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.  

It's working!

Let's start with the more interesting and important information.  This summer I am participating in two programs.  One is in Loch Sheldrake, NY singing in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and the other is in Buffalo, NY singing scenes from Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia.  Both of these programs are a blessing to me.  After an overall disappointing audition season, these were my last two chances to obtain gigs for the summer.  The program in Buffalo, which is called Cadenza Workshop, was discovered almost by accident through a show I was doing with Rochester Lyric Opera.  The other program, Opera Advantage, is run by Nico and Carol Castel, whom I have worked with before when I was in Spoleto, Italy.  There are points both interesting, amusing, and a little scary with all of this happening so quickly and unexpectedly.  First, both of these operas that I am going to be working on are based on plays by Beaumarchais, although I am performing them out of order.  Barbiere should be before Le Nozze, but I suppose I get to see the characters as "mature" people prior to their youth.  The scary thing about these is that I have about a month to learn and memorize both of them.  Additionally, I need to raise some money to cover expenses for these programs.  I am currently trying to plan a benefit recital to accomplish this goal and will provide more information as it comes along.

Along the same line as the preceding paragraph, I had my best audition to date yesterday.  I auditioned for Syracuse Opera yesterday and changed my daily routine for audition days quite a bit.  The results were much better than I anticipated.  I used to find myself with little to do, so I would arrive quite early (1-2 hours to be exact) and wait around for my time to come.  Yesterday, I instead chose to hang out at my cousin's house until about 2 hours before my audition.  I then took the 40 minute subway to my audition place, grabbed a quick lunch at Subway (probably wasn't good practice to have the onions, but I love them so...), used the practice room I reserved (brilliant idea!) to warm up, and walked next door to my audition where I only had to wait for about 20 minutes.  My audition began as they all do, the awkward entrance and introduction of the first piece, which was Alfredo's aria from La Traviata.  After I sang this fairly well the two auditors conversed a little and actually asked me to sing a second piece!  This may not seem like a big deal, but I haven't been asked for a second piece since I switched to tenor, so this was quite momentous to me.  They asked for Sam's aria from Susannah and I sang that pretty well also.  Some major things that I noticed in this audition apart from the second selection being requested were this:  My voice and technique have finally become strong enough and stable enough that I no longer crack or shank high notes, despite nerves.  I still have an involuntary finger or leg twitch that accompanies high notes, but the notes themselves are secure.  Also, I am able to do more of what I want through intent from both a technical and musical perspective, and I feel I am beginning to make music instead of simply singing words and pitches.  My physicality may still be lacking, but I like to think that I am making up for this with how I am treating the text.  I don't prescribe to the gesture for every line business anyways.  I'm more of a fan of the one or two meaningful gestures during the course of a piece idea.  Overall, regardless of the results, this was a successful audition.

Spanish...  There is something about this language that I just do not have the motivation to learn it consistently.  My LingQ account has lapsed again due to nonpayment, but that doesn't really hurt my feelings, especially with all I have to learn in the next month.  On the plus side, during my drive to NYC Sunday and the drive home last night, I listened to Spanish radio as long as I could pick up the station and I managed to find a singer whom I like, Hector Acosta "El Torito."  I am currently listening to an album of his on Spotify, actually.  I also still listen to Catholic radio on my phone at work in Spanish and speak what I can with my friends who speak.  So I am still improving, it is just a very slow pace.  Many people want me to perfect my Spanish because of the practicality of it in today's world in the U.S.  Perhaps that is why I don't really care that much about learning it.  In terms of my own career, there is very little music that I sing that requires Spanish.  I'd rather spend my time beefing up my Italian, German, or French.  I would rather learn Russian and I will be come 2014.  Hopefully come August I will be able to get back into LingQ for Spanish and make a push to get myself to a somewhat respectable level of Spanish before the year is out.  I learned French in 8 months; given my current level of Spanish, I should be able to get to a similar level in 4 months.

Nearing the end of the year of German!

As I move through the midway point of December, I have successfully increased my intensity with my German studies.  I am up over 3300 words known at this point, and may have a shot at 4000 by the end of the month if I can keep up the pace.  I find German flowing through my brain a little bit easier and I am thinking about trying to get to one of the last meetups for the German group here in town to test my level.  

My singing has had ups and downs this month.  I sang for a number of events at church that ranged from going really well to me struggling with similar issues that I did in my auditions.  I am currently succumbing to the cold that generally marks the end of the holiday season and, with the exception of a family funeral I am singing tomorrow, have placed myself on vocal rest so that I can make it through the Christmas mass schedule next week.  My final blog post of the year will be a review of the last year and a preview to the coming year's plans.  Have a blessed Christmas!

A New Phase

I have entered a new phase of my vocal journey this month.  I was lucky enough to be able to have two lessons this month as compared to my usual one every other month.  During the course of these two lessons, JRL and I worked on a new aspect of singing technique.  For the past three years, we have focused mostly on developing the chest voice component of my voice.  This was lacking from my singing previously and took some time to develop.  Now, we are working on finding the "thin edge" of the voice.  This is proving to be very challenging for me, though I am finding success and a certain ease in my singing that was not as present before. 

In the past five years or so, I had noticed that I was losing my vocal agility and I could not figure out why.  I found this very frustrating, because I used to pride myself on the ease with which I could handle coloratura passages.  After a couple of weeks of working to find the "thin edge," I sang through "Ev'ry Valley" from Handel's Messiah today with relative ease and at a passable tempo.  The runs felt both clean and under control, not to mention the top notes were easier than they have ever been.  My challenge now lies in this weekend. 

I have two auditions this weekend and these are some of my last auditions of this season.  At this point I have not been terribly pleased with my performances in audition situations this year.  I have been becoming more and more comfortable with each audition and I know that this is a process.  Singing tenor is still new to me, especially in front of people, and the more that I do it the easier it becomes.  I am hoping that some fruit will come from these auditions this weekend. 

My primary goal is to sing well and seek the "thin edge" throughout my two auditions.  My secondary goal is to be offered a position through these auditions.  I am at a difficult point currently in that I am nearing an age where I need to either find work singing, or pursue a secondary plan that is more sustainable than my current day job.  This will inevitably lead to me pursuing a graduate degree if I have to go down this path.  Following a path towards a graduate degree does not necessarily hurt my chances of singing professionally, in fact, it would probably help me a great deal.  The issue I have is that I would rather just get out there and sing rather than go through another two years of academic work.  Prayers are greatly appreciated that my auditions this weekend and throughout this audition season lead to an offer to sing somewhere this summer and begin my career.

German is still coming along at a consistent pace.  I have fallen into a pretty good groove as of late, though I am a little slow on my goal of 4,700 known words by the end of the year.  As we come into December I will need to increase my workload so to reach this level.  4,700 may seem like a random number to want to achieve, however there is a method to this number.  There is a study out of Australia (I believe) that found that in English the amount of words known divided by 1.6 equated to the number of word families known, which is a better measure of fluency than simply words known.  It is generally accepted that one can be quite proficient in a language once they know 3,000 words.  The Australian study points out that this is really 3,000 word families, not words.  Therefore, per the equation, I need to know 4,700 words to know 3,000 word families in English.  While I do not know the specific equation for other languages, I have found this same equation works pretty well for other languages.  If I can reach this number by year's end I will be at a solid intermediate level in the language and be able to have relatively comfortable conversations on a wide variety of topics.

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.

I'm getting married in a week! Also, my first tenor audition!

I'm getting married in a week.  Therefore I have done very little with German over the past couple of weeks.  I still continue to speak when I get together with Ernest, however I have not studied anything actively over the last two weeks.  I even let my LingQ account lapse until after the wedding so I can save as much money as possible.  I plan to get back on track after the wedding with German and make a big final push over the last couple of months.

About this time of year I let the cat out of the bag regarding the language I am going to next pursue.  I am running into a similar problem that I ran into toward the end of last year with French.  I plan to move on to my next language, but I feel drawn to sticking with German and really solidifying everything and continue working on German until I reach fluency.  On the other hand, I like moving on to something new so that I don't get bored.  It appears that my German will be at a solid B1 level by the end of the year, maybe B2 if I work effectively.  Truthfully that's sufficient for what I need currently, and is a high enough level where I can move on and not really risk losing what I have done.  That being said, my next planned language of study for next year is:  Spanish!

I studied Spanish in high school for three years and continued to speak Spanish for a while in college with some friends.  However, I have not actively spoken or studied Spanish in about eight years.  Also, since I have already worked in French and Italian I have a solid base in the language.  Therefore I am not a beginner, however I am still going to start from the beginning of my process and see what I can do.  It has been predicted by Ernest and other polyglots I know that Spanish will quickly become my best language because of the background I already have, and because of the easy exposure to Spanish in American culture.  I tend to agree and would love to be able to make it to fluency in the next year, beginning in January.  My goal at the beginning is always to attain fluency in a year, then I modify as the year progresses.  Next month I will give my review of my German year and assess how I have progressed.

I sang my first audition as a tenor on Saturday and it was a bit of a train wreck.  Just about everything that could have gone wrong during my audition did.  It started with flipping verses for about eight measures and proceeded to forgetting words, blanking out completely, and shanking high notes.  Fortunately this was a small local company which shouldn't have any effect on me elsewhere.  On the plus side, I did go into the audition very comfortable and confident, which I did not anticipate.  I was using this audition as a sort of practice experience to prepare myself for the more important auditions coming up in the next couple of months.  I need to go back and take a look at my repertoire to make sure I have it all memorized properly and securely so that my nerves don't steal my words again.  The audition experience provided me with the setup for a night of beating myself up, however sleeping does wonders for the soul and the mind and I have been much better since waking.  I have to take a week off from serious practice time to prepare and experience my wedding, and then I will be back in the swing of preparation again when I return next week.

First roles!

Tonight I sang through my first two roles as a tenor.  Overall I did fairly well, I had some issues in Rinuccio but I made it through, survived as it were.  I discovered some challenges that I was already vaugely aware of, and I found some things to be very pleased with.  I did record my Rinuccio and I may try to take out some of the more encouraging clips to post for your listening, ahem, pleasure.  Next I have to begin looking at some programs to audition for and also start learning two more roles, in case I get asked to sing them in the next year:  Il Duca and Tamino.  These two roles are challenging in different ways and it will be interesting learning them both somewhat simultaneously.  Also, I have to learn one more aria for my audition package and work very hard to make everything considerably more comfortable before I actually get to auditions.

German is coming along well.  I am now coming into a more comfortable place and find myself able to think in German fairly aptly.  I am about a week away from beginning the active phase of Assimil and am slowly building my passive vocabulary the LingQ.  My next task is to start engaging in more German conversation and try to activate some of the passive vocabulary that I have gained.  I think that I now can focus a little bit more on German since these roles are over.

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.

Back from the abyss

I had a rough week last week in German.  I was very busy at work and very tired when I wasn't busy, so I was not able to do much.  Life is a little bit easier this week though and I have got back into my routine, thankfully.  The advantage with French was that I had a base in the language prior to my intensive work.  While I am not progress at the same rate in German, I do still have somewhat of a base in the language due to being a native English speaker.  There are a vast number of German words which change pronunciation from English very predictably, which makes learning those words vastly easier than a language that doesn't share common roots.

In general, it is said that the more languages you know the easier it is to learn more.  I see this more and more as I progress through languages.  Not only do your methods of learning become more efficient, but the shared vocabulary among the world's languages provides a wonderful base to springboard off of.

I just barely crossed over the 1,000 word mark on LingQ and hope to add about 500 words to that total this week.  The difficult thing about LingQ at this point in my learning is that there are so many words I don't know that I get easily frustrated at how long it takes to get through one story, so I end up only doing one story a day, which does not help my word count.

In other news, I am finally going to get down for a lesson on the 17th of this month.  It has been a long while since my last lesson and I am anxious to see how my progress measures up.  I find myself often frustrated that I am not progressing at a faster pace, but constantly have to remind myself that quality takes time and that if I trust the process it will work for me.  There have been great steps forward in the last few weeks with certain "problem" arias falling into place and feeling comfortable as well as new arias beginning to show signs of growth as well.  Hopefully this will continue into my lesson and I can continue to grow towards being YAP audition ready in the fall, which is my goal.

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 September/Beginning of October

It has been a bit since I last wrote here.  Some good things have happened on both the language and singing fronts, as well as some discouraging things.  In my language work I have begun reading Les Fables de la Fontaine which are mostly on my level.  I find that the hard thing with reading is that though I know the words I'm reading, I often miss the actual context of the story.  I figure that this is similar to listening comprehension and the practice will ultimately make things clearer as well as fill in the holes in my vocabulary.  I have unfortunately been rather lax in my other forms of study.  I have recently picked back up on Michel Thomas, but as of yet have not gotten back into my Assimil work in about two weeks.  I have every intention of working on it again tonight though!

In other news, I feel that I am to the point now where I can actually begin to call myself a tenor.  For the last month and a half or so I have been working on the Duke's arias from Rigoletto by Verdi.  These arias have stretched me and almost forced my voice to work in a different way than it has in the past.  In the last couple of days my Bb4 has really come into its own and the B4 is not far behind.  I am looking forward to the few weeks, during which time I am hoping to have a few lessons, some coachings and even participate in a recital (my first as a tenor)!

The only discouraging part of my singing life currently has been this week.  My voice has been feeling different this week and certain things that were relatively secure before are not this week, while other things that were not present before are now starting to present themselves.  I assume that this is just some of the growing pains in the process and am not terribly worried by them though.  I'm hoping to get back into being slightly more regular with my updates here, but with the holidays quickly approaching we'll see what the reality of that is.

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!

You are what you do!

"We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

Today I want to break down this statement by Aristotle.  I cam across this while reading ChiRunning by Danny Dreyer and I feel it really speaks to my life.  So much so that it has been my quote of the week.

Part I:  We are what we repeatedly do.

The great thing about this part of the quote is that it is a statement of unequivocal fact.  Michael Jordan became a phenomenal basketball player because he practiced so much that the game just became part of him.  Likewise, the cello is simply an extension of Yo-Yo Ma because of the endless hours of time put into learning and perfecting his art.  In all fields, one can find similar stories that all follow a similar path.  This same point that Aristotle points out so eloquently has recently been elaborated on through the 10,000 hour rule, which has been popularized in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers (a book which I highly recommend).  The basic premise is that if a person reaches 10,000 hours spent performing a specific skill or activity that they will be a master at it.  This equates to three hours a day over the course of ten years.  The truth is in the results.  Gladwell points out that the number of hours is not a magic number, and that one may become a master before reaching 10,000 hours, but that the process of constant, consistent work towards a goal will eventually reach its fruition.  

One thing that this rule, and Aristotle's original statement allow for is gradual progress.  The road to mastery is a long path and thusly progress will not be in large leaps, but in small steps.  Every once in a while there will be a "breakthrough moment," but these are really just a culmination of many little adjustments over time fusing together to create the current product.  This process of slow growth is not often embraced today, however the effects are considerably more lasting than quick fix practices.  

For myself, coming to realize this slow process has been a lesson in patience.  I first started my transition from baritone to tenor about two years ago.  Apart from my obvious issues of distance from my teacher, the process has been very slow as in not nearly done.  I have just recently come into possession of a high A and Bb, and they are still fickle at best.  The process has been, for me, one that seems to move at such a pace that I do not really feel like I am progressing at all, but feedback from others and those few moments affirm that I am on the right path.  Faith is a key component to this as well, for without faith that I am a singer, I would never have pursued this path this far.

Part 2:  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Using the example of Michael Jordan again, he practiced his shot so much over the years that it was second nature for him.  The same goes for Tiger Woods at his peak, or Michael Phelps, or Luciano Pavarotti.  This ties into my last post, but when we put the time in to make something a part of ourselves, we have no choice but for it to appear easy.  If we practice with the goal of attaining the highest level possible then excellence will occur.  It has no choice.  

Aristotle's quote as a whole is really an if-then scenario.  If we repeatedly do something to the point that it becomes a part of us, then excellence is to be expected.  There is a concept in endurance sports that essentially states:  If you want to be a better runner, go run.  If you want to be a better swimmer, go swim.  Excellence can only occur when you focus on a task.  What do you want to become excellent at?

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.

العربية- الأسبوع ٦

This has been a decent week for my Arabic studies.  I began a new approach this week which was developed by Moses McCormick.  I modified this a little bit, which is probably slightly to my detriment, but I skipped over the first couple of phases of the method and went straight to the textbook work.  Moses has put out a number of videos on youtube highlighting his skills as well as his method.  I have noticed a lot of progress this week, which I am not sure whether to attribute this to the FLR method of Moses or, more likely to the amount of time put in, which I will discuss in my methodology minute this week.

I have been continuing to have wonderful progress vocally.  I had a realization this week that I had not been practicing as effectively as I could be.  So, I have modified my approach to practicing so that I can be more intensive in my work, which should compound my achievements.

Methodology Minute - The Power of Patience and Perseverance 

I had a few interesting things happen this week which solidify for me the concepts of patience and perseverance.  First, while I was working through my Anki deck this week, I had a day where all of a sudden I simply knew all of my cards.  Additionally, I was watching some Arabic TV the other day and suddenly I was able to pick out words here and there that I knew, I had come out of the fog.  Thirdly, I have noticed that I have started to think and play around with the Arabic that I have learned thus far, enabling me to actually greet people and have some very basic conversation.  My theory is that all of this corresponds directly with the amount of time I have put in up to this point.  In the next couple of days, I will cross the forty hour mark in my studies. I believe that this is an important number in which things start to solidify in the brain and become more concrete.  I have had similar things happen vocally, where I try to approach a specific pitch, or a specific phrase multiple times and then suddenly the phrase or pitch falls into place.  I believe that there are specific numbers of hours, or minutes, which mark points of achievement in almost all aspects of skill acquisition.

There are many linguists who maintain that the key to learning is to put time in every day, no matter how much.  I would venture to apply this to all areas of skill acquisition.  Learning compounds over time and in areas such as language acquisition the time spent is more important than the method used.  In areas where technique is important, it is only with time that the technique becomes ingrained.  It should be the goal of anyone who is learning a skill to spend at a minimum fifteen minutes a day working on their skill.  As I said above, I believe that there are specific times associated with milestones; so the more time put in daily, the quicker these milestones will occur.

The second half of this minute I need to spend on perseverance.  For the last few weeks I had been struggling and frustrated with my lack of progress in Arabic.  Similarly during my six months without a voice lesson, I was continually frustrated by what seemed like a lack of progress.  However, by pushing through these times, I am now making large strides in both fields and have a renewed vigor in my studies.  All things in life work in cycles.  There is a business cycle, a geological cycle, and a motivation cycle.  Many people get hung up when they reach the valleys of their motivational cycles and never progress past their initial motivational peak.  However, if one can push through the valleys of frustration there are greater rewards in your next peak than what you found initially.

Steven Kaufmann of lingq has been making a series of videos on the 7 steps of a successful language learner on youtube and I felt that it would be of value to post a couple of them here which pertain to this methodology minute for perusal:

This first video of the series focuses on the topic of spending the time to learn.  Continual work will lead to mastery.

The fifth video in the series advises the learner to be patient; contrary to our instant gratification culture, anything of quality takes time and effort.