Level up!

I'm going to start this post with something I haven't really talked about in a while - language.  Last night I was working at the hotel (my "rent" job) when a gentleman walked in looking for a room.  I explained to him that we did not have any vacancies and he asked if I knew of any other places that did.  As I was talking with him he asked me to speak slowly because he did not speak English very well.  Being the naturally inquisitive person that I am, I asked him where he was from.  Then it happened; he said he was from France.  I immediately proceed without hesitation to speak to him in French while calling around to other hotels in the area looking for a room.  Our conversation ran the gamut from talking about why he was in Rochester of all places, to me giving him directions, to finally talking about my career as an opera singer and me giving him my website.  All in all we probably spent 20 minutes conversing solely in French!  Those of you familiar with Moses McCormick would call this a "level up!"  Towards the end of our conversation he gave me his card so that I could reserve a room for him at another hotel.  I noticed he had an Italian last name and he told me that he is actually Italian, but lives in France.  I proceeded to tell him that I speak Italian as well and we went on for another few minutes talking in both Italian and French.  This is the reason why we learn languages:  to communicate with people!  As a singer, I obviously learn these languages so that I know what I am singing (which is another form of communicating), but in a larger sense it events like last night to happen.  I have set aside working on my language studies for a while due to financial and personal obligations that force my hobbies to take a back burner, but things like last night really make me want to get back into my studies.  Perhaps in the next few months I can get back to it.

In other news, now that my time with Finger Lakes Opera has ended I have begun my focus on Cosi fan tutte, which I will be performing in Detroit this September.  I have learned all of the music and am in the throes of attempting to memorize an entire role for the first time.  I took some advice from my friend and colleague, Gregory Kunde, and have made cue cards of my part.  Already, this has been very helpful in getting some of the text down.  I also have an upcoming audition in Pittsburgh and some other big pending news that I will have to wait until next month to unload on everyone.    

An Upcoming Performance and The Need for Acting

I'll start with the big news first.  In September I will be singing my first leading tenor role, Ferrando, in Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte" with the Metro Opera Workshop of Detroit.  This has been a long time in coming for me and I see it as the fruition of the work I have put in to make this transformation from a baritone to a tenor.  I also have a couple of additional auditions upcoming which will hopefully bring more happy results.  I will also be singing as a part of Finger Lakes Opera's inaugural production of Carmen this summer, which will star J'nai Bridges as Carmen and Gregory Kunde as Don Jose.  

While I am not singing a role in this production, this has proven to be a great opportunity for me in two ways.  First, I will be able to watch Mr. Kunde go through his process and pick his brain a little about my own career.  Mr. Kunde, or Greg, and I have known each other for a number of years and the first half of his career was spent singing the roles that I am hoping to sing as my career gets going.  He is therefore an invaluable source of information and advice.  Secondly, I was able to get feedback from an audition for the first time as a tenor.  Beginning with the good, I was told that my voice is developing nicely and that I am on the right track in regards to vocal technique.  Kudos to my teacher, Jean-Ronald LaFond, for his expert guidance in this regard!  I was also told that I need to work on being more aware of my body.  For those of you who don't know me, I am little over six feet tall and am not slight of frame.  I was told that I can be imposing, but the auditor was not sure that I knew how to be.  This has been a persistent problem for me and something I need to figure out how to address.  It was suggested that I take a physical acting class to try to get more in touch with my body and enable myself to use my body to interpret the words of the pieces that I am singing.

I was reading a set posts on a group page on Facebook that my teacher had added me too and they were discussing performance.  One of the singers mentioned that once she is on stage, it is all about the words and that she just has to trust that all of the preparation she has done vocally will suffice.  I have heard this many times, but in light of what I had recently been told in my audition this really hit home for me.  I have never trusted that my preparation and technique were going to be there in auditions or performances.  Therefore I also was focusing on my technique and not on the character.  I can point to a clear reason for this speed bump in my career.  My years in undergrad and immediately following were only spent focusing on vocal technique, and not the technique of performance.  I had teachers, whom I love very much and am forever grateful for the assistance they gave me to get to where I am today, who believed that the voice was all that was needed.  In a way this is an old philosophy, but even in the age that this was prevalent, it was still an incomplete one.  Singers must be complete performers.  The auditor of my audition summed it up the best saying that there are a lot of singers out there who are singing really well, what sets them apart is their ability to portray a character.

One small post-script:  If you are a singer and are looking for a summer program to do, please consider the Summer Opera Academy at Härnösands Folkhogskola in cooperation with Kashu-do Studios.  It looks to be a wonderful program and is run by my teacher, Jean-Ronald LaFond.  

A Busy Month and Russian Begins

I just returned from a performance in Toronto on Saturday which, to me, was one of my most complete performances to date.  I didn't do everything technically perfectly, but I was able to get my voice to do what I wanted it to to portray the character I was playing.  I was doing a "New Opera" workshop with Tapestry Opera and met a lot of talented and was impressed with how relevant contemporary opera has made the art form.  The topics ranged from drug use to family relations through divorce and just about everything in between.  One of the wonderful things about doing contemporary opera in your native tongue is the immediacy of the music and text.  The entire audience seemed to relate literally to every scene.  This workshop gave me a new appreciation for contemporary opera and I look forward to delving into this repertoire more in the future.

Immediately following my time in Toronto, I went to Indianapolis for an audition and am now preparing to go back down to NYC for another audition.  I also have to make a video recording for another audition and am continuing to work on new repertoire for next season.  Upcoming, I will be performing at a benefit concert and also performing my annual recital at my church in Rochester.  This year's theme for my recital is Spirituals and Contemporary American Song, somewhat keeping in the theme from my time at Toronto.

After a month of debate and thinking I have decided to continue forward with my language learning, instead of cycling back around.  This past weekend I began my Russian studies.  I am starting with Michel Thomas, which is a great introduction into the language.  I also have started listening to some Russian talk radio using my TuneIn radio app on my phone when I am in areas that have wi-fi (work).  In March I plan to start using LingQ to get some more input and begin learning words and familiarizing myself with structure.

I decided to continue forward because I have started looking at Russian repertoire in my singing and I have found that I sing better when I understand the language I am singing in, even if it is at a basic level.  I do need to go back and bring my other languages up to their next respective level, but I feel that getting a basic working knowledge of Russian is more important than bringing my other languages to higher levels of fluency at this point.  I will keep you all updated as I move forward.

Birthday post!

Today is my birthday!  I am entering into the final year of my 20's, yet another transition.  This month has been the start of the audition season.  I have filled out and sent in many applications and so far have sang for two companies.  I'm still waiting on eight programs to get back to me and have about nine more applications to send out.  My auditions thus far have had their ups and downs.  Ultimately I have been pleased with how they have went.  I am finding that more and more things are going right in auditions now than are going wrong.  My voice is still a work in progress (and will be forever), but I feel I can give a fairly accurate representation of my abilities when I am in the room singing.  At this point I am waiting to hear back from the companies that I sang for.  Hopefully, I will have some good news to report next month.  Prayers are always appreciated.

Language study has taken a bit of a backseat currently.  I simply do not have the time to devote to them currently.  I still speak when I get the chance, but active study is not possible right now.  Perhaps in a few months I can pick back up where I left off.

Back in the saddle again...

Well, it's that time of year again.  The next season of auditions is upon me.  I have my first audition at the end of this month and am looking forward to a new year of opportunities.  Every year I get a little bit better at this whole thing.  Last year I was well prepared, but under coached and didn't really have anything in my bag dramatically speaking.  This year I am coaching repertoire with a local guru of opera and have pretty well-formed characters in my head for nearly all of my pieces (just a couple more left).  I am as confident as ever in my vocal abilities, especially after surviving Count Almaviva this summer.  The only thing I can do now is go sing and perform my heart out.  My goal for auditions this year is to make each one a true performance, and not an audition.  I will keep everyone posted when I get work!

I am also back on the horse again with my Spanish studies.  I've been putting in good work about four days a week and am beginning to feel a little bit more comfortable when conversing with others.  I am still shooting to eclipse the number of known words that I have in French by the end of this year and I feel I am on a good pace to accomplish that.  I'm also considering a new approach to my language learning.  Instead of moving on in January, I think I might stick with Spanish until I have developed a really strong core in the language.  The definition of this, which I stole from polyglot Luca Lampariello, is knowing the language well enough that you don't have to think about conversing in the language, it just flows naturally.  Ultimately this is where I want to be with all my languages and I think it will happen quicker if I stick with one language until I get to that point.  I still haven't decided for sure, but I will obviously come to a decision before the year is over.

Summer Adventures Debriefing

Well, I'm back from my summer adventures.  Admittedly I have been back for nearly three weeks now, but I am just getting around to writing.  I had a myriad of experiences ranging from wonderful, insightful learning experiences to downright awful working conditions due to personality clashes and planning problems.  I am not going to talk about the poor experiences except to say that they were still learning experiences and ultimately I was glad I had them in the environment I was in and not in the professional world.  The positives I can elaborate a little on.

The Opera Advantage program was designed to help the entire creative process rather than focusing solely on the voice.  This is exactly what I was looking for and I knew upon seeing this program that I had to do it.  I learned so much about the craft of performing and about myself that I am sure I have already forgotten more than I have remembered.  Luckily, I have a journal and notes to refresh my memory.  Among the most important and helpful things I picked out of this program was the process for building a character and also identifying the things in my own psyche that hold me back.  The latter of these has been especially important moving forward, both for myself and for others whom I have shared this knowledge was.  The most positive aspect of my time this summer has been a reaffirmation of my love for this art and my need to do it.  During this summer I realized my vocation and that has made a huge difference in my reasoning behind everything I do.

In other singing news, I am starting a voice studio out of my home.  I am targeting high school and avocational singers, so if you know anyone in the greater Rochester area that is looking for a person to take voice lessons with send them my way!

Admittedly languages took a back seat this summer.  I have maintained my languages through my normal channels (people who I know that speak the languages I know).  So while I have not regressed, I have not progressed.  Hopefully, once the fall begins I can get back into my studies a little more.

3 MONTH CHALLENGE!

Those of you who read other language blogs probably know about Benny and his "Three Month Challenges."  This is my first attempt at a three month challenge and it will be an intensive focus on Spanish.  Spanish is my language for this year anyway, but I have a good motivation for the next three months (OK, really 11 weeks, but it's close enough).  For the July 4th holiday, I will be spending time with my wife's best friend and family.  Her husband is from El Salvador, and they live in a city where Spanish is nearly the primary language.  I figure I will use this opportunity and present myself with a challenge to prepare me for the trip.  My plan is to upgrade my Spanish from where it is now, about B1, to C1 level in the next 11 weeks.  How will I do this?

It is going to require me to up my learning pace and take myself out of my comfort zone.  I am going to need to use Spanish as much as possible in the next three months and make my environment a Spanish language zone.  I have already begun to do this by switching my iPhone and computer over to Spanish.  The second step for me is to change my audio input from English to Spanish.  I can easily do this through my TuneIn radio app while I am at work, but I face some challenges in the car because there is no full-time Spanish radio station in my city.  I also have Spotify, so if you have any good Spanish language music to recommend, please do!  I am also going to raise my work output on LingQ to at least four pomodoros a day, which equates to about two hours of reading and listening daily.  Realistically, I only study five days a week, but by increasing the aforementioned areas of my life, I should be able to expose my self to Spanish approximately nine hours a day.  This is a good start, but I'm not done.  I also need to add more speaking to my weekly routine, so I will attempt to speak with people who I know speak Spanish more regularly and force myself to stay in Spanish even when I am struggling.  If I do all of these things, I believe I can reach my goal.

Musically, I have a busy month.  I am currently in rehearsal for two different shows that I am in.  After that I am hoping to attend a summer program which should put me on the right path to finding more work next audition season.  I have had some exciting things happening in my voice and I feel myself growing in confidence every time I perform.

Forward motion

It has been a while since I last wrote a blog post.  I have not been necessarily too busy to write, but I have had other things going on that took importance over writing last month.  Additionally, on the language study side of the blog I ran into a rather large roadblock that took most of the last two months away from me.  More on that later, because I want to begin with the more exciting things that have been going on vocally in my life.

It always amuses me when things from two different areas of life come together.  This has been the case over the last few years of me re-training my voice.  I wen to a Christian college and a common expression on campus was "God's will, God's time."  I've always liked the phrase as it give some perspective to the fact that our plans for our life are ultimately not our own, but God's.  This has taught me much about patience in the last decade or so since I came back to my Christian faith.  Anyway, early on when I began to study with JRL he said to me that when my coordination was there, the high notes would come "very fast."  In my pride, I had assumed that since I had already been studying singing for ten years, this "very fast" meant only a couple of years at most.  As the two year marked went by, I became slightly discouraged, but remembered my college days and gave up my own timeline for that of God's.  Now, as I near in on almost four years of study with Ron, I have finally had the experience he was talking about.  In the last two months I have gone from struggling with notes just above the staff to singing comfortably (in a practice room) up to at least E-flat above high C on a daily basis, even when sick!

The key to vocal development, which so many of my peers seem to miss out on, is that it takes time and patience.  I have family members and friends who consistently inform me that I need to start a career in case this singing thing doesn't work out.  I've never given this any real thought or merit because I have known for a long time now that I am a singer and my career will be in singing.  I am not in a rush to make this career happen, because I know it will happen when I am ready for it to happen.  I have already seen this beginning this year.  A couple of weeks ago I made my professional debut with a local company, and I am of the belief that work leads to more work.  In addition, I have two auditions coming up in a few weeks which I am very optimistic about because of this new found security I have in my voice.  If nothing else, I am sure that I will be able to at least learn and sing through one or two roles this summer with the Kashu-do studio.  I am moving forward and already beginning to look forward to next season's auditions.

Now, the language side of things.  It occurs to me that Spanish is a large stumbling block for me.  It's not that the language is terribly difficult or anything like that.  It is just a demoralizing language for me because of my time spent with it in high school.  I did not have the money available at the beginning of this year to go buy the materials I usually use for language learning.  So, due to this and the fact that I have a pretty solid foundation in Spanish, I have decided to only use LingQ for my Spanish learning.  It has been a very slow process, but I am beginning now to really focus more.  I picked up French in about eight months and I am hoping to be able to do something similar with Spanish.  I would like to get my known words level in Spanish higher than in French, as this was not something I accomplished with German.  We shall see what happens.

2012 in Review, and a Look Ahead!

I have decided this year to go down to one post per month here.  This way, my posts should be of a little more substance.  This post is going to be my year in review post, with a brief update on this year, as well.

This past year has been one of great growth vocally.  I have become completely comfortable in the tenor tessitura, although the high notes do still give me some trouble in performance, due to nerves.  I have built a reliable Ab and A natural in the last year, and I am working currently on solidifying my Bb and working towards the B natural.  Every day I feel things becoming more and more comfortable and I am beginning to identify with my tenor voice.  The fruits of this year have represented themselves through my first contracted role, a comprimario role which I will be singing in March with Rochester Lyric Opera.

This summer I will be moving out of the Rochester area in search of more opportunities for both me and my wife.  In preparation for this move, I will be planning and performing a recital in the late spring or early summer.  I have not yet decided what the repertoire will be, but I am leaning towards a mixed program of predominantly French and German repertoire, with some Italian thrown in to pay tribute to the area of Rochester I live in, which is practically all Italian.

My year of German was ultimately a success, too.  I did not get to the level that I was hoping to in the language, but I do feel comfortable in basic day-to-day conversation and feel that I would be able to get around the country were I to go there tomorrow.

This was my first language I had studied without any prior knowledge, and I feel that my method worked very well.  I have found that it is difficult for me to keep up my studies as consistently as is necessary to really achieve fluency in a year.  This is in part due to my schedule and the fact that most of my studying was happening while I was at work between the hours of three and five in the morning.  A number of times, it was too difficult to stay awake while studying at this time of day, and this ultimately led me to days and weeks where I would not study.  I also found that I do not need to invest in the products I was investing in to learn a language.  I am convinced that I can achieve my desired level in a language simply by using LingQ and speaking with anyone I come across who happens to speak my target language.  This combination of input and output simultaneously has been extremely useful to me and I believe this is how I will approach the rest of my language studies.

This year, my mission is to reactivate and improve my Spanish language skills.  I studied Spanish for three years in high school and was fairly comfortable speaking with my friend from the Dominican my first years of college.  I have since not really used the language much.  While my Spanish is still passable because of my Italian and English, I would like to become more comfortable in the language so that I may use it to my advantage in the day job market.

My goal for this year is to learn 8,000 words of Spanish on LingQ and reach a high-intermediate level in the language.  In following the 1.6 ratio I have discussed before, this would translate to about 5,000 word families known.  In order to give a better idea of this level, the average native English speaker knows approximately 17,000 word families; so this will get me about a third of the way to native fluency, and should make me very comfortable in the language, assuming I speak as much as I should with friends and at meetups, etc.

This is going to be a very challenging year for me, but I look forward to it.  I anticipate a lot of growth this year, both in my language abilities and in my singing and performing.

Persistance means progress

I'm a week late in writing this because I have been busy preparing for auditions and my wedding.  I currently am dealing with being frustrated with my singing, which is always a great place to be in a month before auditions.  I realized however after comparing clips from practice sessions a month ago to more current sessions that I have indeed made considerable progress in the last month.  In discussing this with JRL when I last saw him, he made mention that I probably get frustrated because I get to a plateau of sorts after about a month of work on my own.  Upon my comparison I can say that this is unequivocally the case.  It is not that I cease to improve, but that the work becomes more difficult as I reach a higher level in my singing.  I feel well-prepared going into this audition season and am very excited about the prospect of finally get out and singing again!

I have been doing well with my German as of late as well.  I have progressed well into the active wave of Assimil and am making better progress in LingQ as time goes on.  I still have a lot of work to do to reach my goal in LingQ of knowing at least 7,000 words by the end of December, but if I can continue on the trajectory I am currently on, I think I will make it.  I have found a challenge in the active wave of Assimil that I also ran into with French.  As the lessons progress I seem to get more and more things incorrect.  I figure that this is not a big deal, since for me the more important thing is the input and output, not the exactness of my answers.  I'm learning even in making corrections to what I originally write.  I see now the value some people find in going back and doing the active wave multiple times, although I would worry that at some point it becomes a thoughtless exercise rather than an active process.  Perhaps with ample time in between repetitions this can be avoided.

A Time of Blessing

The blessings of the Lord have been flowing down upon me the last couple of weeks!  I'll begin with the language side of my life.  Yesterday I finished the Michel Thomas course I have been working on for the last five months.  This is significant for a number of reasons.  First, I feel that I have a strong base in German now and can comfortably hold my own in basic, day to day conversation.  Second, this means that I can now move on to Assimil, picking up where I left off at lesson 24.  Additionally, tomorrow I will cross over the 2,000 known word milestone on LingQ.  This has taken me a lot longer than I anticipated, however it is ultimately of my own doing.  I took a small hiatus earlier in the year from LingQ and in general I am lax about doing LingQ if I am lacking motivation on a given day.  This puts me at about the same level on LingQ as my Italian says I am.  Although Italian was the "first" foreign language I brought to a significant level it has quickly become my lowest level language, besides my high school level Spanish.  At some point I will come back and bring all of my languages to higher levels, but for now I am content with where it is.

Based on where I am in the Assimil program, I have approximately 126 days of work ahead of me, which equates 25 weeks of study based on a 5 day study schedule.  That should bring me to about December, which allows me to focus solely and intensively on LingQ for the final month, where I hope to really increase my known words.  The nice thing about known words is that they grow exponentially.  In French I learned approximately 5500 words in 8 months.  If I follow a similar pace from here on out in German that would bring me to about 7500 known words by the end of the year, give or take a few hundred.  If I stay on course and hit all of my goals for the rest of the year I should have no problem speaking German coming January 1st.

The real exciting news comes on the vocal front.  I went down to New York to have a lesson with JRL and had a very productive lesson.  Towards the end of the lesson I was assigned the role of Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi for a sing-through later in the summer.  This will be my first time singing a role as a tenor!  On top of this, I am also looking ahead to doing my first round of auditions for some summer programs in the autumn.  After three arduous years of struggle and hard work I am beginning to come out on the other side of this process and am confident about my prospects.

Another important part of my trip to New York was my coaching with Susan Morton.  During the coaching I was recommended a book called The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle.  While I am still just barely scratching the surface of this book, it has transformed my approach to nearly every important aspect of my life.  The concept of "deep practicing" discussed in the tome has made learning a much more intense and rewarding experience.  I have witnessed the benefits in my singing while learning this role, in my running as I have determined to beat my chronic shin splints this summer, and even my language work as I near an intermediate level of German.  I highly recommend that anyone who is attempting to gain a skill find this book and give it a read.

Overall, the last two weeks have seen many prayers beginning to be answered and many goals in their infancy of being realized.  I look forward to where these new opportunities and experiences take me and glorify the Lord for granting me the patience to see these things through to their fulfillment according to his will!

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.

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.

Big Progress!

I had my first lesson in quite a while this past Friday with Jean-Ronald LaFond.  My lesson this time around was one of discovery and great advancement for my part.  During the course of the lesson I felt myself singing in a way I never had before and I liked it.  It was a great experience for me and we even talked about me doing auditions in the fall if I can get a few more things to line up vocally.  Since I've been home, I have continued to work with the new concepts I was given and can employ them fairly well in my vocalises (at least I think I do), however I am struggling to put these things through into my repertoire work.  This is especially frustrating since I was singing so well at my lesson.  I chalk up my difficulties to the fact that I am not in front of JRL receiving guidance as I am singing.  I will ultimately figure out how to incorporate and synthesize these concepts into my singing and know that if I continue with the work ethic I have been developping that I will be fine.

Linguistically, however, is a different story.  I have had a rough couple of weeks with my language learning time.  This is mainly due to a largely increased workload at my actual job which results in less time for study.  I am hoping that things will slow back down to normal at work next week and that I will be able to get back to my normal routine, otherwise I am going to have to find a new time to study.  This is very frustrating to me because I was on such a good pace with German and now I feel as though I have skidded to a stop.  Luckily I still do manage to get in at least a little time with the language, mostly my Michel Thomas recordings.  Again my mantra is, as always:  Slow and steady wins the race.

Two weeks in... Impatience

I am just over two weeks in to my German studies, and thus far am pretty much on track.  I am a little behind on my LingQ work, about 300 words, but I am not terribly worried about it, I figure it will all come out in the wash at the end.  As I mentioned before this is the first language I am learning on my own, completely from scratch.  I have noticed that I have the tendency to get slightly impatient with my learning curve, chastising myself for not being able to say more.  Then I remind myself that I am only two weeks in and have another eleven and a half months to go, thusly I should not worry.  I can already have some basic conversations and text messages with my German speaking friends.

One thing I have discovered about going at this completely on my own is that it is a little overwhelming at first knowing absolutely nothing and just throwing yourself in the deep end.  I am slowly picking up more and more things every day and I am near 1,000 known words on LingQ.  Overall I am comfortable with where I am and feel like I am on a good pace at this point.

I have not written anything about my vocal journey in a while.  The fact is that I do not have much to report.  I continue to progress towards my goal of being able to sing tenor repertoire comfortably and convincingly.  I was supposed to have a lesson yesterday, however those plans fell through, so I now am looking forward to February and my next potential lesson.  There have been some important milestones in my singing though in my time between lessons.  The most important one being that more of my top notes have begun to show glimpses of themselves to me when singing.  I am still struggling with endurance however.  I sense that this will be a very important year for my singing career, one way or the other.

Der Plan

As we have started a new year, I have already put in two days of study on my new language for the year, German.  I figure I would outline my basic plan for the year with regards to my acquisition of German.

Resources:
     German with Michel Thomas
     German with Ease by Assimil
     German on LingQ

In general, my goal is to spend ten hours a week studying German over the course of the next year.  As I do not study on my days off from work, that equates to 2 hours a day, 5 days a week.  I will go through one lesson/track per working day with MT and Assimil.  On LingQ, I plan to add approximately 100 known words to my vocabulary every working day.  This is a little bit slower of a pace than I would like on LingQ, but I think it is the best plan for the amount of time I have available to devote to this study.  As I go along I will have to read more and more material to acquire 100 new known words, so ultimately my exposure will grow exponentially as I become more accustomed to the language.

On the side, I plan to watch a German movie every month and listen to some German radio programming every week.  Also, I am going to start praying the Rosary in German and hopefully I will get to the point where I can spontaneously pray in German by the end of the year.  I also have a number of friends and acquaintances who speak German, so I will be practicing my spoken German from a very early stage, as soon as I start to know some more relevant material than:  Der Tee ist kalt.

Based on my previous work in French, I anticipate that I will get to a pretty comfortable place with German by the summer, at which point I will have finished both MT and Assimil.  The rest of my year in German will be spent focusing on listening comprehension and vocabulary building through LingQ.

German does present me with some challenges, the most striking one being that I have practically no previous coursework or study of the language outside of the one month I studied it last year.  With both French and Italian I had taken actual classes prior to my self-study, so I had a little bit of a head-start.  I am excited to see how I do with my first completely self-taught language and hope to be able to use this working plan as model for my future languages.

Linguaphile - Lover of language

This is a rather impromptu post, however I said something in an early conversation today that I wanted to discuss here.

"In becoming a linguaphile I have become a lover of language."

This statement seems redundant I'm sure.  However let me explain what I mean.  One of the things that I am striving for in my journey of learning languages is to be able to have musical moments in which I find myself transcending language and music and finding a deeper connection.  I had this occur on Christmas eve while singing "Oh Holy Night" in the original French text.  While everyone thinks that the song is beautiful in English, it was only through my knowledge of French that I found the true beauty of the song hidden in the real text of the song.  My French is at a level where I no longer need to translate what I am reading or saying, I just intuitively know what I am saying or reading.  This enables one to experience the culture of thinking in the language you are using.  I have found it to be true that people who speak different languages see the world differently.  Let us take a look at the text of Oh Holy Night to see what I mean.  The order will be French (original), then a literal translation and then the sung English version.

Minuit, chretiens, c'est l'heure solenelle, ou l'Homme-Dieu descendit jusqu'a nous.

Midnight, Christians, is the solemn hour, where the God-Man descends among us.

Oh holy night, the star is brightly shining, it is the night of our dear Savior's birth.

Pour effacer la tache originelle, et de son Pere arreter le courroux.

To erase the original stain, and to stop the wrath of his Father.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

Le monde entier tresaille d'esperance, a cette nuit qui lui donne un Sauveur.

The whole world trembles in hope, on this night which he gives a Savior.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Peuple a genoux, attends ta delivrance, Noel, Noel voici le Redempteur.

People on your knees, await  your deliverance, Noel, Noel, here is the Redemptor.

Fall on your knees, oh hear the angel voices, oh night divine, oh night when Christ is born, oh holy night.

For me, in performing the French version of this song I finally felt the true emotion of the piece and was free to perform it with the integrity it deserves.  I found the real text to be considerably more moving and inspiring and that was channeled through me as I was singing.  This is the real reason I learn languages, so that my performances may be truly genuine.  Because I know French at an intimate level, I was able to connect to the music.  My love of language grew tenfold that night, because I learned experientially that speaking a different language really does give one a new way of thinking about a topic.  Only through a thorough knowledge of the language one sings in can one truly give an informed and accurate performance.  

End of the Year Update and Next Year's Plans

LANGUAGE:  Well, the year is coming to an end and I think I can successfully say that I have accomplished my goal for French.  In my two reading test at the end of this year I have averaged a 97% comprehension rate.  I do have one more test planned for next week so I can have a three score average to more accurately rate my ability.  Additionally, I feel pretty comfortable in conversation in French and feel as though I can express myself pretty well.  I am very pleased with the last eight months of work in French.  Admittedly, I was not always as consistent in my work as I would have liked to be, but it provides me with goals for the coming year.

2012 brings in an entire year devoted to German for me.  My system will be similar to what I did for French, since it seems to have been the most effective for me.  This includes working through Michel Thomas, Assimil and LingQ on a daily basis during the work week, taking the weekends off from studying to allow things to work themselves out subconsciously.  In addition I will again be consulting my friend Ernest for conversational practice beginning early on in the process.  My goal for the coming year is to be more consistent in my studying - making sure that I get in all three phases of my work, five days a week.  Based on the results I saw with French after only eight months, I am hoping to be even farther along in German by this time next year with the extra four months of work.

MUSIC:  This has been an enlightening year for me musically.  I have grown much as a singer and artist, however I also encountered some setbacks that varied from minor annoyances to things that made me step back and think about what it is I am undertaking.  Overall I am better for all of my experiences as they have led me to discover new interests and paths in which I can explore my own artistry.

The most difficult part of this year was the culminating recital, my first as a tenor in nearly ten years.  I had some successes and some failures throughout the performance which I meant to talk about here but never got around to it until now.  The positives from the recital were that I made it through all of my repertoire without feeling fatigued at the end or ever really feeling in danger of cracking.  The negatives were that I never really loosened up during the entire performance and thus my singing came out pressed and my artistic performance suffered for it.  I blame these issues mostly on nerves from not singing that high in public in many years.  I remember as a baritone that I had similar issues for a number of years until I had enough performances and faith in my voice through performing that I no longer suffered from the fright. 

The other challenge this year has been that I do not feel I have progressed as much as I should have this year.  I take the sole blame for this and have already begun to plan how to address this issue in the coming year.

After my recital, I began to contemplate if this was really the field for me to focus on and began taking choral conducting lessons with the plan of going to grad school for choral conducting.  Much to my delight, I have found that I really enjoy the study of choral conducting and have found myself doing what I do when I become truly interested in something:  researching and absorbing as much information as I can about the subject.  Ultimately this has not pulled away from my desire to perform and performing is still my primary goal, but I am still considering a MM in choral conducting, since an MM in vocal performance is not necessary for my goals.


For the coming year I really need to focus on more directed, intensive practice.  Difficulties abound due to my schedule, namely that I work overnights, however I have to figure out ways to be more productive and push myself if I want to make my dreams realities.  It is a challenge only being able to have lessons once every couple of months, but I cannot let that be an excuse for my not progressing.  This year I truly have to take my fate in my own hands and constantly remind myself that achieving my goals is a responsibility that rests solely on my shoulders and nobody else.


I am looking forward to 2012!  I can already tell that it will be a year of great growth for me as a person and artist.  Highlights of the coming year include planning a recital for the fall and my wedding, as well as figuring out where I will be relocating to in 2013.  Have a happy holiday season and I will be back in January!

Encouragement!

I just came back from a quick jaunt to NYC for a lesson with JRL where I received some great encouragement.  I'm pretty sure that I've posted here about how I always feel like I am never progressing.  Well, apparently my brain was wrong!  At my lesson I was commended on my marked progress and even encouraged to begin coaching repertoire and think about auditioning in the fall (next fall, not this one I presume)!  This is great news for me and really gives me a boost.  In addition to this I had just recently in practice session found some of my top notes and was excited to begin with before the lesson.  Now, before anyone reads too much into this, I still am maintaining my work ethic and still have the general concept that I am sub-par as a singer.  The thing is though, that sometimes we need that encouragement to push us onward.

I have had similar experiences with French, where I will go through a patch where I feel I am not progressing at all and then someone who is more knowledgeable than I am will compliment me on my progress between times that they had talked with me.  I think ultimately that this goes back to the idea of being persistent and having trust in the process.  As I made mention of before, all progress that is worth keeping will happen gradually.  The past couple of weeks have shown this to me more than ever.  Between my vocal progress and the books I have been reading lately, I feel that my entire outlook on life has changed to one of bigger time frames.  For the most part the long-term goal is what matters, not the short-term ones.  As long as you constantly check in and are working towards your long-term goal, then you will be on the right path.  My long term goal as a singer has always been to be able to support myself solely by singing.  It would seem that I have made large strides towards this goal in the last four months and I look forward to what is still yet to come.

Love the process and make it your goal!

A realization

I was driving home today and had a light bulb moment that for some reason had not yet occurred in my tiny mind:  I am getting paid to sing every week.  By definition this makes me a professional singer, my ultimate professional goal.  To be honest the true fulfillment of my goal is to be a professional singer singing opera, not church music, but that is simply a matter of definition.  The fact of the matter is that I am getting paid to act out my passion!  I am far from a complete singer at this point in my life, and singing is definitely not paying the bills on its own yet, but I am one step closer than I have been in the past.  I am averaging approximately one service a week at the moment and would love to be able to find more work.  This week I also have my first paid non-church gig in over a year singing for a NAVY retirement ceremony.  I am very honored to be singing for this as the ceremony itself is apparently steeped in 200 years worth of tradition, and most civilians do not get to witness this.  All this to get to the point of my post this week.  It is a combination of old mantras:  Good things come to those who wait.  Slow and steady wins the race.

I have been working towards being a singer for about 12 years, 8 of them have been spent in serious pursuit.  I have had a fair share of setbacks, including very discouraging classmates in college, and people who I consider to be within my circle who often doubt my path in life.  However through it all I have kept firm to my beliefs that I am a singer and that this is my calling in life.  Now after countless hours of work I am beginning to see some of the fruits of my labor.  I often tell people that I am not the most talented singer, in fact many of my friends have considerably more singing talent than I do, but that the reason why I will be successful is that I have a work ethic that comes from a lack of talent.  I have seen many talented people become mediocre due to a variety of reasons reaching from sitting on their laurels to an unwillingness to hear criticism.  So while they simmer and fizzle out, I continued my work quietly and mostly unnoticed, until one day I was better than they were, seemingly out of the blue!  The moral here seems to be apparent:  Work ethic and passion will trump talent every single time, without exception.