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.
Showing posts with label vocabulary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vocabulary. Show all posts
Friday, September 20, 2013
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!
Monday, January 21, 2013
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.
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.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
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.
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.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
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.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Coming in like a lion
This has been a rough month for me. The amount of things I have to do at work, which is when I usually study, has increased considerably and taken away my time that I can work on German. Suffice it to say that I have not been able to make much progress so far this month. I have tried to maintain at least one aspect of my study per day though, usually Michel Thomas. I am in the process of trying to restructure my day so that I can fit in my Assimil and LingQ work daily again. The one positive from this month thus far is that I am at a basic conversational level in German. I define this as being able to greet and speak candidly with others about menial, day to day things (i.e. How are you?, What are you doing this weekend?, etc.). I am very pleased and excited about this, especially since I have not been able to put much time in as of late. When I can get back to more regular study I anticipate being able to count this language as being fully conversational by mid-summer, which makes fluency by December 31 very attainable.
I am still in a very good place vocally as well. Since my lesson in February I can feel my voice getting stronger every day. My A-natural (A4) has really solidified as of late and I am now working on B-flat (Bb4) and B (B4). Even my repertory has taken a step up as I have begun to earnestly work on "La donna e mobile" and "E la solita storia." My hope for this session between lessons is to have a reliable B-flat and a workable B natural. Assuming I keep up my newfound pace, I believe I will definitely be audition ready for the fall. I have about two months until my next trip to New York City and am planning on having a lesson and at least a couple of coachings while I am down. Until then, I have much work to do so that I can build on the momentum I have gained from my last lesson.
I am still in a very good place vocally as well. Since my lesson in February I can feel my voice getting stronger every day. My A-natural (A4) has really solidified as of late and I am now working on B-flat (Bb4) and B (B4). Even my repertory has taken a step up as I have begun to earnestly work on "La donna e mobile" and "E la solita storia." My hope for this session between lessons is to have a reliable B-flat and a workable B natural. Assuming I keep up my newfound pace, I believe I will definitely be audition ready for the fall. I have about two months until my next trip to New York City and am planning on having a lesson and at least a couple of coachings while I am down. Until then, I have much work to do so that I can build on the momentum I have gained from my last lesson.
Monday, February 6, 2012
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Two weeks in... Impatience
I am just over two weeks in to my German studies, and thus far am pretty much on track. I am a little behind on my LingQ work, about 300 words, but I am not terribly worried about it, I figure it will all come out in the wash at the end. As I mentioned before this is the first language I am learning on my own, completely from scratch. I have noticed that I have the tendency to get slightly impatient with my learning curve, chastising myself for not being able to say more. Then I remind myself that I am only two weeks in and have another eleven and a half months to go, thusly I should not worry. I can already have some basic conversations and text messages with my German speaking friends.
One thing I have discovered about going at this completely on my own is that it is a little overwhelming at first knowing absolutely nothing and just throwing yourself in the deep end. I am slowly picking up more and more things every day and I am near 1,000 known words on LingQ. Overall I am comfortable with where I am and feel like I am on a good pace at this point.
I have not written anything about my vocal journey in a while. The fact is that I do not have much to report. I continue to progress towards my goal of being able to sing tenor repertoire comfortably and convincingly. I was supposed to have a lesson yesterday, however those plans fell through, so I now am looking forward to February and my next potential lesson. There have been some important milestones in my singing though in my time between lessons. The most important one being that more of my top notes have begun to show glimpses of themselves to me when singing. I am still struggling with endurance however. I sense that this will be a very important year for my singing career, one way or the other.
One thing I have discovered about going at this completely on my own is that it is a little overwhelming at first knowing absolutely nothing and just throwing yourself in the deep end. I am slowly picking up more and more things every day and I am near 1,000 known words on LingQ. Overall I am comfortable with where I am and feel like I am on a good pace at this point.
I have not written anything about my vocal journey in a while. The fact is that I do not have much to report. I continue to progress towards my goal of being able to sing tenor repertoire comfortably and convincingly. I was supposed to have a lesson yesterday, however those plans fell through, so I now am looking forward to February and my next potential lesson. There have been some important milestones in my singing though in my time between lessons. The most important one being that more of my top notes have begun to show glimpses of themselves to me when singing. I am still struggling with endurance however. I sense that this will be a very important year for my singing career, one way or the other.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Der Plan
As we have started a new year, I have already put in two days of study on my new language for the year, German. I figure I would outline my basic plan for the year with regards to my acquisition of German.
Resources:
German with Michel Thomas
German with Ease by Assimil
German on LingQ
In general, my goal is to spend ten hours a week studying German over the course of the next year. As I do not study on my days off from work, that equates to 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. I will go through one lesson/track per working day with MT and Assimil. On LingQ, I plan to add approximately 100 known words to my vocabulary every working day. This is a little bit slower of a pace than I would like on LingQ, but I think it is the best plan for the amount of time I have available to devote to this study. As I go along I will have to read more and more material to acquire 100 new known words, so ultimately my exposure will grow exponentially as I become more accustomed to the language.
On the side, I plan to watch a German movie every month and listen to some German radio programming every week. Also, I am going to start praying the Rosary in German and hopefully I will get to the point where I can spontaneously pray in German by the end of the year. I also have a number of friends and acquaintances who speak German, so I will be practicing my spoken German from a very early stage, as soon as I start to know some more relevant material than: Der Tee ist kalt.
Based on my previous work in French, I anticipate that I will get to a pretty comfortable place with German by the summer, at which point I will have finished both MT and Assimil. The rest of my year in German will be spent focusing on listening comprehension and vocabulary building through LingQ.
German does present me with some challenges, the most striking one being that I have practically no previous coursework or study of the language outside of the one month I studied it last year. With both French and Italian I had taken actual classes prior to my self-study, so I had a little bit of a head-start. I am excited to see how I do with my first completely self-taught language and hope to be able to use this working plan as model for my future languages.
Resources:
German with Michel Thomas
German with Ease by Assimil
German on LingQ
In general, my goal is to spend ten hours a week studying German over the course of the next year. As I do not study on my days off from work, that equates to 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. I will go through one lesson/track per working day with MT and Assimil. On LingQ, I plan to add approximately 100 known words to my vocabulary every working day. This is a little bit slower of a pace than I would like on LingQ, but I think it is the best plan for the amount of time I have available to devote to this study. As I go along I will have to read more and more material to acquire 100 new known words, so ultimately my exposure will grow exponentially as I become more accustomed to the language.
On the side, I plan to watch a German movie every month and listen to some German radio programming every week. Also, I am going to start praying the Rosary in German and hopefully I will get to the point where I can spontaneously pray in German by the end of the year. I also have a number of friends and acquaintances who speak German, so I will be practicing my spoken German from a very early stage, as soon as I start to know some more relevant material than: Der Tee ist kalt.
Based on my previous work in French, I anticipate that I will get to a pretty comfortable place with German by the summer, at which point I will have finished both MT and Assimil. The rest of my year in German will be spent focusing on listening comprehension and vocabulary building through LingQ.
German does present me with some challenges, the most striking one being that I have practically no previous coursework or study of the language outside of the one month I studied it last year. With both French and Italian I had taken actual classes prior to my self-study, so I had a little bit of a head-start. I am excited to see how I do with my first completely self-taught language and hope to be able to use this working plan as model for my future languages.
Friday, February 18, 2011
العربية الأسبوع ٧
This week I have continued my FLR work and am pleased with what has come of it. I do not know how much I am necessarily retaining of my reading, I think that aspect of the work manifests itself most during my writing exercises at the end of the week. I do know however, that my listening and vocabulary seem to be becoming strong as the time progresses. With both, I add one unit's worth of exercises per week. While this leads to a smaller vocabulary, I find that the words I do add implant themselves better in my brain with the time allowed to focus specifically on them.
I have decided to focus on small things vocally. By this, I mean that I am taking single exercises and continually doing them until I achieve a desired result and then moving on. Sometimes this only takes a couple of repetitions, other times it takes 5 or 10 minutes worth of work. The benefits of this however are noticeable even the next day. For example, since my lesson three weeks ago I have been working with the [ð] occlusive in my exercise regimen. I perform a 5-note scale beginning with [ð] and moving to [i] ascending to the fifth and then descending back to the root. I tend to struggle with not cracking, or slipping, at around A above middle C. So, I will continue to do this scale starting on the D above middle, refining and honing in on the correct sound and sensation, until the note no longer slips. Upon achieving this I move up by half-steps until about C5, the tenor's high C. I am currently relatively consistent in this exercise on the A now and have moved on to B-flat and B as my main focus.
I have also noticed the importance of rest in the voice building process. On average I vocalize about five days a week. During this time I make progress daily, however my largest progress always comes after those couple of days of rest. I think that this fact proves that training a voice is a muscular activity. When training any muscle, the growth does not come during the exercise itself, but during the rest period when the muscles can rebuild and adapt to the new standards being required of them. This is why and good exercise program should require rest periods. Even in running and other cardiovascular activities, at least one day of rest is prescribed. As the weeks go by, I continue to grow towards my ultimate goal of being the best singer possible. Knowing that this process is a muscular one enables me to find satisfaction in the gradualness, but consistency of growth.
Methodology Minute - Trust Your Intuition
In most areas of intelligence, our intuition leads to more results than anything else. Unfortunately, most of us do not trust our intuition, especially in areas that we do not consider ourselves experts. A quick example: When I speak to my friends in either French or Italian I generally come to a point where I want to say something, but do not necessarily know for certain what the correct word is. During these times, I occasionally have words pop into my head from seemingly out of nowhere. If I am comfortable with the people I am speaking with, I will tentatively try out the word in my head, usually with a positive affirmation of my offering. I always check my thoughts after the fact if I am by myself practicing, but the percentage of time that I am correct is far greater than the times I am wrong.
If we have done enough work in a subject area (in languages this equates to input and building a passive vocabulary) eventually and inevitably this passive knowledge will become active when the opportunity presents itself. My encouragement this week is to trust that little voice in your head. Often it will be correct.
I have decided to focus on small things vocally. By this, I mean that I am taking single exercises and continually doing them until I achieve a desired result and then moving on. Sometimes this only takes a couple of repetitions, other times it takes 5 or 10 minutes worth of work. The benefits of this however are noticeable even the next day. For example, since my lesson three weeks ago I have been working with the [ð] occlusive in my exercise regimen. I perform a 5-note scale beginning with [ð] and moving to [i] ascending to the fifth and then descending back to the root. I tend to struggle with not cracking, or slipping, at around A above middle C. So, I will continue to do this scale starting on the D above middle, refining and honing in on the correct sound and sensation, until the note no longer slips. Upon achieving this I move up by half-steps until about C5, the tenor's high C. I am currently relatively consistent in this exercise on the A now and have moved on to B-flat and B as my main focus.
I have also noticed the importance of rest in the voice building process. On average I vocalize about five days a week. During this time I make progress daily, however my largest progress always comes after those couple of days of rest. I think that this fact proves that training a voice is a muscular activity. When training any muscle, the growth does not come during the exercise itself, but during the rest period when the muscles can rebuild and adapt to the new standards being required of them. This is why and good exercise program should require rest periods. Even in running and other cardiovascular activities, at least one day of rest is prescribed. As the weeks go by, I continue to grow towards my ultimate goal of being the best singer possible. Knowing that this process is a muscular one enables me to find satisfaction in the gradualness, but consistency of growth.
Methodology Minute - Trust Your Intuition
In most areas of intelligence, our intuition leads to more results than anything else. Unfortunately, most of us do not trust our intuition, especially in areas that we do not consider ourselves experts. A quick example: When I speak to my friends in either French or Italian I generally come to a point where I want to say something, but do not necessarily know for certain what the correct word is. During these times, I occasionally have words pop into my head from seemingly out of nowhere. If I am comfortable with the people I am speaking with, I will tentatively try out the word in my head, usually with a positive affirmation of my offering. I always check my thoughts after the fact if I am by myself practicing, but the percentage of time that I am correct is far greater than the times I am wrong.
If we have done enough work in a subject area (in languages this equates to input and building a passive vocabulary) eventually and inevitably this passive knowledge will become active when the opportunity presents itself. My encouragement this week is to trust that little voice in your head. Often it will be correct.
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