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.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Vocal Epiphany!
The last two weeks I have focused almost completely on the music side of my life. With Rinuccio approaching in a month I have been working feverishly in preparing the role. As I am beginning sing through the role in one sitting, I noticed at first that my endurance was an issue. Luckily as with most muscular actions, the brain adapts quickly and I am having less and less issue with consistency getting through the role. In coaching the role for the first time this past week I had a bit of an epiphany.
At a coaching a month or so ago I was told to be careful of my pitch on descending lines as I tended to go out of tune. I found this to be odd, because I generally don't suffer from pitch problems anymore. Nevertheless, I have since been paying extra attention to my descending lines to make sure they are in tune. At my coaching last week, with a different coach who knows me and my voice better, I was told again to be careful of descending lines. The catch and epiphany however, was that this coach told me that I was coming out of my resonance. Ah ha! Upon hearing this I was easily able to address the problem and found things to click much quicker. I learned that if I come out of my resonance that I sound as though I am out of tune, but it is more that I become flat in tone rather than pitch. I also learned at this most recent coaching the need for pacing myself. Admittedly I do not really know how to do this, so I am experimenting on my own and doing the best I can to save my big vocalizing for my most "dramatic" parts of this role.
In addition to Rinuccio, I learned last week that I also need to prepare Tinca from Il Tabarro for the same read through. This doesn't bother me much, although I am now stuck waiting for a score before I can learn the role. The estimated delivery time is 10 July, which will give me about three weeks to learn the role. Luckily, the role is even smaller than Rinuccio.
Since my focus has been so much on this upcoming event my language studies have faltered a bit. I still listen to radio horeb and speak with my German speaking friend rather regularly and feel that I am in a good place with German still.
Monday, June 18, 2012
The First Test
I am ill today due to allergies and figure I should try to write this while I have a spare minute. I have been prepring my first tenor role for the past few weeks and I must say that I have been enjoying the process. I am singing Rinuccio from Gianni Schicchi in August. This is my first real test of how my progress as a tenor is coming along. I feel confident about my prospects based on my work thus far. I have already learned the role and am now trying to memorize it. I don't necessarily need to memorize it for this project, but it's a good habit to get into. Unfortunately I am not able to practice today because of the post-nasal drip onto my vocal folds in the last twenty-four hours. Hopefully I will be able to get back into it tomorrow.
German is progressing decently. I am now working my way through Assimil which is a much more subconscious process than Michel Thomas was. With Assimil, it is truly a case of trusting the process and being patient. I do find that listening is getting easier as I progress through Assimil, and I look forward to continuing to advance in the coming weeks and months.
German is progressing decently. I am now working my way through Assimil which is a much more subconscious process than Michel Thomas was. With Assimil, it is truly a case of trusting the process and being patient. I do find that listening is getting easier as I progress through Assimil, and I look forward to continuing to advance in the coming weeks and months.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
A Time of Blessing
The blessings of the Lord have been flowing down upon me the last couple of weeks! I'll begin with the language side of my life. Yesterday I finished the Michel Thomas course I have been working on for the last five months. This is significant for a number of reasons. First, I feel that I have a strong base in German now and can comfortably hold my own in basic, day to day conversation. Second, this means that I can now move on to Assimil, picking up where I left off at lesson 24. Additionally, tomorrow I will cross over the 2,000 known word milestone on LingQ. This has taken me a lot longer than I anticipated, however it is ultimately of my own doing. I took a small hiatus earlier in the year from LingQ and in general I am lax about doing LingQ if I am lacking motivation on a given day. This puts me at about the same level on LingQ as my Italian says I am. Although Italian was the "first" foreign language I brought to a significant level it has quickly become my lowest level language, besides my high school level Spanish. At some point I will come back and bring all of my languages to higher levels, but for now I am content with where it is.
Based on where I am in the Assimil program, I have approximately 126 days of work ahead of me, which equates 25 weeks of study based on a 5 day study schedule. That should bring me to about December, which allows me to focus solely and intensively on LingQ for the final month, where I hope to really increase my known words. The nice thing about known words is that they grow exponentially. In French I learned approximately 5500 words in 8 months. If I follow a similar pace from here on out in German that would bring me to about 7500 known words by the end of the year, give or take a few hundred. If I stay on course and hit all of my goals for the rest of the year I should have no problem speaking German coming January 1st.
The real exciting news comes on the vocal front. I went down to New York to have a lesson with JRL and had a very productive lesson. Towards the end of the lesson I was assigned the role of Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi for a sing-through later in the summer. This will be my first time singing a role as a tenor! On top of this, I am also looking ahead to doing my first round of auditions for some summer programs in the autumn. After three arduous years of struggle and hard work I am beginning to come out on the other side of this process and am confident about my prospects.
Another important part of my trip to New York was my coaching with Susan Morton. During the coaching I was recommended a book called The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. While I am still just barely scratching the surface of this book, it has transformed my approach to nearly every important aspect of my life. The concept of "deep practicing" discussed in the tome has made learning a much more intense and rewarding experience. I have witnessed the benefits in my singing while learning this role, in my running as I have determined to beat my chronic shin splints this summer, and even my language work as I near an intermediate level of German. I highly recommend that anyone who is attempting to gain a skill find this book and give it a read.
Overall, the last two weeks have seen many prayers beginning to be answered and many goals in their infancy of being realized. I look forward to where these new opportunities and experiences take me and glorify the Lord for granting me the patience to see these things through to their fulfillment according to his will!
Based on where I am in the Assimil program, I have approximately 126 days of work ahead of me, which equates 25 weeks of study based on a 5 day study schedule. That should bring me to about December, which allows me to focus solely and intensively on LingQ for the final month, where I hope to really increase my known words. The nice thing about known words is that they grow exponentially. In French I learned approximately 5500 words in 8 months. If I follow a similar pace from here on out in German that would bring me to about 7500 known words by the end of the year, give or take a few hundred. If I stay on course and hit all of my goals for the rest of the year I should have no problem speaking German coming January 1st.
The real exciting news comes on the vocal front. I went down to New York to have a lesson with JRL and had a very productive lesson. Towards the end of the lesson I was assigned the role of Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi for a sing-through later in the summer. This will be my first time singing a role as a tenor! On top of this, I am also looking ahead to doing my first round of auditions for some summer programs in the autumn. After three arduous years of struggle and hard work I am beginning to come out on the other side of this process and am confident about my prospects.
Another important part of my trip to New York was my coaching with Susan Morton. During the coaching I was recommended a book called The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. While I am still just barely scratching the surface of this book, it has transformed my approach to nearly every important aspect of my life. The concept of "deep practicing" discussed in the tome has made learning a much more intense and rewarding experience. I have witnessed the benefits in my singing while learning this role, in my running as I have determined to beat my chronic shin splints this summer, and even my language work as I near an intermediate level of German. I highly recommend that anyone who is attempting to gain a skill find this book and give it a read.
Overall, the last two weeks have seen many prayers beginning to be answered and many goals in their infancy of being realized. I look forward to where these new opportunities and experiences take me and glorify the Lord for granting me the patience to see these things through to their fulfillment according to his will!
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Strength is coming!
There's not a whole lot to report on the language front this time around. I am still plugging away and making progress daily. There have not been any new big breakthroughs. The only noteworthy thing is that I will be finish MT before my next post, which means I will then go back to Assimil.
My vocal studies are where the more interesting things have been happening lately. A couple of weeks ago at church I was singing at the 8:30 mass and went for a G4 which I can normally hit in a rough way that early in the morning. This time around, however everything happened the way it was supposed to: the F turned on the [o] vowel and then the [a] vowel turned ideally on the G producing a nice, easy, free flowing pitch. I took this accomplishment to mean that I have begun to build significant strength through my passaggio so that these acoustical things can happen correctly and automatically. The second thing happened to me this past evening at a rehearsal for an ecumenical choir concert that I am participating in. We had just finished rehearsing a men's choir piece which took the tenors up to an Ab4. I sang this easily the few times we went through it without giving it much thought. As we were going back to join up with the rest of the choir one of the other tenors made a remark to me that I was "one of those high tenors that sings that Pavarotti high C." I laughed and answered that I was working on it. It amused me because a year ago at this concert I was told be one of these singers that I was a "2nd tenor" and now after a year of work on my part I am being told that I am a "high tenor." Ultimately these people are amateur singers and their thoughts on my vocal classification have little merit in my life. It is nice however to see that my work is paying dividends.
I have come to realize over the course of my vocal studies that things happen at a slower pace for me in this medium than they did when I was a saxophonist. Luckily I have learned to be patient and trust that the process will get me to my end goal eventually. When I started down this path as a singer I did not realize how hard I was going to have to work to attain my dreams. Everything else I had ever done in music came easily. Now, though I have broken through so man apparent glass ceilings that I have very little that can stand in my way. I had a goal set in front of me by JRL at my last lesson that by this time next year I need to have a workable C5 so I can work on Faust and Rodolfo. I take these challenges very seriously and am closing in now an my B4, just a half step away from the famed "Pavarotti high C." If my voice continues along the path it is currently on I anticipate not only reaching the goal of a workable high C, but hope to achieve it earlier than the date set forward by my teacher.
This fall I am going to be auditioning for a few summer programs and possibly one or two programs for the following year. The following fall my sights are set on the MONCA competition. This especially is a lofty goal, but I am confident that my work ethic and faith will see me through.
My vocal studies are where the more interesting things have been happening lately. A couple of weeks ago at church I was singing at the 8:30 mass and went for a G4 which I can normally hit in a rough way that early in the morning. This time around, however everything happened the way it was supposed to: the F turned on the [o] vowel and then the [a] vowel turned ideally on the G producing a nice, easy, free flowing pitch. I took this accomplishment to mean that I have begun to build significant strength through my passaggio so that these acoustical things can happen correctly and automatically. The second thing happened to me this past evening at a rehearsal for an ecumenical choir concert that I am participating in. We had just finished rehearsing a men's choir piece which took the tenors up to an Ab4. I sang this easily the few times we went through it without giving it much thought. As we were going back to join up with the rest of the choir one of the other tenors made a remark to me that I was "one of those high tenors that sings that Pavarotti high C." I laughed and answered that I was working on it. It amused me because a year ago at this concert I was told be one of these singers that I was a "2nd tenor" and now after a year of work on my part I am being told that I am a "high tenor." Ultimately these people are amateur singers and their thoughts on my vocal classification have little merit in my life. It is nice however to see that my work is paying dividends.
I have come to realize over the course of my vocal studies that things happen at a slower pace for me in this medium than they did when I was a saxophonist. Luckily I have learned to be patient and trust that the process will get me to my end goal eventually. When I started down this path as a singer I did not realize how hard I was going to have to work to attain my dreams. Everything else I had ever done in music came easily. Now, though I have broken through so man apparent glass ceilings that I have very little that can stand in my way. I had a goal set in front of me by JRL at my last lesson that by this time next year I need to have a workable C5 so I can work on Faust and Rodolfo. I take these challenges very seriously and am closing in now an my B4, just a half step away from the famed "Pavarotti high C." If my voice continues along the path it is currently on I anticipate not only reaching the goal of a workable high C, but hope to achieve it earlier than the date set forward by my teacher.
This fall I am going to be auditioning for a few summer programs and possibly one or two programs for the following year. The following fall my sights are set on the MONCA competition. This especially is a lofty goal, but I am confident that my work ethic and faith will see me through.
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