Remember the old McDonald's jingle "I'm loving it?" That is how I feel about being on stage performing. I am currently in rehearsals for a production of Carmen with a local opera company, Finger Lakes Opera. I am not singing a lead, or even a comprimario role; I am in the ensemble. While that may not sound compelling, the amazing thing about it for me is how I feel during and after rehearsals, even when talking to people about how rehearsals are going. I am so full of energy, life, and excitement, that I can barely contain myself. This is how I know what I am supposed to be doing with my life.
We are reading and discussing The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by Rev. James Martin, S.J. in a young adult group that I facilitate at my church. This is my second time through the book and the primary thing that has struck me both times through is that God plants your deepest desires in your heart and they are God's way of showing you what you should be doing in life. There has rarely been much question about the desires on my heart, but it seems to have magnified in intensity over the last couple of years. I now not only desire to be performing, but I long for it. When I am not in production I often feel like something is missing in my life.
Part of this new excitement when performing comes from my experience last year. Since my time with the New York Opera Studio I have continually become more comfortable in my body on stage. This ability to open up on stage has allowed me to really explore things and let me fall into the characters I am portraying, even in an ensemble situation. While rehearsing for Carmen, I am also preparing for my debut as Ferrando in Detroit next month in Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte. These months of being able to immerse myself in the world of opera have shown me how I need my life to be if I am to be truly content with my occupation. My goal for the coming "year" is to find more ways to envelop myself in this world and make this desire a reality.
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Monday, July 21, 2014
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
The Waiting
The waiting is the hardest part. I have done all of my auditions for the year (although I am trying to do one more in May), and now there is nothing left to do but wait for the last of them to get back to me. It has been another year of progress, but another year of frustration as well. It feels as though I have gone nowhere. The next step has not yet been made. In some respects I don't know if I know what the next step truly is. I continue to work on my technique, characterization, languages, etc., but I am still not making that next level. I read something today that sparked a thought in me. It was a Lenten reflection from Fr. Robert Barron and he said this:
"I suppose we human beings have always been in a hurry, but modern people especially seem to want what they want, when they want it. We are driven, determined, goal-oriented, fast-moving. I, for one, can't stand waiting.
But is it possible that we are made to wait because the track we are on is not the one God wants for us? Maybe we're forced to wait because God wants us to seriously reconsider the course we've charted, to stop hurtling down a dangerous road."
This struck me hard today.
I have been on this course for about a decade now, and am content to continue on this path if it is what I am truly called to do. The waiting, though, is unbearable.
I don't often talk about my faith on this blog, but in the last few years, months, and especially weeks, I have become more and more deeply ingrained in my faith. I pray for my vocation as a singer daily, and I see affirmations of it often. There are other times, like currently, where I feel as though I am in a void. It is interesting that this Lent, my prayer life has been flashing bright neon signs at me that say "DETACHMENT;" perhaps this is what I need to do in order for my true vocation in singing to shine forth. Detach myself from the desire. Detach myself from the pride associated with pursuing this career. Detach myself from the thinking that I am solely responsible for my success in this field.
Monday, October 28, 2013
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Halfway Through!
I am about halfway through my Kickstarter campaign at this point and I have reached 34% of my goal! This is great news! The unfortunate news is that I seem to have stagnated in my fund raising. For this reason, I am starting my blog post this month with a plea to my readership; please consider helping me reach my goal. If everyone can simply pledge $10 I will easily make my goal in time. That is the price of only 2 lattes! So, please help me attain my goal!
In other news, I have a benefit event for the Cadenza Workshop that I am singing at the Saturday in Buffalo, NY. On this program I am singing one aria and one duet with the program director, which is slightly intimidating. I have prepared well, but I am going through some vocal difficulties which may be due to allergies. Regardless I will do my best and give it my all.
A couple of weeks after this event, I have a recital on June 29 back home in Rochester. This was originally going to be a fund raiser, but due to some conflicts that is no longer the case; the recital will function as a thank you to all those who have donated to my Kickstarter, which ends the night prior to the recital. CD's will be available of this recital and can be reserved by donating $25 to the Kickstarter campaign.
Immediately following the holiday in July, I will begin my two programs for this summer. I am a little overwhelmed with the amount of music I have had to learn, but I feel like I am in a good place and will be well prepared by the time I get to my first program on July 7.
Spanish is coming along slowly; I am attempting to get more consistent about working on the language including listening to a Spanish Pandora station. I am not sure how much this actively helps me, but it does reinforce the things I do know when I am consciously paying attention to them. I have noticed that I am beginning to understand more spoken and written word in Spanish, and I give LingQ all the credit for enabling that to happen. For such a simple, and somewhat controversial system, it really does produce measurable results in language learning in a relatively short amount of time. I suggest everyone check it out!
Thank you to all of you who have donated thus far to my Kickstarter campaign! Your support is much appreciated. Again I beg everyone else to please pledge to enable me to get my singing career off the ground, $10 from everyone will make my goal achievable.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Challenges and Excitements
It begins this week. On Friday, I have my first YAP audition of the year. This audition is for Ohio Light Opera. I am both anxious and excited about this audition. Anxious because of my last audition experience and because I have to have a monologue prepared, which is a new thing for me. Excited because I feel like I have a lot to offer and that this year will be the year my career starts. It has been a challenging last couple of weeks and I have realized some things that I didn't think were going to be such a problem when I started the audition process this year.
I have been denied auditions to a number of programs. To date I have been denied auditions for 56% of the applications I have submitted, with 31% of programs having not yet responded one way or the other. While I cannot say for certain what the reason is behind this, I believe it is due to a lack of experience. When I was younger I was told that there were two ways to start a career in this field:
1.) Go to grad school and make connections through the school's teachers.
2.) Go straight into YAP's out of undergrad and make your own connections.
In that I was tired of schooling after undergrad I choose to take route 2. The problem though, is that I also went through a technical change which led to a reclassification of my voice and three years without any stage credits. So now, I am going to have to travel a very narrow path this year it seems, which may end up including a pay-to-sing opportunity, rather than a true YAP. Ultimately I have faith in my process and in divine providence that I will be successful in attaining my goals.
My German is still progressing slowly but surely. I have adopted a more intensive reading approach based on Dr. Arguelles' method of focusing on texts in which the percentage of unknown words is kept low so that you can focus on them and really ingrain them in your brain faster. There is obvious upside and downside to this. The upside was already mentioned; it is easier to get words to stick in your memory because you only need to focus on maybe five words instead of 20 or 30. The downside is that it slows down the process considerably. At this point my goal is to add approximately 10 new words to my known words total. This may seem trivial but over the course of a month, that ends up being about 2,000 words if I am consistent with my five day work plan. This will put me right about the same amount of known words as I have in French, which gives me a pretty good handle on the language. I was hoping to be able to do more with German than I did with French since I had an extra four months, but with my wedding and auditions this year it just wasn't possible to spread myself out anymore.
I have been denied auditions to a number of programs. To date I have been denied auditions for 56% of the applications I have submitted, with 31% of programs having not yet responded one way or the other. While I cannot say for certain what the reason is behind this, I believe it is due to a lack of experience. When I was younger I was told that there were two ways to start a career in this field:
1.) Go to grad school and make connections through the school's teachers.
2.) Go straight into YAP's out of undergrad and make your own connections.
In that I was tired of schooling after undergrad I choose to take route 2. The problem though, is that I also went through a technical change which led to a reclassification of my voice and three years without any stage credits. So now, I am going to have to travel a very narrow path this year it seems, which may end up including a pay-to-sing opportunity, rather than a true YAP. Ultimately I have faith in my process and in divine providence that I will be successful in attaining my goals.
My German is still progressing slowly but surely. I have adopted a more intensive reading approach based on Dr. Arguelles' method of focusing on texts in which the percentage of unknown words is kept low so that you can focus on them and really ingrain them in your brain faster. There is obvious upside and downside to this. The upside was already mentioned; it is easier to get words to stick in your memory because you only need to focus on maybe five words instead of 20 or 30. The downside is that it slows down the process considerably. At this point my goal is to add approximately 10 new words to my known words total. This may seem trivial but over the course of a month, that ends up being about 2,000 words if I am consistent with my five day work plan. This will put me right about the same amount of known words as I have in French, which gives me a pretty good handle on the language. I was hoping to be able to do more with German than I did with French since I had an extra four months, but with my wedding and auditions this year it just wasn't possible to spread myself out anymore.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Audition Season is Here!
I received some exciting news the other day when I opened my e-mail. I have been granted my first audition for a Young Artist Program (YAP) as a tenor. This is wonderful news for me, especially since the first two responses I got from other programs were declines. I read an interview of Rockwell Blake a few years back in which he stated:
"There’s no cushion. You start out with nothing, you have nothing, and there’s no such thing as an investment in property or something like a dentist would have to go through. You move to New York, take an apartment and go to everything you can go to, and shell out a lot of money to pianists and coaches, which is necessary. One needs to study, regardless, and you have to shell out money for the auditions, and if you are serious about making a career, you go to every audition there is. That means maybe three or four times a week you’re shelling out twenty-five bucks for a pianist just to play three arias for you. So it gets expensive, especially when you have no income."
I have made this into my personal mantra as I begin my real walk into this career. For instance, at this point in the year, I am applying to about 20 different programs. Ultimately more will come up as well as I continue through the season. If you think about it, it is a numbers game like many things in life are. When I first auditioned as a baritone nearly four years ago I only applied to about five programs and, while I managed to be granted auditions at all of those programs, I got accepted into none of them. As an example of some of the odds a young singer faces starting out think about this:
A well-known program may receive 1500 applications from aspiring singers. Out of those 1500, the company will hear approximately 700 auditions. Then, from those 700, the company will pick about 25 singers for their program.
These odds seem nearly insurmountable, until you realize that there are hundreds of programs in this country, some of which are smaller programs and therefore receive fewer applications and hear fewer people for the same number of spots. So, you see, eventually you will find the program that can accommodate you. I am confident that I will find a placement for the summer during this season and begin my career.
My language quest has been somewhat trying as of late. I have lacked time and motivation due to everything going on in my life, as I described above. I am still working however and making progress. I found a new app for my iPhone which is called "Audiobooks." This is literally the entire database of LibriVox made available for iPhone. Any language learners who do not know of LibriVox should check it out immediately, as well as Project Gutenberg. These are invaluable resources for language learners as they provide you, between the two of them, with tons of materials for Listening-Reading.
I hope to get to another meetup or two before the year is out to see where I am at with my German. This will be difficult though due to my potentially busy audition schedule.
On a side note, I noticed an interesting tidbit today when looking at my viewership. I had a considerable spike in my readers on my birthday. I can't imagine this is coincidence, but I find it rather amusing. It's like a birthday gift from my readers. I have also noticed a nice steady climb in readership over the years which is encouraging. Ultimately my blog is gaining in popularity and I hope that it is helpful or informational to some of those who read it. If there are ever any questions that any of you want me to try and answer, just leave a comment and I will answer it in my upcoming post.
"There’s no cushion. You start out with nothing, you have nothing, and there’s no such thing as an investment in property or something like a dentist would have to go through. You move to New York, take an apartment and go to everything you can go to, and shell out a lot of money to pianists and coaches, which is necessary. One needs to study, regardless, and you have to shell out money for the auditions, and if you are serious about making a career, you go to every audition there is. That means maybe three or four times a week you’re shelling out twenty-five bucks for a pianist just to play three arias for you. So it gets expensive, especially when you have no income."
I have made this into my personal mantra as I begin my real walk into this career. For instance, at this point in the year, I am applying to about 20 different programs. Ultimately more will come up as well as I continue through the season. If you think about it, it is a numbers game like many things in life are. When I first auditioned as a baritone nearly four years ago I only applied to about five programs and, while I managed to be granted auditions at all of those programs, I got accepted into none of them. As an example of some of the odds a young singer faces starting out think about this:
A well-known program may receive 1500 applications from aspiring singers. Out of those 1500, the company will hear approximately 700 auditions. Then, from those 700, the company will pick about 25 singers for their program.
These odds seem nearly insurmountable, until you realize that there are hundreds of programs in this country, some of which are smaller programs and therefore receive fewer applications and hear fewer people for the same number of spots. So, you see, eventually you will find the program that can accommodate you. I am confident that I will find a placement for the summer during this season and begin my career.
My language quest has been somewhat trying as of late. I have lacked time and motivation due to everything going on in my life, as I described above. I am still working however and making progress. I found a new app for my iPhone which is called "Audiobooks." This is literally the entire database of LibriVox made available for iPhone. Any language learners who do not know of LibriVox should check it out immediately, as well as Project Gutenberg. These are invaluable resources for language learners as they provide you, between the two of them, with tons of materials for Listening-Reading.
I hope to get to another meetup or two before the year is out to see where I am at with my German. This will be difficult though due to my potentially busy audition schedule.
On a side note, I noticed an interesting tidbit today when looking at my viewership. I had a considerable spike in my readers on my birthday. I can't imagine this is coincidence, but I find it rather amusing. It's like a birthday gift from my readers. I have also noticed a nice steady climb in readership over the years which is encouraging. Ultimately my blog is gaining in popularity and I hope that it is helpful or informational to some of those who read it. If there are ever any questions that any of you want me to try and answer, just leave a comment and I will answer it in my upcoming post.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
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.
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.
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