And Strrrretch!

In the midst of all the studying and packing, I've been trying to do some vocal warm up exercises - sighs and swoops and sirens. (Yes, they sound like sirens.) I was ill for about 2 weeks with a sore throat, so I couldn't sing at all during that period. And with work the prior few months, I wasn't singing every day. That means my voice is a bit stiff.

If you run or do some sort of exercise, then you'll know what I mean. When you miss a day or a week, it's harder to get back to the level where you were before. Your muscles aren't as flexible, your body not as limber. Same thing with the vocal musculature.

I can still sing the pieces I did for my audition, but my stamina is distinctly less than when I was on leave auditioning and singing ~2 hours a day. This is the danger zone now because it's tempting to try to go as before, to "force" it, but that is the same as trying to run a marathon when you've only been doing light jogging for a while.

So it's back to easy technique, to gently stretching the cords and the muscles, and to trying to rebuild the stamina and flexibility that was there before. The birds outside are probably very confused at this new, super-weird twitterer that they hear in the house. Swoooop!

~Hope