Moar Reid?

More Reid research to set beside this post. Reid -> John Stewart (->) Christine Armistead -> Christine Brewer:

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.

ahoy!

It's been awhile since I've had both the time and inclination to write -- what a semester! But the next series of posts should hopefully bring everything back into relief.

I had started writing this blog to chronicle the sorts of things I encountered in switching into vocal performance. At the outset, I had consciously thought of the possibility of what to do once I did get into school and started attending. Looking back, I don't remember what I felt about my chances of actually getting into places that I applied. Of course I had my dreams, but that's not exactly something that's very rational.

In the same vein of preparing notes and keeping track of progress while applying (and getting ready for auditions), I had imagined my blogging activity would be a benchmark for my progress, development, and breakthroughs while attending school. I've been kind of remiss in keeping track of that, so hopefully this post will also be the beginning of a return to this approach (rather than simply the sharing of awesome found things on the internets..though that won't disappear. You're welcome or sorry depending on your stance).

Breakthroughs:

This first one is a two-parter. I've always had trouble with the [i] vowel -- all sorts of tightness and tension. The first breakthrough came when one of John's former students was in town on a production and came by to say hi. It just so happened that I was performing in the voice department recital and had a lesson afterwards. Ryan asked if I minded if he sat in on my lesson and helped with tongue-placement for the [i] vowel. Namely, making sure the tip of the tongue stays forward (almost even moving it forward to counteract the tendency to pull back on it) in order to encourage the base of the tongue to not clog the throat. Breakthrough 1. The next one came when I was doing exercises with my summer teacher, Ruth, just recently. The other component of stress came from the soft palate collapsing down as the back of the tongue comes up to form the vowel in some sort of sympathetic motion. Once I noticed this was happening, I could think about separating the two parts of my body to do different things at the same time. It's not perfect yet (obviously) but it's a much better, looser sound. The third breakthrough will happen when I can finally embrace the fact that the sound will just have to carry. It'll never be a "beefy" sound on [i].



Truth be told, the big sort of breakthrough of this semester has been developing a finer control of the soft palate so it doesn't just collapse all the time or jerk up or whatnot. This combined with a better connective, deeper support of last semester has smoothed my singing out immensely. Breakthroughs still in the wings include figuring out how "really" to sing up through the passaggio and into the high notes that I'm pretty sure I'll have one day. But they're just tantalizingly (annoyingly) out of reach at the moment. Bah!

Books Read:
Sort of filling out my other obsession, I picked up Julie & Julia in anticipation of waiting around in doctors' offices.

It's a fairly decent read, though the hyperbolic comparison of living in NYC to being in a Khmer Rouge camp (and similar comparisons of her middle-class life to truly desperate conditions) I find in pretty bad taste.

I also picked up volume of Joseph Kerman's criticism written for the New York Review of Books, which I am adoring, despite his polemics in Opera as Drama. I find his reviews to be much more balanced. Though maybe it's just that I've grown up a bit, read a bit more. I'll have to revisit Opera as Drama and see what I think.

And as a lagniappe, I've (re?)discovered Brigitte Fassbaender! I don't know why I always had it in my head that it was a brusque, uneven voice.

Check out these youtubes for some awesome:

Suicidio


Una voce poco fa

thought

I feel I have been making great progress on fundamental technical issues so far this semester, and while working hard has been a big part of a it, just as important, I think, has been the approach that my teachers has taken with me.



It reminds me of what I read once about Jan DeGaetani's teaching style. One of her former pupils was being interviewed about his own teaching (he was being awarded something for his teaching excellence) and he spoke about DeGaetani's approach. He recalled that sitting in on her lessons, he realized that although she saw all the things that needed to be fixed, she didn't address them head on. Instead, her approach was roundabout, by "the back door" (his words, not mine!), seemingly unconnected to the problem at hand. But lo! the problem would be addressed just as surely as if it had been mentioned explicitly.

bullets to a new day

Eeeek, I have been remiss in writing on this blog for quite a bit of time, but I think now is a really good time to bring this thought-repository up a little bit more to speed. Well, let's not waste more time!

• In the interest of disclosure, it's been a tough personal time recently. I doubt anybody really wants to know the details, but I think it's important to acknowledge that it did happen, especially since the bigger issues touched upon (like ego, body image, intimacy) are likely to be recurring. I suspect I'm not unique in this situation, but I think it's important that I log the good and the bad (at least that the bad occurred and the good that was entangled in it, so I can get better at separating the two).


• I have my motorcycle endorsement! Yes! I am now on my way to getting myself wheels for much less than it would cost to own a car. Yes, it is more dangerous than driving a car, but I think the benefits outweigh it: namely it is mobility and flexibility (I hardly need a vehicle for every day), it's easier to park, it's cheaper both to own and to pay for gas, and let's not forget the *awesome* factor. I want to be this dude on a motorcycle!


• I went a dear friend's wedding in San Diego. Leaving the wedding aside, what the hell was I thinking when I went to school on the east coast? And why am I staying there? (reminder to self: music school, sigh). I could have studied environmental engineering at Berkeley, but instead I studied chemistry...uh...somewhere else. Not that I regret anything, but San Diego was amazing. I got to sit in a clover patch next to the beach and watch the bees hum. It was a fantastic weekend.


• I also went home to visit my parents (and my sister and her boyfriend came to visit at the same time too, so that was good). We took the boyfriend about the state to see the White Sand Dunes, Carlsbad Caverns, and of course, the UFO Museum in Roswell. In between, there were amazing sights that forcibly struck home how much I love New Mexico. I have a list of 5 different places I would want to live incognito when I get older. Maybe I can convince my sister to send me the pictures she took of some of these places.


• In terms of vocal bootcamp...it was that. Sort of. I'm pretty much convinced that the next big battle is figuring out how to deal with the passagio and the upper register such that I actually can sing lines up there rather than just isolated tones. I'm pretty convinced that *something* different has to happen mechanistically, but nobody I've really studied with has made much progress in helping to illuminate that. I think that's the biggest technical thing that's sitting right in front of me right now, so I'm hoping that studying with someone for several years at a stretch will help facilitate that work. (And who am I kidding, there are plenty of other things to take care of as well.) I did make quite a few strides. Before going home, I had toyed around with a "Kermit the Frog" placement. In its tightest incarnation, it gives a golden and tightly wound vibrato to the sound. I definitely sound like a tenor when I sing this way. But it also does really unpleasant things to the larynx, so I have been trying to figure out how to incorporate that space with the other throat-tension-diffusing things that I am doing. I think I've made quite a few strides forward in that case, still maintaining the range height that I have and not killing the bottom of the range either. I'll have to play with this a little bit more, but it's a nice avenue to look down.


• My parents are visiting! So I've been madly cleaning (which the apartment needs anyway because I've been gone for 2 weeks!). I think that about catches everything up to the moment. I best get back to cleaning -- but I *definitely* will get back to posting all the things I've been promising (e.g. Nordic Voices, eeek!) to post about.

WEEEEEE!

rub tummy, pat head, chew gum, walk briskly...

some thoughts to put on paper. I had just realized that in some of my post-audition vocal "noodling" and "vacationing," I definitely had stopped focusing on at least one part of the important things I picked up with my mom during winter vocal bootcamp^TM.

It didn't really dawn on me until I got to my lesson with prospective teacher #3. Interestingly enough, right away he wanted to try out some different approaches to the necessary registration event for upper register singing. It's not exactly something I would have figured would have made for a good lesson in that it's not something that would likely come together, but at the same time, it's a pretty good test case in a lot of ways (lord knows I need help on this), since it's a somewhat complicated objective to communicate between teacher and student. And, truth be told, success in a short amount of time is usually just gravy and being immediately swayed by that can be a little bit of a non-starter. Still, I was still surprised that we were doing this. It was also interesting that he kept switching approaches on me -- in a way that seemed to be designed to keep me from "getting" the exercise and hence, keeping the responses of the vocal mechanism as "spontaneous" as possible. At least, that would be the positive way of looking at it. (omg, sidebar, can we talk about how I had a serious geeky moment thinking about how P.T.#3 was talking about modalities in describing relaxed vs. lazy and energized vs. tense? I totally had some geekgasm while thinking about it.)

Aaaanyway, what's interesting is that I've already picked up some really interesting things from all three of my lessons, so that's pretty amazing right then and there. From P.T.#1, I definitely focused on allowing my vibrato to come through. Very related to a lesson with a previous new york teacher, when the vibrato is there (and I focus on having it start as soon as I produce sound), the vocal mechanism will be working efficiently. From P.T.#3, we discussed another pat the head, rub the tummy split: vowel dark but tone bright. I hadn't even thought about it like that before. When I was working with my mother, we were definitely trying to get that, but just describing it as two separate sound qualities (vowel vs. tone) definitely help put another dimension of ring to the sound. (Incidentally, this also reminded me that I need to be mindful of the space and the general acoustical resonance I make for each note -- it's not yet habitual -- I was definitely right in thinking that my sound was smaller than I remembered it.) From P.T.#2, there's just a lot of experience going on, but it's always filtered through music and expression, which makes a lot more sense to me anyway. That's how I want to study! (I just have to make sure that this doesn't screw me over technically as a by-product.)

Now I just have to sort out my finances, which are rapidly coming together.

I had never thought I'd really come to like Birgit Nilsson's singing as much as I have recently, and I think it has to do with a lot of youtube postings which show more of the voice and what I think must be a better representation of experiencing it live than many of the other recorded media I am familiar with. As recorded, her voice can seem devoid of legato and lacking the in-person soar of the sound, it can sound a bit dowdy. Certainly not as italianate as the following youtube shows (though still not 100% idiomatic, it's certainly not at all a bad shot!)



I aspire to be more involved, and I definitely aspire to have better coloratura and legato, but for technical assurance and pacing, there really is no better role model, I think.

But I still would want to be the baritone Teresa Stratas!