I Love It!

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.

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.  

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.  

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.

New Year, New Plans

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

It has been a few months since I have updated the world about my life, I apologize.  The end of 2013 marked some important changes in my singing life.  In the most recent audition season, I sent out nearly 25 applications and was granted five auditions.  I am still waiting to hear back from some of those auditions, but as of right now I have no offers on the table.  In the interest of understanding my situation and furthering my career along, I had a meeting with my voice teacher to discuss the coming year and what we can do.  The answer, primarily, has been to change my repertoire around.  Specifically he told me, "You have to start doing things that other singers struggle with."  With that statement I have officially moved into the Bel Canto repertoire.  My future repertoire finds itself sitting a lot higher, but ultimately feels fairly comfortable in my voice at this point.  I am looking forward to the next year with this repertoire and the possibilities it may bring.

Along those same lines, this year I have decided to really increase my work level towards my career.  This includes more lessons, coachings, study/practice time, and hopefully more performing.  Part of this also concerns my health.  I am about 60 pounds overweight and need to work to lower that number considerably before next season.  All of this change will involve making a new daily schedule to accommodate everything I have to do on a give day, and planning out what I need to work on when I do work.  This year is the year of "working smart."

In the language aspect of my life I have somewhat let that part of my life linger for a while.  This technically should be my year for Russian, but I am contemplating going back and trying to further either my French or German.  This is partly due to practicality and partly due to money.  We shall see where my heart ultimately leads me.  

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.

Summer Opera Antics!

I have just returned from the first of my two summer programs.  This program was truly focused on the acting and interpretive aspect of the art form.  I found everything about this program to be wonderful.  Firstly the people involved, both staff and participants were all wonderful people.  It was nice to be in a setting where there was very little to no drama for the entirety of the program.  I have made some wonderful friends who I hope to keep in touch with and follow their careers as we move along in our lives.  Additionally I have made great professional contacts with people whom I respect and have already gleaned a lot of knowledge from.  Apart from the social aspects, I also discovered many things about myself and ways to open myself up to the audience where I feel I am truly performing and not just singing the notes on the page anymore.  One of the added bonuses to this program was that we were able to learn and explore some of the beautiful music that is the Russian repertoire.  This is such a lush area of music that is just beginning to see more light and I hope that it becomes as much of a mainstay in repertory houses as its Italian, French and German counterparts are.

My next program starts on Wednesday in Buffalo with performances on Sunday.  For this program, I will be singing Rossini's Count Almaviva with a very talented class.  I know this program will be different than the one I just finished, but I hope and pray that the people involved are equally as loving as those I have just left.  If you are interested in coming to these performances, please find me on Twitter @JPike1028 or like me on Facebook and I will post updates and dates and location of my upcoming performances!

Thank you to everyone for your continued prayers and support!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

After the wedding...

The past few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind.  On the eighth of October I got married and thusly have not had much time to devote to anything else.  I just got back into practicing both vocally and linguistically this week.  On the vocal side of things I did make a couple of recordings prior to the wedding and posted them to youtube for the sake of my upcoming auditions for various YAPs (young artist programs).

I never did get around to putting subtitles on the second clip.  Hopefully I will do that soon.  In coming back to practicing after about two weeks I am encountering some strange veil over my voice whilst singing.  I am not sure if this is sign of an oncoming illness, or just some minor entropy from not singing in a while.  Interestingly, I did not lose any of my range, the quality is just different and my endurance seems to have backtracked a bit.

Linguistically I have had a pleasant experience coming back after two weeks.  I have found that a number of things have solidified themselves and I am working around the language more easily than I did prior to the wedding.  At this point, if I work every day I can finish Assimil on January 2, 2013.  I don't know if I will work the two extra days, or stick to my plan of moving on to Spanish on January 1.  I am quite excited with how my German is progressing, even if I am not at the level I was hoping to be by this point of the year.

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.

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.

The Busy Season is Arriving

Now that the tumult of my Schicchi preparation has died down I am back to the normal grind.  I am now looking towards audition season, my first as a tenor.  Currently my first audition looks as though it is going to be in late October.  I am both excited and nervous about this first year of auditions.  I do not feel that I am completely ready vocally to be putting myself out there yet, but I am trusting in the guidance of JRL.  He thinks I am ready, and experience tells me that outside ears know my actual level better than I do.  I still have approximately two months until my first audition with which I hope to really solidify some pesky spots both in my voice and in my repertoire.  For those with inquiring minds, my planned audition repertoire this year is as follows:

De' miei bollenti spiriti from La Traviata by Verdi

Firenze com'é un albero fiorito from Gianni Schicchi by Puccini

Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön from Die Zauberflöte by Mozart

Ah! fuyez, douce image from Manon by Massenett

It's about the way people is made from Susannah by Floyd

The next two months entail a lot of work for me, specifically with Rinuccio and Des Grieux.  I really need to make sure that I have all of the Bb4's in those two pieces solid.  In addition to musical preparations, I am also about to begin working with an acting coach to help build my, admittedly undertrained acting skills.  I am hoping that these things will aid me in getting into a program my first year out and give me some tangible validation that I can bring back for all of my long time doubters in my home area.

My German studies have been a little hit or miss as of late.  Erring mostly on the side of miss.  I have done a better job of picking up the work this week and have begun to do more listening and attempting to speak and write a little bit more in German.  This week I joined a meetup group for German in Rochester.  I am going to go to my first meetup this Sunday with the goal of speaking in German the entire time I am there.

In other news I am getting married in the beginning of October which ultimately means my langauge studies will probably take another hit then.  Hopefully, I can find away to keep plugging away and achieve my goal of having a larger vocabulary in German than I do in French.  At this point my French vocabulary is about 56% larger than my German vocabulary.

Things are beginning to click!

The last two weeks have been good weeks for me on both fronts.  I have gotten back into a pretty regular study schedule with German and have noticed a lot of progress as of late.  I am now picking up small chunks of passages when I listen to Radio Horeb or watch Extr@.  I find that I am beginning to be able to express myself with a little more ease in daily conversation and am feeling more and more comfortable with the language every day.

Speaking of Extr@, I discovered this program while looking through my subscriptions on youtube the other day.  One of the channels I had subscribed to had liked one of the videos of Extr@.  Upon some research I discovered that the program is designed for language learners and is available in English, French, Spanish, and German.  The storyline is silly and the production value and acting leaves a bit to be desired, but I do find the program easy to watch and I can catch a lot of the dialogue.  Overall, German is progressing nicely now that I am back into the regular swing of things.

I have also been having similar experiences vocally.  My first roles as a tenor are coming up in about two weeks and I am starting to become comfortable singing them straight through in succession.  I was worried a few days ago because I felt like it was a struggle to get through the second, more demanding role of Rinuccio, however I eventually reminded myself that I will have some time to rest in between my sung parts in the role as compared to in the practice room where I sing through them in succession.  I recently discovered the vocal posture that I like to maintain while singing and this has made my life considerably more easy.  I have to verify that this is the correct posture when I meet with JRL in a couple of weeks, but I believe that this finding is a huge step forward for me.  


As this upcoming performance is nearly past, I am beginning to look forward to auditions for some summer young artist programs and putting together my package for this.  I am still lacking one aria in my package, but I hope to be able to rectify this problem also when I meet with JRL.  Singing has become really exciting again and I find that I fall more and more in love with the art form as I continue to progress, both vocally and linguistically.  Ultimately my language goals are designed to further my artistry and the more I delve into languages the more I see the beauty of the way composers set words to music; and the more I grow vocally the more I am able to enjoy telling the stories of these operas and songs.


In a quick look ahead, after this performance I am going to be focusing on securing my audition repertoire for the upcoming season.  After I have those pieces in a good place I intend to start to work on a recital program to be performed before I leave Rochester in about a year.  I am still trying to iron out a potential program, but I am leaning heavily towards performing "La bonne chanson" by Gabriel Faure and "Dichterliebe" by Robert Schumann.  It is said that Faure's work is considered by some to be his Dichterliebe, so I think this will be a nicely tied in program.  My plan is to sing both works in their original keys, which I personally believe is the best way to perform art song.  This way the audience hears the music exactly as the composer envisioned it.  As I begin to prepare this program I will reflect on it here and provide details of any upcoming performances of both the recital and any opportunities I receive through auditions.