6 days till the recital

feeling slightly ill, but throat feels quite a mess.  i can still sing fine, but i have to be careful.  extra careful.

dang ironic.  ruth ann got sick this weekend and decided to not come to my voice lesson since she didn’t want to infect me any.  but it turned out i was gonna get infected whether she came or not.

 

still, this is the perfect timing to get ill… i rest my voice (i’m forced to), i don’t have to sing in choir, and there is enough space between now and the weekend to recover.

If i’m well by Friday then i’ll try to practice, but I won’t be singing today or tomorrow.

 

fine.  throat, please recover quick…

choir will be fri night, saturday will be piano and eda’s debut, and sunday will be really nothing but the run through and 2nd reading at youth mass.

yooo

halb

this week i suffered from a lapse of confidence. singers are pretty sensitive like that... our instruments are inside our bodies and if it doesn't sound good or pleasing, or if it strains, you tend to lose self-confidence in everything.

if your voice fails to perform, you take it personally...

and that's where i ended up for a short time this week.

i had a decently good lesson, but after, on Wednesday I sang mediocre. And I felt not really good about the way i sing in general. i lacked ability.

my whole mental state was suffering.

on top of all that i practiced so hard on trumpet and couldn't make anything happen. and flute is currently a struggle. i didn't feel like a musician. only a musician in theory. not in real life. i couldn't perform. what good is a musician who can't make music?

that's what i felt like this week. well... for a day.

all of thursday morning and afternoon i was ruminating on my lack of mastery of singing, even tho i've spent so long trying to perfect it.

And then that afternoon things switched. I exchanged my trumpet for a baritone. I can actually play baritone.

Flute is still a struggle but i know I'll manage somehow.

And singing... well, i just have to accept where i'm at, and remember that tenor voice is a very difficult voice to master. and i've made some great strides. and also, that i'll just have to make it work with whatever i have on any given day.

even still...

the high A's are getting more solid. not quite spinny (about 5%). the f#'s are starting to spin, even tho most of the time they don't (20%). the G's are spinny about 50% of the time.

i'm starting to interpret more. and my crescendos are feeling a lot better and well placed. yay. and a lot of the details of singing in tandem with ruth ann are really fleshing out. i am starting to feel reallly good about both the listening hour that is coming up and the junior recital. we started practicing at the right time... i'm going to peak at pretty much the right time for my performance.

today, i sang pretty decently well, even on a minimal warmup. i'm figuring out how to find the placement quicker and quicker. and i was much more aware of the details of the piano. yay.

i know that in the context of everything, i'll be able to teach better knowing i've worked through the struggles. but in order to teach i have to have actually worked through them, not just around them. i can do it. and i can learn from my teacher, prof frank, who always tells me how it is, but he also never fails to tell me when i do a good job, even when i don't believe it myself.

especially when i don't believe it myself.

hmm, so the last time this blog died, it was cause i got busy and forgot to post anything.

anyway i should remember to put something up at some point...  but right now i'm just trying to keep afloat.  concert friday night.  yay.