New lesson with Sensei and some really interesting things are happening. It's kind of counter to the whole "expression within technique" if only because we're doing some very basic exploring of reflexive coordination.

In a nutshell -- Sensei says that the way I was accessing falsetto was in such a physiological position so as to prohibit the arytenoids from engaging -- i.e. chest voice. So habit (both mental and physical) was barring any sort of meaningful overlap, thereby resulting in either this driven chest sound that would split when driven high in the range or the flutey flutey flutey falsetto sound which would essentially evaporate in and below the passaggio.

Basically, a reedy sound is starting to take root here as the voice is slowly figuring out how to do both the falsetto and the chest motions at the same time. Exciting as hell.

I had another lesson on Thursday with Sensei (operating nickname) and had some really interesting things happen. The voice seems to be coordinating in a way that is comfortable and feels and sounds exciting. Baby steps, but I've always been a quick learner when I get into a groove.

But mainly, this post is to do some web-foo. There are some youtube videos that I really would love to hear on loop as a sort of meditative cycle. One used to be able to do this by setting up a playlist with two entries of the same clip side by side such that the software would be confused into thinking it was still playing the first one and then loop and loop and loop. But that's been changed, so now the other way to do it is to embed it and put in some lovely flashvars. Let's see if it works.



E: score!

third lesson

Third lesson with Reid-student and I got an earful. I was able to observe (and record bits) lessons his other students had: tenor, mezzo, soprano, all working singers in one way or another. It was incredibly instructive to watch other singers and compare/contrast their singing with mine -- and more importantly to watch how he handled the lesson as contrasted with the phantom voices in my head saying "now lift your palate" or whatever it natters on about sometimes, drawing from all of that mechanistic stuff I've been taught.

Instead it was all about concept, expectation, and reflex: think the pitch, the vowel, and how it's going to sound, expect the stupid thing to show up, and then go.

And the way he goes about taking you through the voice is based on what he hears come out of your mouth. It isn't a "let's do this exercise until you get it right" they're also useful as diagnostic tools. I haven't sung any exercise pattern for him consecutively more than like 6 or 7 times. It's always switch to something else -- and then we'll come back. The closest thing I can think of is a mechanic fiddling with an engine that just won't start. You mess with something, then try and start it. Observe what it does, and then go back to fiddling. By the way, here is a fantastic piece describing why the manual trades are not short on intellectual demands. It's also a little bit like self-adjusting systems where scientists hook up a bunch of circuits and then tell them whether their output is good or not and over time and repetition they just adjust to being more able to perform a task.

Some very good things gleaned:

• Reflex vs. duplication. What normal teachers call "letting go" or "being relaxed" this teacher instead describes as seeking reflexive response. Like the hammer to the knee reflex exam at your physical -- you can only duplicate that by seeking a reflexive response, because that's exactly what it is. If you try and just move your knee like you observe it while it's moving reflexively, you're not going to get it; it uses different muscle groups. The idea is that singing correctly is also a reflexive action -- the only thing you can do is expect it to show up. Futzing with the palate and the support and the resonance or whatever is just like trying to recreate that reflexive action based on what you see -- they don't get to the original cause of the action so it seems reasonable that they won't be able to produce the action either.


• The other way he tried to explain this was by asking how you pick up a pencil on a desk and move it to another place on the desk. The thought process isn't "ok and now I open my hand and move my forearm to this location and then lower my shoulder and close my forefinger and... etc." It's "pick up the pencil; move the pencil; put down the pencil."


• The last explanation sort of crystallized in my head as I was driving home -- it's not unlike learning how to pronounce sounds that one isn't used to hearing. Like teaching an east-asian to properly pronounce american r's and l's or learning, as an english speaker, all of the weird french and german vowels or to recognize the tones in tonal languages -- you can make some progress just by having someone tell you physically how to make them, e.g., pucker your lips and then say "eeee". But that only gets you so far. Whenever you see that, you'll have to think "ok now pucker my lips and say eeeee" but ultimately, you're just going to have to figure out how that locks into your head. So when you see ü or what have you, you have a concept of what that sounds like, rather than a process.

Yeah, I guess that's the biggest difference. This kind of learning is goal-based rather than process-based. My teacher goes searching for the free sounds lurking in my singing and we make more of that. Other teachers just want to futz with my palate with the assumption that it'll result in free sounds. I'm beginning to think more and more that that's kind of a load of poppycock. There are plenty of other sounds I could make with a lifted palate.

Edit: Another nugget. Teach sez: if you feel a "resonance sensation", this means that the sound is stopping there. And if you don't feel something, e.g., in the throat, that doesn't mean it isn't active.

origins

I am obsessed with origins. I didn't think so before, and it wasn't until I read my friend Betsy's blogpost on the subject that my own fascination with the subject became apparent.

I'm not particularly concerned with my origins -- at least not my familial origins -- but with general ideas of personality- or interest-origins. Maybe something along the lines of what Twyla Tharp calls "creative DNA."

After reading Betsy's post, I realized how nutty I am about origins and witnessing them. It explains my weird, mostly culinary desire to make everything from scratch -- from bread, pasta, and rose water (and secondary or tertiary products thereof) to researching how to card and spin yarn from dog hair [this, thankfully, might stay in the theoretical realm]. I used to think that I was interested in the elaborateness of it all; that I was attracted to their long processes because I am famously (or infamously, in my family) impatient.

I think now that it's because of a deep interest in the elementality of raw materials and witnessing their transformation and transmutations into more recognized objects. There's something about the arcane here and also something of the earth. It also manifests in my research interests too: writing about Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, I was interested in how it emerged and departed from oratorio norm; it explains why I am drawn to early music. There's also an element of contrast here, too -- as I'm interested in Berg more than Schoenberg, in non-Western music/art traditions as they influence, borrow, and interact with the Western tradition.

It also explains, in part, why I hunt down singer biographies and focus intently on passages detailing their training and "creative DNA." To be sure, part of it is/was hunting for assurances that I'm not completely out of my mind for starting studying singing the way I have, but it really can't explain all of it.

Origins are interesting. I'm almost beginning to think that it's an instinctual human interest, though the actual patterns or forms it takes differ. I mean, it can't be a mistake that [in the words of a film critic, paraphrased] "stories of becoming are much more interesting than stories of being."

But hey, speaking of origins, I stumbled across this fun interview with Magdalena Kozena. Her bit on not thinking about technique but instead focusing on expression and giving echoes Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's remarks on how her psychological state almost *is* her technique. AND it's basically what new voice teacher's position seems to be. Huh.

MK Interview 1 2
especially cool is the paragraph in the second in which she talks about singing songs written for men. !! I secretly have this dream of whipping out "nacqui all'affanno...non piu mesta" as some sort of cracked out party piece/encore someday.

LHL Interview -- F! I can't find it. Will update.

Found it! OperaNews interview "Wild at Heart" (Nov96, Vol. 61 Issue 5, p12-17)

Relevant section:

LORRAINE: "There are some singers who just have this wide-open, free voice, technically, from the start. But for me that freedom has come gradually, and it's connected to my, well, inner voice. As I become more free, and shed those layers, those skins I don't need, and let go of my past, my voice sort of follows me. I remember doing Donna Elvira, Ms. Torment, at a time when I was really struggling with everything. There were so many obstacles -- high notes, or getting through the aria, whatever -- and I don't think I could even tell whether the struggle was body first or psyche first. I can do more of what I want now, without fear, musically, technically, and it's a huge sigh of relief in my life." (emphasis added)

Instead, here are memorial pieces: OpenSource (audio) SpiderMonkey's Blog

Also, Bach (hello 90s!)

next lesson

I had another lesson with Reid-student (I need to come up with a better nickname) this past Thursday, and I think there are some definitely improvements in the offing.

In practice, the approach outlined by Reid in his books and other materials is very a-technical. Not only does he eschew talking about palates and tongues and chest-positions, and openness -- it's been about making vowels, making dynamics, and singing vocalises like musical objects.

Every so often, there'll be a quick discussion about what's happening coordination-wise or an encouragement to just go with the music -- that one shouldn't expect or force everything to go the same way. The rules change depending on where you are in the voice, just like bowing rules change the higher up the fingerboard you go on a violin.

The sound is much more present and I have a really nice conception of making music as a result. Notes to be sung and filled with expression, then overlayed with the specificity and musical implications of text.

For instance, we finally worked through a bit of text in "Betrachte, meine Seel" in Bach's St. John Passion. Bach writes (and I'm free-translating):

Betrachte, meine Seel, mit ängtslichem Vergnügen, mit bittrer Lust und halb beklemmtem Herzen...

Consider, my soul, with anguished rapture, with bitter joy and half-beating heart...

beklemmtem is set to the "and" of 1 and beat 2 in 4/4 time. -klemmtem is figured as two-note sixteenth note groups that each return to the same pitch as the word starts and then fall in successively widening intervals of a minor second to a minor third. They could be sighs, but the textual grounding of it makes a stronger case for a heart beat.

The way I had been approaching it before, pulling way away on the second of each two-note group sounded/felt very unsatisfying although I was completely committed to the expressive idea. My instrumental training informed me that I needed to pull back the sound-making apparatus (bow on violin, finger attack on piano), but this left out the effects that vowels and consonants would have on the sound itself. With the sound-decreasing MMs falling on the weak notes of the two-note groups, pulling back on the sound in general resulted in flaccid, swoopy, dippy phrasing. Thinking about vocal music as an underlay of produced sound overlayed with text really brought out fidelity to the phrase that utilized the words to add their own effects.

I never really thought there would be a point in which I could get too much about the words, but hey -- guess what?

And now it's time to reign that in -- but not too much!

first lesson

First lesson from my peabody teacher! woo!

I was a little trepidatious leading up to this lesson because I had a tough time deciding between teachers. But I think this lesson was an "it" lesson.

There was an insistence that everything work well -- no easy pass on anything, including on interpretive matters (important, because otherwise I can get bogged down in all of the technical stuff to think about) and most nit-pickingly (and enlighteningly), diction. It's a super-detailed approach (yet logical, i.e., no random launching into anything I can't handle...it's just *hard* to handle, which is a great motivation, because it's not so far out of the bounds of my current reach that it's demoralizing).

Also, I met an accompanist/collaborative pianist who was not anything that I expected. So that was great too. The both of them don't mince words, which I think is great, because it's also strangely laid back. I hope I'm up to this.

Notes to myself:

pinch just under the bone of my nose to feel the focal point of sound.

concurrently open the back of the throat, behind the tongue, as wide as it will go. to "balance" the sound.

No mini-vowels in italian that creep between consonants. This is the hardest - the connection of unusual (for me) consonant sounds without vowels. Also, listen to italian diction. No lazy anglo-italian accents!

Study texts.

ROAR!

sunny blatimore!

Mmmm so I spent a really long day today in Baltimore, which is just a quick train ride away (under an hour, all told).

I met with financial aid, admissions (switching from non-degree to degree program), and then lessons with 2 prospective teachers, first a woman and then a man.

Both were a treat. I think I really like a particular kind of humor -- a bit of wide-eyed, polite ribaldry where squeamishness is left at the door. Ms. Teacher, in a particular impassioned speech as to what the grounding principle of the stage must be (knowing how to sing), "it doesn't matter that I've just had diarrhea in the dressing room and now my heart is pounding a mile a minute and I'm just so nervous out here on the stage -- what matters is that once I'm there, I know what to do."

She was very good and has a very clear and well-thought out pedagogical style. After chatting (for quite some time...tangents, ahoy!) we finally started warming up, and here, I think, there was a very big difference between her and all my other teachers. It was predicated on simply getting the vocal cords lubricated, and so it wasn't strictly about "building the voice" which is very similar to warming up superficially, but the ultimate goal is different. Warm ups, according to Ms. Teacher, who learnt it from her teacher, should be no less than 10 minutes but no more than 20. Extremes should be eschewed and simple, gentle, warm-ups should be the rule.

So, in keeping, we did lip trills, starting at the B-flat at the top of the staff descending until A-flats or Gs. Then back to the B-flat and then upwards to E-flat or so. Then we did Maa-maaa on five note descending scales with similar ranges, and then finally a sustained note followed by a rapid upward five not scale on O. This we took up to F-sharp, as it's, according to Ms. Teacher, the best exercise to go beyond the passagio.

Then we sang briefly and I think she's very good and precise about noting what works and what does not work with me. So that's all very good and sound.

Then was my lesson with Mr. Older Teacher (in contrast to Mr. Younger Teacher, whom I'll meet on Wednesday). Mr. OT is, I think, though not much older than Ms. Teacher, of a different generation. While Ms. T (and most likely Mr. YT) are more explicitly likely to speak about technique, particularly technique as divorced from expression. Mr. OT, who had very nice things to say about my singing once I finished clocking through some very florid baroque pieces, said that we would begin at the beginning if I were to join his (small) studio, a prospect that I eagerly seconded.

What I liked was that technique wasn't divorced from expression. We were to work on arie antiche and also very much address the issue of pronouncing it as a dental language, bringing the consonants forward. This was the same for the German that I sang for him. (We spent quite a few minutes figuring out just how to get my to send the final unvoiced consonant of "platz" in a way that would carry!)

The combined allure of 1) having someone with so much experience in performance and aware of a treasure trove of repertoire (and repertoire for *my* voice) and 2) the very detailed focus, though in a different way from the other technophiles and 3) the small studio, lending itself to perhaps more individual attention.

My only hesitation in going along with it right now is that I worry that perhaps I might not get enough technique to iron out my issues. Hmmm. Not sure. Will have to think about it. Mr. OT even invited me to a repertoire class and even bring something to sing (!!!!).

Anyway, it was a very productive day all around. And I can think of nothing better than capping it off with some Anna Russell!