Strength is coming!

There's not a whole lot to report on the language front this time around.  I am still plugging away and making progress daily.  There have not been any new big breakthroughs.  The only noteworthy thing is that I will be finish MT before my next post, which means I will then go back to Assimil.

My vocal studies are where the more interesting things have been happening lately.  A couple of weeks ago at church I was singing at the 8:30 mass and went for a G4 which I can normally hit in a rough way that early in the morning.  This time around, however everything happened the way it was supposed to:  the F turned on the [o] vowel and then the [a] vowel turned ideally on the G producing a nice, easy, free flowing pitch.  I took this accomplishment to mean that I have begun to build significant strength through my passaggio so that these acoustical things can happen correctly and automatically.  The second thing happened to me this past evening at a rehearsal for an ecumenical choir concert that I am participating in.  We had just finished rehearsing a men's choir piece which took the tenors up to an Ab4.  I sang this easily the few times we went through it without giving it much thought.  As we were going back to join up with the rest of the choir one of the other tenors made a remark to me that I was "one of those high tenors that sings that Pavarotti high C."  I laughed and answered that I was working on it.  It amused me because a year ago at this concert I was told be one of these singers that I was a "2nd tenor" and now after a year of work on my part I am being told that I am a "high tenor."  Ultimately these people are amateur singers and their thoughts on my vocal classification have little merit in my life.  It is nice however to see that my work is paying dividends.

I have come to realize over the course of my vocal studies that things happen at a slower pace for me in this medium than they did when I was a saxophonist.  Luckily I have learned to be patient and trust that the process will get me to my end goal eventually.  When I started down this path as a singer I did not realize how hard I was going to have to work to attain my dreams.  Everything else I had ever done in music came easily.  Now, though I have broken through so man apparent glass ceilings that I have very little that can stand in my way.  I had a goal set in front of me by JRL at my last lesson that by this time next year I need to have a workable C5 so I can work on Faust and Rodolfo.  I take these challenges very seriously and am closing in now an my B4, just a half step away from the famed "Pavarotti high C."  If my voice continues along the path it is currently on I anticipate not only reaching the goal of a workable high C, but hope to achieve it earlier than the date set forward by my teacher.

This fall I am going to be auditioning for a few summer programs and possibly one or two programs for the following year.  The following fall my sights are set on the MONCA competition.  This especially is a lofty goal, but I am confident that my work ethic and faith will see me through.

Faith: The Most Necessary Virtue!

I have made some good progress this month, both with my German and with my singing.  In German I am at approximately 1750 words known on LingQ and I have noticed that I am beginning to be able to follow some of the dialogue on the radio station I listen to, Radio Horeb.  There is still a lot that I miss, however I am still encouraged by the process that I am making.  I have about twenty days left with my Michel Thomas program and then I will be coming back to Assimil to finish that.  This being said, it is apparent to me that I am going to be hitting a few milestones in the next month.  My plans for the next two weeks is to start using my German more in certain areas of my life.  Primarily, I am going to start praying my Rosary in German at least three days a week.  I find that this has been very helpful for me in the past, as I can grow from the Rosary into personal prayers and really force the activation of a lot of the vocabulary I know.  I am one-third of the way through my German year and find myself at a very good place.

Vocally things have been a roller coaster ride of sorts.  A few weeks back I had a minor vocal crisis where I began to show the signs of a hole in my passaggio.  Luckily, after a brief correspondence with JRL, I have patched up that problem and moved on to considerably more exciting things.  Specifically, this week I have consistently sang my exercises up to a high C (and occasionally a C#), and today I was able to sing the C with vibrato.  To my mind, this means that I am starting to coordinate the note well enough that it is beginning to release.  I routinely practice at my former college, Roberts Wesleyan, which happens to be where both of my future sisters-in-law go to school currently.  I was informed by one of the sisters that I have a bit of a fan base among her fellow classmates.  One even went so far as to figure out the note that I "always crack on," which was a Bb4 for those who are interested.  While this is amusing, it also gave me great motivation to get past that Bb4, which I can say I have done now.  Instead I crack on the B4 or C5 now!

I am quite humbled by having a "fanclub" at my former school.  It is quite a different scene than when I was going to school here from 2003-2007.  At that time, the majority of the department was confused as to why I was a performance major.  Now the current student population thinks that I am an advanced singer.  This goes to a larger point that I was discussing with my language partner, Ernest, yesterday.  I have known from the time I became a voice major that I was going to be a singer, and a successful one at that.  Despite the dissensions from everyone from classmates to family to professionals, I am nearing the point of my process where I am going to begin my career.  If you have faith in your own path you will always achieve your goals.  The process may take you through deserts and mountains, however you will always come out on the other side if you maintain your faith.  As a Christian, I have put my life's path into God's hands and am confident that, while it may not happen in the timeline of my choosing, everything I have asked of God for my life will occur as it is supposed to.  Regardless of whether you are Christian or not, faith is one of the most important character traits we possess.  Believe and know that your aspirations will always happen as long as you continue to persevere faithfully.

Language Leap!

I am a little over a quarter of the way through my German year and I have made a considerable leap in my ability to express myself in the last couple of weeks.  I had a similar thing occur in French last year, where all of sudden the language began to flow from me with a lot less hindrance.  There are obviously still holes in my vocabulary, however I have discovered that I can now carry on conversations beyond mere greetings and niceties.  I'm not exactly sure what the turning point was for me and I wish I had kept a better catalog of hours spent working in the language so that I could possibly start to formulate a theory on the relationship between time and achievement.  My estimate is about five hours of Michel Thomas, eight hours of Assimil and 10 hours on LingQ.  So that is really only about 23 hours, not including time spent talking to myself and others, time spent watching movies and listening to the radio.  Truthfully though, this is a very small amount of time and I wish I had more time to devote to learning the language.  If I could devote this much time into my week instead of over the last three and a half months I can only imagine how strong my German would be come December 31, 2012!  Unfortunately I do not have four hours a day to devote to language learning so I have to do the best I can with the time I have.  I imagine that I will be able to add German to my list of spoken languages by August; then I would like to amp up my workload to really achieve fluency by the end of the year.

I have been having some struggles lately with my voice.  These challenges are things of my own doing, but they are very annoying nonetheless.  It is especially frustrating because I had such a great lesson a couple of months ago and I feel like I have done the two steps forward, one step back thing in the last couple of weeks.  I am beginning to pull myself out of these issues, but it appears that it is going to take me longer to recover from than it did to fall into.  There are some positives though, I still have built my strength up some as I am now able to sing a fairly consistent A4 ever without warming up (I don't do this often).  Overall it is important to continue to look at the positive movements that are happening and use those to get through the troublesome times.

Adapting the Learning Process

I am getting back in the swing of things somewhat with German over the past couple of weeks.  I have been really good about doing my Michel Thomas, however I have not touched Assimil in over a month.  I think that I have subconsciously decided that I will move on to Assimil after I have finished the MT.  In truth this is probably a good thing because it will give me something to do the second half of the year in addition to LingQ.  I am currently debating whether to go back to the beginning of Assimil, or just pick up where I left off.  In my split second decision making process I just went through I will pick up where I left off.  The last two weeks have been particularly good for my LingQ work.

It never ceases to amaze me the way that we continue to adapt and evolve the longer we work on a specific task.  In the case of LingQ I have just recently modified my approach and find that I am getting a lot more out of the program this way.  Before, I went through a three step cycle which was laid out this way:

1.) Listen without reading

2.) Read without listening

3.) Listen and read simultaneously

This way served me well and I thought that this way I could train my listening separate from my reading and visa-versa.  I recently though began listening and reading all three times through a passage and have found that my comprehension overall has grown markedly.  This should not surprise me since the creator of LingQ, Steve Kaufmann, says that you should never read without listening, nor should you listen without reading in the early stages.  The more surprising thing to me is that my brain spontaneously decided to try this approach seemingly out of the blue.  I am currently creeping in on 1500 words known, which is well behind my goal, but I am still happy with progress of any kind.

Vocally, I have had a similar epiphany in the last week.  It has been about a month since my last lesson with JRL and I decided one day last week to listen to the recording of my lesson.  At first I did not really think I was going to gain much other than some reinforcement of the things I was already doing.  After going through the recording I was amazed at some of the things that I had let slip in the last month.  My practice the rest of the week was great and I felt like I made some very big steps forward, all because I listened to a recording of my lesson.  

This was a big time for me in learning how to better learn.  Sometimes progress may come in different areas than you expect, however it will ultimately lead you to your end goal.

Coming in like a lion

This has been a rough month for me.  The amount of things I have to do at work, which is when I usually study, has increased considerably and taken away my time that I can work on German.  Suffice it to say that I have not been able to make much progress so far this month.  I have tried to maintain at least one aspect of my study per day though, usually Michel Thomas.  I am in the process of trying to restructure my day so that I can fit in my Assimil and LingQ work daily again.  The one positive from this month thus far is that I am at a basic conversational level in German.  I define this as being able to greet and speak candidly with others about menial, day to day things (i.e. How are you?, What are you doing this weekend?, etc.).  I am very pleased and excited about this, especially since I have not been able to put much time in as of late.  When I can get back to more regular study I anticipate being able to count this language as being fully conversational by mid-summer, which makes fluency by December 31 very attainable.

I am still in a very good place vocally as well.  Since my lesson in February I can feel my voice getting stronger every day.  My A-natural (A4) has really solidified as of late and I am now working on B-flat (Bb4) and B (B4).  Even my repertory has taken a step up as I have begun to earnestly work on "La donna e mobile" and "E la solita storia."  My hope for this session between lessons is to have a reliable B-flat and a workable B natural.  Assuming I keep up my newfound pace, I believe I will definitely be audition ready for the fall.  I have about two months until my next trip to New York City and am planning on having a lesson and at least a couple of coachings while I am down.  Until then, I have much work to do so that I can build on the momentum I have gained from my last lesson.