Your career should be a combination of something you like to do, something you do well and something you can get paid for

-Sometimes it's easier to figure out the things that don't work for you before you can know what's right on your career path

-You'll never know EXACTLY what you'll be doing in ten years

-If there are two career paths in life you can take, follow the one that's easier to get back into second if the first path doesn't work out

Spring Break Singing Adventure

After taking a break from posting to catch up on homework and practice, I'm finally back with a new story and new experience. Over spring break my mom told me about an opportunity to audition for the Fox television show Glee which focuses on a high school show choir. Apparently a local casting call was taking place at a restaurant and participants got a chance to have their auditions recorded and uploaded free of charge. Singers could also upload their own video to the competition website. During the recorded audition contestants were given time to introduce themselves and then sing a song chosen from the public domain. Then local judges are supposed to pick the top ten from the local auditions and the public is free to vote for any of the top ten singers. The one with the most votes at the end wins and in return gets a 'golden ticket' pass to a real Glee audition with the producers of the show.

This past Thursday I participated in this audition and I believe it went over well. The one thing I struggled with, however, was my spoken introduction. Normally I have what I want to say planned out and occasionally I forget something I want to say and I freeze up. This indeed happened during my audition on Thursday and I struggled with remembering what I wanted to say. Otherwise my singing went really well and I felt I gave a strong audition. However, from this experience, I think the next time I have to include a spoken introduction, I need to simply speak slower and not feel so lost when I forget to say something. I think if I can do those simple things, my next introduction won't be so choppy.

Hopefully the video for my audition will be up soon! I'll definitely be posting the link when it does!

Opera Workshop Performance and Italian Recitative

I just finished my second big performance of the semester. This performance was an opera scenes program which consisted of different scenes from various operas. This semester there were only five scenes from four great operas: Don Pasquale, Le Nozze di Figaro, Dialogues of the Carmelites and Idomeneo. I got a chance to play Cherubino in a scene from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. The scene came from Act II and included the arias, "Voi Che Sapete" which I performed, and "Venite, inginocchiatevi!" sung by the soprano playing Susanna. The music between the two arias, on the other hand, consisted of recitative, or talk-singing.

The recitative in this scene was, by far, the most difficult to learn and perform. The first thing that we needed to master was the Italian. Italian recitative is especially difficult because words and phrases that end on a vowel need to be cut off right away, to avoid the 'American diphthong' and sound more Italian. I found that once I was aware of my holding out of phrase-ending notes I did the Italian cutoffs fine. The other difficult thing about learning the recitative was making it sound 'conversational'. This involved singing fast enough as natural spoken dialogue, which was bit difficult to get used to but simple once practiced. It also required the singer to be very aware of what is being said in Italian so interruptions and entrances implied by the dialogue are correct. Once my scene partners and I became aware of the correct way to sing Italian recitative we had the scene down in no time and were extremely prepared for the day of performance.

To wrap things up, it was an overall great performance by not only myself and my scene partners, but all the other performers as well. Bravi!

Illness and Protecting Your Voice

So these past few weeks beginning around my first performance of the semester, I have been fighting illness. At first it seemed like it could be strep throat, but some tests proved otherwise. Eventually I had a blood test that told me I have mononucleosis. Thankfully, it seems to be a mild strain and I'm slowly recovering. During my first performance I was on prescription steroids that the nurse said would take down the swelling in my tonsils so I could perform more easily. Various singers in school with me advised that steroids are very bad for a singer in that they take away the swelling, but not the problem itself. This is bad because that means you're in danger of damaging your voice even more when on them. However, I made it through the performance unscathed.

When a singer does feel like their voice is tired I know of a few vocal exercises one can do to help strengthen the voice. The most common vocal exercise of this type are tongue/lip trills. These involve singing a note of high pitch while vibrating the tongue or lips. According to the local voice clinic, these must be done as quietly as possible with the least amount of effort while singing the note as long as you can. This warms up and strengthens the voice without damaging it since it calls for little effort. Another exercise a singer can do to strengthen the voice is gliding. To do this one you must think 'choir boy oo' but then close your mouth around it and glide your voice from your lowest note to your highest, while making little effort. This exercise works the contraction in the voice.

There are many more vocal exercises one can do to keep the voice healthy and strong but those are the ones I find the most helpful. Now, to bed to rest my voice. Another busy week of singing!

First Performance of the Semester!

Last weekend, on February 13th I had to opportunity to perform in my voice teacher's recital. It was my first big performance of the semester and I think my individual performance was only somewhat successful for numerous reasons. However, the overall recital was really great. The theme of his recital was 'Teaching Favorites' and my voice teacher, a lyric tenor, finally got a chance to perform a lot of the songs he uses to teach his students. It was a different kind of recital in that, instead of discussing a song or composer's background for each song, he discussed what each song did to help a young singer develop. For instance, when he performed Vaughan Williams' "Silent Noon," in the program notes he discussed the wonderful phrasing and how by working on this song helps the beginning singer learn how to create and apply this kind of phrasing to future songs. The song I performed was of the same sort in the program. He asked that I perform it since it was from a woman's point of view. It was a Spanish song by Grandados called "El Majo discreto" or, the discreet man. Its poetry was from the point of view of a woman whose man was ugly, but was worth it all the same because he remains loyal and keeps a secret. My teacher enjoys using this as a teaching song because it involves a leap of a 5th from a B flat to a high F (the low voice version in my case). Leaps like these help a young singer begin to learn how to position their mouth and where to feel the high note in their head in order to get a great tone out of the leap. The best way I could make the leap was by thinking about coming at the F from above. Just thinking about singing a higher pitch right before the F helped my voice to be in the correct position when I did sing the F.

My performance of "El Majo Discreto" was alright. Definitely not noteworthy. I was sick during the performance, unfortunately, so I wasn't in the best shape to sing. However, I made it through and am now preparing for my next performance coming up on March 10th-- Opera Workshop!