THANK YOU BISHOP:
Remember how I quit my job at Quality Paws? Last night, just as I was celebrating the fact that I could sleep in in the morning, I got a call from an (ex) co-worker asking me to cover for her. Gaaaah.
After hours of arguing with myself, I decided I would do it for the following reasons:
- This girl was taking up the shifts I left behind, and she didn’t realize she was scheduled to do so this soon.
- This girl is nice. She also just finished the semester and had planned a celebration brunch.
- I was fortunate enough to come to an arrangement with my (ex) boss that I could likely work when it’s convenient to me, and still get paid (maybe even retain my discount?) for it, which is pretty damn useful. I figured covering for this girl would play in my favor for future opportunities.
SO…. I texted, said I would do it, got a text back that said she got it covered and I don’t have to! Sweet, I showed that I’m willing, at least sometimes, AND I got to sleep in.
Ok, this has nothing to do with my goal tracking blog thing and I’m ashamed. Let’s talk singing. Lesson got pushed around again this week, and I ended up taking it yesterday at 1:30. We did the warmups, and allowing my voice to switch naturally into head voice when it needs to is apparently a huge problem for me. Or, at least, it’s a huge focusing place right now. I still resist head voice, probably because I always thought it sounded stupid, but I’m learning that it doesn’t have to and that it’s unhealthy to try to sing that high in chest. I can’t quite make the change though, without making a weird cracking sound. Blech.
Next, opera song. I’m not keeping my jaw loose enough, so I had to actually physically hold my face while singing this time, to feel where I’m keeping it tight. I also keep slacking on the church lady voice, and on the accent. Apparently I’m not singing in Italian, I’m just reading the words as if they were English. This prompted Amra to tell me “it’s ok, you’ve never studied languages, so it’s understandable.” Of course, I’ve studied Spanish since I was 8, but pay that no mind….. I did tell him that, and we decided together that “what’s your excuse for sucking” is a better approach for me than “you must have never done this before.” I tried to sing as if it was in Spanish, at least, but I can tell that it’s not satisfactory. I think years of feeling pretentious if I used too heavy of an accent are standing in my way.
On My Own came next, and pacing my breath was mostly what we worked on. It helps a great deal to prepare for each coming phrase, instead of just filling up with air whenever I can. My voice cracked once on the ‘ing’ in ‘pretending,’ and Amra reminded me to “think down.” I like that one, it’s easy to imagine for some reason… and it always helps. It also helps to string all the words together, like each phrase is one big cursive word. I’m getting better at the belts, though I discovered I am incapable of singing the ending, which is soft and on easy notes. Amra says that I need twice as much control in that part, and so I’m running out of breath, even though this part is much shorter than other parts I sang easily. I’m no good at soft. He wanted me to try that part in head voice, and liked the results, but I like it better in chest, so I’ll work on it. I was also singing a couple of notes too short, and Amra did another “it’s ok, you haven’t studied music” explanation for it. Except that I’ve studied music since I was 8. I can read music, god damn it. ALTHOUGH, reading it on piano and reading it for voice is a lot different for me. I’m not really reading the music when I sing, just singing by ear, which honestly, I did a lot of in piano as well. So, new goal…. relearn music theory.
Hopefully next lesson is Tuesday, and I’m supposed to come up with some songs I would like to work on…. songs from musicals, I mean. Thoughts anyone? Dana, Josh, Zack, you are the ones who read this (sometimes) that know a lot of musicals… any ideas? He already agreed to Little Shop.
In other news, my basement flooded. Wooo frozen, bursting pipes. Sean from the Orange Cat Studios came down and took a look at it, and he thinks we’ll have to go through the bathroom floor to get to the pipes, yikes. He did shut off the water to that room though, which I don’t use very often. So I have water everywhere else and we’ll fix it in January. Yee-haw.