Those of you who read other language blogs probably know about Benny and his "Three Month Challenges." This is my first attempt at a three month challenge and it will be an intensive focus on Spanish. Spanish is my language for this year anyway, but I have a good motivation for the next three months (OK, really 11 weeks, but it's close enough). For the July 4th holiday, I will be spending time with my wife's best friend and family. Her husband is from El Salvador, and they live in a city where Spanish is nearly the primary language. I figure I will use this opportunity and present myself with a challenge to prepare me for the trip. My plan is to upgrade my Spanish from where it is now, about B1, to C1 level in the next 11 weeks. How will I do this?
It is going to require me to up my learning pace and take myself out of my comfort zone. I am going to need to use Spanish as much as possible in the next three months and make my environment a Spanish language zone. I have already begun to do this by switching my iPhone and computer over to Spanish. The second step for me is to change my audio input from English to Spanish. I can easily do this through my TuneIn radio app while I am at work, but I face some challenges in the car because there is no full-time Spanish radio station in my city. I also have Spotify, so if you have any good Spanish language music to recommend, please do! I am also going to raise my work output on LingQ to at least four pomodoros a day, which equates to about two hours of reading and listening daily. Realistically, I only study five days a week, but by increasing the aforementioned areas of my life, I should be able to expose my self to Spanish approximately nine hours a day. This is a good start, but I'm not done. I also need to add more speaking to my weekly routine, so I will attempt to speak with people who I know speak Spanish more regularly and force myself to stay in Spanish even when I am struggling. If I do all of these things, I believe I can reach my goal.
Musically, I have a busy month. I am currently in rehearsal for two different shows that I am in. After that I am hoping to attend a summer program which should put me on the right path to finding more work next audition season. I have had some exciting things happening in my voice and I feel myself growing in confidence every time I perform.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Forward motion
It has been a while since I last wrote a blog post. I have not been necessarily too busy to write, but I have had other things going on that took importance over writing last month. Additionally, on the language study side of the blog I ran into a rather large roadblock that took most of the last two months away from me. More on that later, because I want to begin with the more exciting things that have been going on vocally in my life.
It always amuses me when things from two different areas of life come together. This has been the case over the last few years of me re-training my voice. I wen to a Christian college and a common expression on campus was "God's will, God's time." I've always liked the phrase as it give some perspective to the fact that our plans for our life are ultimately not our own, but God's. This has taught me much about patience in the last decade or so since I came back to my Christian faith. Anyway, early on when I began to study with JRL he said to me that when my coordination was there, the high notes would come "very fast." In my pride, I had assumed that since I had already been studying singing for ten years, this "very fast" meant only a couple of years at most. As the two year marked went by, I became slightly discouraged, but remembered my college days and gave up my own timeline for that of God's. Now, as I near in on almost four years of study with Ron, I have finally had the experience he was talking about. In the last two months I have gone from struggling with notes just above the staff to singing comfortably (in a practice room) up to at least E-flat above high C on a daily basis, even when sick!
The key to vocal development, which so many of my peers seem to miss out on, is that it takes time and patience. I have family members and friends who consistently inform me that I need to start a career in case this singing thing doesn't work out. I've never given this any real thought or merit because I have known for a long time now that I am a singer and my career will be in singing. I am not in a rush to make this career happen, because I know it will happen when I am ready for it to happen. I have already seen this beginning this year. A couple of weeks ago I made my professional debut with a local company, and I am of the belief that work leads to more work. In addition, I have two auditions coming up in a few weeks which I am very optimistic about because of this new found security I have in my voice. If nothing else, I am sure that I will be able to at least learn and sing through one or two roles this summer with the Kashu-do studio. I am moving forward and already beginning to look forward to next season's auditions.
Now, the language side of things. It occurs to me that Spanish is a large stumbling block for me. It's not that the language is terribly difficult or anything like that. It is just a demoralizing language for me because of my time spent with it in high school. I did not have the money available at the beginning of this year to go buy the materials I usually use for language learning. So, due to this and the fact that I have a pretty solid foundation in Spanish, I have decided to only use LingQ for my Spanish learning. It has been a very slow process, but I am beginning now to really focus more. I picked up French in about eight months and I am hoping to be able to do something similar with Spanish. I would like to get my known words level in Spanish higher than in French, as this was not something I accomplished with German. We shall see what happens.
It always amuses me when things from two different areas of life come together. This has been the case over the last few years of me re-training my voice. I wen to a Christian college and a common expression on campus was "God's will, God's time." I've always liked the phrase as it give some perspective to the fact that our plans for our life are ultimately not our own, but God's. This has taught me much about patience in the last decade or so since I came back to my Christian faith. Anyway, early on when I began to study with JRL he said to me that when my coordination was there, the high notes would come "very fast." In my pride, I had assumed that since I had already been studying singing for ten years, this "very fast" meant only a couple of years at most. As the two year marked went by, I became slightly discouraged, but remembered my college days and gave up my own timeline for that of God's. Now, as I near in on almost four years of study with Ron, I have finally had the experience he was talking about. In the last two months I have gone from struggling with notes just above the staff to singing comfortably (in a practice room) up to at least E-flat above high C on a daily basis, even when sick!
The key to vocal development, which so many of my peers seem to miss out on, is that it takes time and patience. I have family members and friends who consistently inform me that I need to start a career in case this singing thing doesn't work out. I've never given this any real thought or merit because I have known for a long time now that I am a singer and my career will be in singing. I am not in a rush to make this career happen, because I know it will happen when I am ready for it to happen. I have already seen this beginning this year. A couple of weeks ago I made my professional debut with a local company, and I am of the belief that work leads to more work. In addition, I have two auditions coming up in a few weeks which I am very optimistic about because of this new found security I have in my voice. If nothing else, I am sure that I will be able to at least learn and sing through one or two roles this summer with the Kashu-do studio. I am moving forward and already beginning to look forward to next season's auditions.
Now, the language side of things. It occurs to me that Spanish is a large stumbling block for me. It's not that the language is terribly difficult or anything like that. It is just a demoralizing language for me because of my time spent with it in high school. I did not have the money available at the beginning of this year to go buy the materials I usually use for language learning. So, due to this and the fact that I have a pretty solid foundation in Spanish, I have decided to only use LingQ for my Spanish learning. It has been a very slow process, but I am beginning now to really focus more. I picked up French in about eight months and I am hoping to be able to do something similar with Spanish. I would like to get my known words level in Spanish higher than in French, as this was not something I accomplished with German. We shall see what happens.
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.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
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!
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.
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