After I turned in my Verdi-Varesi paper and took my midterm yesterday morning, I got the most wonderful treat for the next 10 - yes, count them, 10 - hours: Total Music Immersion :) It may be better than chocolate. For those of you who know what a chocolate addict I am, this is saying something.
First, I got to spend an hour with the new piano in my favorite practice room. Gentle warm ups for my voice, engaging work with my new pieces and Laurie's Aria, and stretching and warm ups for my body made the time such a delicious luxury. The contrast with my past three days of desk work was amazing and made me appreciate singing even more.
Next was my hour-long studio class. My fellow students who study with my voice teacher are just flat out amazing. It doesn't matter whether they are undergrads or grads; they have a depth of expression, technical fluidity, and raw vocal talent that are all so powerful to see. Professionals in the making for sure. And I got to sit less than ten feet away from each of them as they performed everything from art song to opera. Big-voiced sopranos, an incredibly high tenor, and a lyrical baritone-tenor (he's in transition) all made for a wonderful concert. And then I got to do what I think a lot of musical people want when they see a concert: to jump up there and perform myself.
What's really neat about this environment of the studio class is that it is really a way to build deep confidence. It provides a super-positive performance experience in an intimate setting (often the scariest for singers because you can't ignore the audience). The other students are so warm and supportive; they exude genuine delight when you do well, and they are completely sympathetic if something goes wrong because they've all been there themselves. My voice teacher is completely positive. She jumps with joy when something you've been working on fits well, and she always starts the feedback portion with a very genuine compliment. She won't say something nice just to do the sandwich we see in business; rather, she picks something that really was good and celebrates that victory. Then, she moves on to the "area for development". But this never comes across as negative feedback. Instead, it's presented as a way to make the piece even better. And you try singing again, incorporating this new information. Except for diction (and even with diction sometimes), nothing is a quick fix. She points out something meaty enough that it will take time to fully incorporate. But you try it anyway and whole new dimensions of sound open up. I know from seeing my fellow students do this. It's like the piece leaps to another level. And the audience is delighted, and you're excited that you're making progress. It's all a wonderful celebration of the unending journey towards being a better artist. And that means that you don't leave focusing on the "right side of the review"; you leave feeling great, like you're already doing some things well and isn't it exciting that you're getting even better?
After studio class came two hours of opera workshop in which each of the 16 students performed his/her aria. The room is a black box theatre, and it's just right in its resonance: not too much so that you would lack clarity or get a "reverb effect" but not at all dry. These students are so gifted that it was an incredible concert. It's not just hearing an extraordinary sound; it's being drawn into the world they create for their characters. You are taken on an emotional ride through the whole class, feeling the anger of Donna Anna, the anguish of Orfeo after he watches Euridice die, the excited joy of Manon about to take her first big trip, the mischievious knowing of Oscar the page, and more. What is it that tips people over that edge from dramatically aware to can't-take-your-eyes-off-them-compelling? So, so neat to see. I can learn so much from all of these wonderful artists. What a gift to be here!
And then, to close the day, I had 2 1/2 hours of choir practice. By this point, I physically couldn't sing much. (You're supposed to sing no more than 2 hours a day or your voice can't handle it.) So, I lip synced a good bit and was able to listen across the wave of sound caressing Beethoven's Mass in C Minor, Schumann's Requiem fur Mignon, and Brahms' Schicksalslied. Just beautiful.
I dreamt of singing last night.
~Hope
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The Scientific Method
A few months ago, there was a series of eye-catching ads along Logan airport's security line for JetBlue. "Scientists" of all genders and ethnicities were shown in odd climates together with an IBM Thinkpad. One woman wore a temperature proof suit as she blasted the heck out of the laptop. Another person floated together with it in space. Yet another wildly parachuted with the computer. Not that any business person would normally experience these conditions, but the message seemed to be "we find the limits so you don't have to." Reliability. High performance under any conditions.
Today I caught a glimpse of what it means to test the limits of my own performance. To me, being well-rested is an important and ideal precursor to a good singing day. Sleep gives me an extra smoothness and togetherness in my throat and body, and I have more energy to expend on breath support. Avoiding caffeine is another factor; I can feel my throat drying out and the muscles tightening when I do have some espresso or coffee. So at least for the day before I perform (and preferably longer), I make a point to get lots of rest, stay hydrated, and avoid caffeine as though it's squeezed from brussel sprouts.
I broke those rules today.
We're in the midst of midterms here, and I had a perfect storm of deadlines that reminded me a bit of Steering Committee Meeting build-ups. The weekend saw me hitting 5 hours of sleep a night. By last night, I was down to 3. The only way I'd get through today's paper presentation and midterm was with espresso. I've had more caffeine in the last three days than in the last three months.
Devoid of sleep and hopped up on caffeine, I figured my studio class and opera workshop performances would be a disaster. It was my first time performing Copland's "Laurie's Aria", in which Laurie sings about her wide-eyed feelings the day before she graduates from high school. One of my classmates today called Laurie's sentiment "optimistic fear." The aria requires solid breath support as well as a total surrender to naivete and hope infused with sincerity.
3:00 rolled around, and I stood up to sing in my studio class's medium-sized classroom. To my mind, the notes were nebulously there, but things were very fuzzy. My throat felt tight and dry, and I couldn't hear or feel things the way I wanted. Ah well. Everybody has an off-day, I reasoned. I focused on expression and supporting the sound as best I could.
Much to my shock, my voice teacher commented that I had used significant projection. My sound didn't sound fuzzy to her or anybody else in the room. Yet another reason why singers are half-crazy; what you hear in your own head is never what people outside your body hear.
So I guess all of this is to say that today I learned that I can still sing well even when I'm feeling less than ideal. The differences I sense inside me are evidently much less perceptible to others. And in fact, the lack of sleep may help me "get myself out of the way"; I don't have enough energy to sit there and self-critique as I sing. Knowing I can make it work if I have to on low sleep and high caffeine is invaluable since those conditions will probably roll around again in the future. Not that I'm planning it that way; it's still a really uncomfortable experience for me. But if I'm stuck, at least I have some confidence that I won't flop.
For the record, though, I don't plan to test my singing while skydiving.
~Hope
Today I caught a glimpse of what it means to test the limits of my own performance. To me, being well-rested is an important and ideal precursor to a good singing day. Sleep gives me an extra smoothness and togetherness in my throat and body, and I have more energy to expend on breath support. Avoiding caffeine is another factor; I can feel my throat drying out and the muscles tightening when I do have some espresso or coffee. So at least for the day before I perform (and preferably longer), I make a point to get lots of rest, stay hydrated, and avoid caffeine as though it's squeezed from brussel sprouts.
I broke those rules today.
We're in the midst of midterms here, and I had a perfect storm of deadlines that reminded me a bit of Steering Committee Meeting build-ups. The weekend saw me hitting 5 hours of sleep a night. By last night, I was down to 3. The only way I'd get through today's paper presentation and midterm was with espresso. I've had more caffeine in the last three days than in the last three months.
Devoid of sleep and hopped up on caffeine, I figured my studio class and opera workshop performances would be a disaster. It was my first time performing Copland's "Laurie's Aria", in which Laurie sings about her wide-eyed feelings the day before she graduates from high school. One of my classmates today called Laurie's sentiment "optimistic fear." The aria requires solid breath support as well as a total surrender to naivete and hope infused with sincerity.
3:00 rolled around, and I stood up to sing in my studio class's medium-sized classroom. To my mind, the notes were nebulously there, but things were very fuzzy. My throat felt tight and dry, and I couldn't hear or feel things the way I wanted. Ah well. Everybody has an off-day, I reasoned. I focused on expression and supporting the sound as best I could.
Much to my shock, my voice teacher commented that I had used significant projection. My sound didn't sound fuzzy to her or anybody else in the room. Yet another reason why singers are half-crazy; what you hear in your own head is never what people outside your body hear.
So I guess all of this is to say that today I learned that I can still sing well even when I'm feeling less than ideal. The differences I sense inside me are evidently much less perceptible to others. And in fact, the lack of sleep may help me "get myself out of the way"; I don't have enough energy to sit there and self-critique as I sing. Knowing I can make it work if I have to on low sleep and high caffeine is invaluable since those conditions will probably roll around again in the future. Not that I'm planning it that way; it's still a really uncomfortable experience for me. But if I'm stuck, at least I have some confidence that I won't flop.
For the record, though, I don't plan to test my singing while skydiving.
~Hope
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Buried Treasure
Those two little objects you see in the picture are as good as gold to me these days. Maybe better.
I love my apartment, and it is fairly close to most things, including school. But one luxury I miss from my prior place is the in-apartment washer and dryer. Here, there's a laundry room on my floor, but the coin-operated machines are a bit, well, ravenous. $1.75 per load of wash and $1.50 per dryer spin mean that I run out of quarters fast.
Amazing how you find yourself willing to subvert the natural laws of money, thinking about finding a neighbor and offering to pay $1 in exchange for 25 cents in coin form. Luckily, my wonderful family took pity on me and emptied their coin jars before coming to visit. May they find dollar bills sprouting in unlikely places in return. Especially these days.
~Hope
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Neapolitan Days-Part IV
Monday night, I attended our department's "Departmental Voice Recital". About 16 of the 100+ voice students sang over the course of the hour. They were in one of the best halls here, and that is such a joyful experience. Being in a wonderful acoustical space makes such a difference in your energy as you perform. (At least for me it does.)
Each person sang one or two pieces in a very fast fashion. What I love about this is that it really does integrate music into daily life. Much of the experience here is geared to make performing feel natural and frequent. We sing in studio class and opera workshop. We audition for choral concert solos. We sing in lessons and in the hallways. And there's no big deal made of any of it. What a gift.
The pieces on the recital ranged from Spanish, French, German, and Italian art songs to a bit of opera to one musical theatre selection. The guy who sang the musical theatre piece performed a number from Pal Joey. He looks like he's about 19 or 20, but his baritone voice is a rich and beautiful 35-40 year old's instrument (in the good sense, not in the fatigued sense.) He really reminded me of the excellent musicians I've seen on Broadway, like Brian Stokes Mitchell.
The expression people exuded, the polish and poise, and the genuine love of it was so neat to see. Most people were still a bit nervous, but it was a controlled nerves.
I'm so, so excited to be here among such wonderful musicians!!
~Hope
Each person sang one or two pieces in a very fast fashion. What I love about this is that it really does integrate music into daily life. Much of the experience here is geared to make performing feel natural and frequent. We sing in studio class and opera workshop. We audition for choral concert solos. We sing in lessons and in the hallways. And there's no big deal made of any of it. What a gift.
The pieces on the recital ranged from Spanish, French, German, and Italian art songs to a bit of opera to one musical theatre selection. The guy who sang the musical theatre piece performed a number from Pal Joey. He looks like he's about 19 or 20, but his baritone voice is a rich and beautiful 35-40 year old's instrument (in the good sense, not in the fatigued sense.) He really reminded me of the excellent musicians I've seen on Broadway, like Brian Stokes Mitchell.
The expression people exuded, the polish and poise, and the genuine love of it was so neat to see. Most people were still a bit nervous, but it was a controlled nerves.
I'm so, so excited to be here among such wonderful musicians!!
~Hope
Neapolitan Days-Part III
Friday morning, I heard my opera coach speak to a group of alumni. They were gathered in a large hall in a local art gallery, and several of my fellow students sang. There was one student from each year of undergrad, a master's student, and a doctoral student. Amazing to hear them sing one by one. It was a beautiful tour of what this education does for you and what they each have to look forward to.
Besides warmly introducing each of my colleagues, my professor spoke with enormous enthusiasm and pride about the school. What I'd love to share with you, though, is what he said about opera singers in general.
"When you go to see a voice teacher, there's only 3 things they can tell you. They can tell you a little about how you sound since you can't hear yourself. They can tell you what worked for them. And they can give you some ideas of what might work for you. Other than that, there isn't much they can do. You know, voice is unlike any other instrument. It is unique because these singers are the only ones who play their instruments."
What he means is that each voice and each body is unique. That means that no one else knows exactly what it feels like for you to sing. No one knows exactly what will work for you. It's very much trial and error. and no one has your timbre or muscles or the exact structure you have. That's one reason why singers find it beneficial to study with different teachers. "No voice teacher in the world has all the pieces of the puzzle. They'll each have some, and some teachers have more than most, but that's why voice students study with different people over time."
He also spoke about why the profession is so difficult:
"You have to be a master of not just your voice and technique. You must be fluid and hopefully fluent in at least French, Italian, and German, and preferably Russian and Czech as well. You need to be a phenomenal actor. You have to have "the look"." And there's more I'm sure that I'm forgetting as I try to remember his speech.
Overall, it was a neat experience to watch him espouse the virtues of my colleagues and opera singers in general. It is a difficult profession, and that's a very helpful thing to remember as we watch performances. Besides the fact that singing is intensely personal - people have the opportunity to hear your instrument, not a Steinway or Yamaha, but your voice - it is also generally a tough game to play. So the next time you see an opera and the singer is having trouble, critique with empathy :)
~Hope
Besides warmly introducing each of my colleagues, my professor spoke with enormous enthusiasm and pride about the school. What I'd love to share with you, though, is what he said about opera singers in general.
"When you go to see a voice teacher, there's only 3 things they can tell you. They can tell you a little about how you sound since you can't hear yourself. They can tell you what worked for them. And they can give you some ideas of what might work for you. Other than that, there isn't much they can do. You know, voice is unlike any other instrument. It is unique because these singers are the only ones who play their instruments."
What he means is that each voice and each body is unique. That means that no one else knows exactly what it feels like for you to sing. No one knows exactly what will work for you. It's very much trial and error. and no one has your timbre or muscles or the exact structure you have. That's one reason why singers find it beneficial to study with different teachers. "No voice teacher in the world has all the pieces of the puzzle. They'll each have some, and some teachers have more than most, but that's why voice students study with different people over time."
He also spoke about why the profession is so difficult:
"You have to be a master of not just your voice and technique. You must be fluid and hopefully fluent in at least French, Italian, and German, and preferably Russian and Czech as well. You need to be a phenomenal actor. You have to have "the look"." And there's more I'm sure that I'm forgetting as I try to remember his speech.
Overall, it was a neat experience to watch him espouse the virtues of my colleagues and opera singers in general. It is a difficult profession, and that's a very helpful thing to remember as we watch performances. Besides the fact that singing is intensely personal - people have the opportunity to hear your instrument, not a Steinway or Yamaha, but your voice - it is also generally a tough game to play. So the next time you see an opera and the singer is having trouble, critique with empathy :)
~Hope
Neapolitan Days-Part II
Saturday, I went to see Dave Brubeck, who is perhaps best known for "Take Five". He is still on a whirlwind concert tour, although he has a conductor who probably organizes most musical things (that an agent doesn't handle.) Brubeck still plays the piano, and he has extraordinarily long fingers, about 25% longer than most male fingers I've seen. He sat upon the stage and talked with a member of our jazz faculty.
Brubeck grew up in a musical family. His mother played piano and taught his two older brothers piano. She intended for them to both be professional musicians. Dave, however, was commandeered by his father. "This one's mine," he proclaimed. Dave's father was a cowboy on a full ranch out in rural California, and he wanted a ranch hand. When Brubeck grew old enough to go to college, his mother insisted he attend. "Only if he becomes a veterinarian and comes back here to the ranch to help me after he graduates," said the dad. "That's fine by me!" said Brubeck. Turns out he loved being out on the ranch with his dad, spending time all together. "He was a man's man," said Brubeck lovingly during his talk. You could tell that he holds really fond memories of that time with his dad.
"So I started school pre-med," confessed Brubeck amid laughs from the audience. "That lasted until I got to zoology. There, the professor said to me one day, "Brubeck! Your mind isn't here with frogs in formaldehyde. It's over at the conservatory across the way. So do me a favor and go over there next semester and leave me in peace!"" So Brubeck went across the way to major in music. But, unlike the other students, he didn't have the theory or performance background. His brothers had had the training, but he had been out on the ranch with his dad. It's possible this is what allowed him to step outside the boundaries and look at things in a new way with his composition and performance. Certainly, I don't recall hearing about the other Brubecks in a significant manner.
He then talked about the music education portion of his life. ""Go wake up Brubeck," the professor would say to my classmate, "and ask him what chord I just played." So he'd wake me up from where I was half asleep, and I'd say, "Oh, that's the first chord in "Don't Worry About Me." But the professor would say, "That's not a proper answer. Why don't you come up here and play it?" So I'd go play it, and he'd say, "Well, that's right. That's the chord I played. But why can't you just say, "It's a dominant seventh with a flat ninth?" You see, I knew the chords but I never knew the names for them, and that's the way a lot of the great jazz musicians were. They'll know all the harmonies inside and out but they don't know what they're called.
"I didn't even read music. Now, each year, you had to take an instrument. Strings one year, winds the next, and so forth. I did fine until I got to piano my senior year because I could play by ear. Then, I knew I was in for it. So I sat down in my first lesson, and 5 minutes later, the teacher went to the dean. And the dean called me in and said, "Ms. so-and-so tells me you can't read music."
""That's right," I said.
""Well, I'm sorry, but I can't let you graduate."
""That's okay."
""Well, what will you do?"
""Oh, don't worry about me," I said. "I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to play jazz."
"So, I left his office, and then my professors went to see him. My counterpoint teacher went and said, "You have to let him graduate! He's written the best counterpoint I've ever seen!"" [Brubeck also mentioned another professorial advocate or two at this point, which I forget.]
The conductor for Brubeck stood up and said, "Tell them what happened. What were the conditions under which they let you graduate?"
"That I promise never to teach," said Brubeck. Ripples of laughter flowed through the auditorium. "Of course, now my college - the College of the Pacific - has a Brubeck Institute. And I get in a few suggestions every now and again. But that's true. I promised never to teach."
Brubeck also mentioned that "a lot of wonderful musicians can't read music. They can write, but they can't read, and I'm the same way. Somebody ought to study it because it's a phenomenon that's more common than you'd think. And you think, "Well, if you can write it, you can read it," but that's not necessarily true. And if I told you some of the names of these people who can't read, you wouldn't believe it." He refused to share, so some must still be living. Pretty interesting.
He also spoke about writing a classical piece. "A friend asked me to write a symphony. "But I don't know how to do that!" I protested. "Tell you what," he said. "Write it like you would for piano and then you just write down how you think the orchestration might go, what instruments you think might play. Just do the first movement and then show it to me and I'll correct all your mistakes." So I wrote the first movement, and I showed it to him, and he said, "Good. It looks great." And he didn't change anything. So I wrote the second and third movements, and he looked them over. And then he said, "Go write the rest of it and don't show it to me until it's all done." So I did.
"Years later, a young choreographer went into a second-hand record store and asked, "Do you have anything that's a mix of jazz and classical?", and the owner said, "I think I might have something in the attic," and he pulled out this record. So the choreographer created a ballet. And somebody called me and said, "Dave, I really enjoyed your ballet in Paris!" And I said, "What ballet in Paris?" And then it came to Vancouver, and someone called and said "Dave, I really enjoyed your ballet in Vancouver". So I thought I should check this out." :)
What's really exciting is that some lost recordings of Brubeck's are going to be issued soon. They were found in a fireproof vault. Why weren't they released before? "We were on Columbia's label", said Brubeck. "But we were doing an event, and the RCA trucks were there. Unbeknownst to us, they secretly left their mics on. And we just found these reels. We're listening through them now, and there's some really Wild stuff on there! Just WILD! I didn't know I was that wild," he said. So funny. He's now a pretty frail man with a halting voice and hunched walk, so to hear him (very correctly) talk about his wild younger days is a comical juxtaposition.
In any case, another amazing talk.
Brubeck grew up in a musical family. His mother played piano and taught his two older brothers piano. She intended for them to both be professional musicians. Dave, however, was commandeered by his father. "This one's mine," he proclaimed. Dave's father was a cowboy on a full ranch out in rural California, and he wanted a ranch hand. When Brubeck grew old enough to go to college, his mother insisted he attend. "Only if he becomes a veterinarian and comes back here to the ranch to help me after he graduates," said the dad. "That's fine by me!" said Brubeck. Turns out he loved being out on the ranch with his dad, spending time all together. "He was a man's man," said Brubeck lovingly during his talk. You could tell that he holds really fond memories of that time with his dad.
"So I started school pre-med," confessed Brubeck amid laughs from the audience. "That lasted until I got to zoology. There, the professor said to me one day, "Brubeck! Your mind isn't here with frogs in formaldehyde. It's over at the conservatory across the way. So do me a favor and go over there next semester and leave me in peace!"" So Brubeck went across the way to major in music. But, unlike the other students, he didn't have the theory or performance background. His brothers had had the training, but he had been out on the ranch with his dad. It's possible this is what allowed him to step outside the boundaries and look at things in a new way with his composition and performance. Certainly, I don't recall hearing about the other Brubecks in a significant manner.
He then talked about the music education portion of his life. ""Go wake up Brubeck," the professor would say to my classmate, "and ask him what chord I just played." So he'd wake me up from where I was half asleep, and I'd say, "Oh, that's the first chord in "Don't Worry About Me." But the professor would say, "That's not a proper answer. Why don't you come up here and play it?" So I'd go play it, and he'd say, "Well, that's right. That's the chord I played. But why can't you just say, "It's a dominant seventh with a flat ninth?" You see, I knew the chords but I never knew the names for them, and that's the way a lot of the great jazz musicians were. They'll know all the harmonies inside and out but they don't know what they're called.
"I didn't even read music. Now, each year, you had to take an instrument. Strings one year, winds the next, and so forth. I did fine until I got to piano my senior year because I could play by ear. Then, I knew I was in for it. So I sat down in my first lesson, and 5 minutes later, the teacher went to the dean. And the dean called me in and said, "Ms. so-and-so tells me you can't read music."
""That's right," I said.
""Well, I'm sorry, but I can't let you graduate."
""That's okay."
""Well, what will you do?"
""Oh, don't worry about me," I said. "I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to play jazz."
"So, I left his office, and then my professors went to see him. My counterpoint teacher went and said, "You have to let him graduate! He's written the best counterpoint I've ever seen!"" [Brubeck also mentioned another professorial advocate or two at this point, which I forget.]
The conductor for Brubeck stood up and said, "Tell them what happened. What were the conditions under which they let you graduate?"
"That I promise never to teach," said Brubeck. Ripples of laughter flowed through the auditorium. "Of course, now my college - the College of the Pacific - has a Brubeck Institute. And I get in a few suggestions every now and again. But that's true. I promised never to teach."
Brubeck also mentioned that "a lot of wonderful musicians can't read music. They can write, but they can't read, and I'm the same way. Somebody ought to study it because it's a phenomenon that's more common than you'd think. And you think, "Well, if you can write it, you can read it," but that's not necessarily true. And if I told you some of the names of these people who can't read, you wouldn't believe it." He refused to share, so some must still be living. Pretty interesting.
He also spoke about writing a classical piece. "A friend asked me to write a symphony. "But I don't know how to do that!" I protested. "Tell you what," he said. "Write it like you would for piano and then you just write down how you think the orchestration might go, what instruments you think might play. Just do the first movement and then show it to me and I'll correct all your mistakes." So I wrote the first movement, and I showed it to him, and he said, "Good. It looks great." And he didn't change anything. So I wrote the second and third movements, and he looked them over. And then he said, "Go write the rest of it and don't show it to me until it's all done." So I did.
"Years later, a young choreographer went into a second-hand record store and asked, "Do you have anything that's a mix of jazz and classical?", and the owner said, "I think I might have something in the attic," and he pulled out this record. So the choreographer created a ballet. And somebody called me and said, "Dave, I really enjoyed your ballet in Paris!" And I said, "What ballet in Paris?" And then it came to Vancouver, and someone called and said "Dave, I really enjoyed your ballet in Vancouver". So I thought I should check this out." :)
What's really exciting is that some lost recordings of Brubeck's are going to be issued soon. They were found in a fireproof vault. Why weren't they released before? "We were on Columbia's label", said Brubeck. "But we were doing an event, and the RCA trucks were there. Unbeknownst to us, they secretly left their mics on. And we just found these reels. We're listening through them now, and there's some really Wild stuff on there! Just WILD! I didn't know I was that wild," he said. So funny. He's now a pretty frail man with a halting voice and hunched walk, so to hear him (very correctly) talk about his wild younger days is a comical juxtaposition.
In any case, another amazing talk.
Neapolitan Days-Part I
Like Neapolitan ice cream, this last week has been filled with a multitude of flavors. I've had a lot of reading and interesting classwork, but I'll skip the descriptions of that in favor of tastes of the performances I've seen.
A bit more on Charlie Strouse, the Annie and Bye Bye Birdie composer:
The dean interviewed him, and Mr. Strouse was just charming, like a dear neighbor down the street from you. He described his time at Eastman and spoke about fond memories of certain professors. When he graduated, Nadia Boulanger and Aaron Copland took him under their wings, mentored him, and Ms. Boulanger pointed out that he "had a talent for light music", meaning Broadway. After so many successes, he still wakes up every day and composes. Someone asked him where he thought Broadway musicals were going, and he said, "If you know, tell me because I want to be on that train!" He is so interested in moving forward, doing new and different things. Of course, he's had experience with the cutting edge since Bye Bye Birdie incorporated the new genre of rock when it was written.
Another audience member asked whether there were any current composers he really respected. He mentioned Sondheim and some others but comically implied that he didn't focus on others because, "I like to think that I'm the best, you know. I go to a musical and I sit there and think, "Oh I could do that better" or "I can't do that as well." But you see, it's all about me," he smiled. It was said in a very delightful way, not egotistical. I can't quite convey the humorous honesty of it. In a way, it was actually self-deprecating in how he said it. One thing that was very clear from the evening was his humility and sense that he's been blessed, had a charmed life.
Mr. Strouse also told a few colorful stories about the characters he's encountered over the years. One audience member asked whom his favorite and least favorite people were to work with. He didn't address the "least favorite" part, but he did mention Lauren Bacall as a favorite.
"She really taught me a lesson," he said. "We had just done Applause in Baltimore, which was a flop. But the night of the first performance, we were still waiting for the reviews. We were all gathered in her hotel room, and there was a reporter there from Look magazine. This was a big deal - it had about 25 million readers. And we were all nervous. The producer was saying, "Would you like a Coke?" and the director was saying, "Oh, maybe you'd be more comfortable in this chair?" and I was contemplating committing suicide. Finally, the door opened and in walked Lauren. There were flashbulbs going off everywhere from God knows where. And she came in and closed the door and asked the reporter, "So, how did you like the show?" He said, "Well, it was...interesting." And do you know what she said? (Can I use this kind of language here?)" Mr. Strouse asked as an aside. "Well, she said, "Go F*** yourself!" It was a very powerful and very short lesson for me in how to stand up for yourself. After this, that reporter became her slave. And I thought, "Well, if that's all it takes...""
Another great story was about Alan Jay Lerner, who collaborated with Frederick Lowe to write My Fair Lady. Strouse collaborated with many people. When he worked with Lerner, he said, he had never experienced anything like it. "Lerner would just sit while I composed and smoke and smoke. He would read the newspaper and just sit there. But every now and then, he would poke his head up and say, "That last phrase...why don't you keep it going up instead of turning and going down?" And that advice often turned out to be terrific, but his suggestions were always interesting. It turns out that Lowe didn't like to work. His mother used to chain him to the piano. So Lerner had just gotten in the habit of sitting there while Lowe composed."
Strouse also talked about his musical All American, which was about a Russian emigre who "falls in love with America for all the reasons we often hate it - the vulgarity, the brashness... It was a flop, but we got one big hit tune out of it. Now, there are many reasons why things flop. In this case, I had wanted a European actor to play the Russian emigre. I had flown to London and auditioned and even signed an actor, but the director insisted on Ray Bolger." Bolger was the Scarecrow in the Judy Garland Wizard of Oz movie. He was American through and through. "Bolger was doing his own version of a Slavic accent," said Strouse. "I knew we were in trouble, when Mel Brooks leaned over to me and said "Why is Ray speaking Japanese?""
It was an incredible evening.
To save this post from being even more indigestible than it actually is, I'll put my next description in a new entry. In the meantime, feel free to grab that Prilosec off the shelf.
~Hope
A bit more on Charlie Strouse, the Annie and Bye Bye Birdie composer:
The dean interviewed him, and Mr. Strouse was just charming, like a dear neighbor down the street from you. He described his time at Eastman and spoke about fond memories of certain professors. When he graduated, Nadia Boulanger and Aaron Copland took him under their wings, mentored him, and Ms. Boulanger pointed out that he "had a talent for light music", meaning Broadway. After so many successes, he still wakes up every day and composes. Someone asked him where he thought Broadway musicals were going, and he said, "If you know, tell me because I want to be on that train!" He is so interested in moving forward, doing new and different things. Of course, he's had experience with the cutting edge since Bye Bye Birdie incorporated the new genre of rock when it was written.
Another audience member asked whether there were any current composers he really respected. He mentioned Sondheim and some others but comically implied that he didn't focus on others because, "I like to think that I'm the best, you know. I go to a musical and I sit there and think, "Oh I could do that better" or "I can't do that as well." But you see, it's all about me," he smiled. It was said in a very delightful way, not egotistical. I can't quite convey the humorous honesty of it. In a way, it was actually self-deprecating in how he said it. One thing that was very clear from the evening was his humility and sense that he's been blessed, had a charmed life.
Mr. Strouse also told a few colorful stories about the characters he's encountered over the years. One audience member asked whom his favorite and least favorite people were to work with. He didn't address the "least favorite" part, but he did mention Lauren Bacall as a favorite.
"She really taught me a lesson," he said. "We had just done Applause in Baltimore, which was a flop. But the night of the first performance, we were still waiting for the reviews. We were all gathered in her hotel room, and there was a reporter there from Look magazine. This was a big deal - it had about 25 million readers. And we were all nervous. The producer was saying, "Would you like a Coke?" and the director was saying, "Oh, maybe you'd be more comfortable in this chair?" and I was contemplating committing suicide. Finally, the door opened and in walked Lauren. There were flashbulbs going off everywhere from God knows where. And she came in and closed the door and asked the reporter, "So, how did you like the show?" He said, "Well, it was...interesting." And do you know what she said? (Can I use this kind of language here?)" Mr. Strouse asked as an aside. "Well, she said, "Go F*** yourself!" It was a very powerful and very short lesson for me in how to stand up for yourself. After this, that reporter became her slave. And I thought, "Well, if that's all it takes...""
Another great story was about Alan Jay Lerner, who collaborated with Frederick Lowe to write My Fair Lady. Strouse collaborated with many people. When he worked with Lerner, he said, he had never experienced anything like it. "Lerner would just sit while I composed and smoke and smoke. He would read the newspaper and just sit there. But every now and then, he would poke his head up and say, "That last phrase...why don't you keep it going up instead of turning and going down?" And that advice often turned out to be terrific, but his suggestions were always interesting. It turns out that Lowe didn't like to work. His mother used to chain him to the piano. So Lerner had just gotten in the habit of sitting there while Lowe composed."
Strouse also talked about his musical All American, which was about a Russian emigre who "falls in love with America for all the reasons we often hate it - the vulgarity, the brashness... It was a flop, but we got one big hit tune out of it. Now, there are many reasons why things flop. In this case, I had wanted a European actor to play the Russian emigre. I had flown to London and auditioned and even signed an actor, but the director insisted on Ray Bolger." Bolger was the Scarecrow in the Judy Garland Wizard of Oz movie. He was American through and through. "Bolger was doing his own version of a Slavic accent," said Strouse. "I knew we were in trouble, when Mel Brooks leaned over to me and said "Why is Ray speaking Japanese?""
It was an incredible evening.
To save this post from being even more indigestible than it actually is, I'll put my next description in a new entry. In the meantime, feel free to grab that Prilosec off the shelf.
~Hope
Monday, October 20, 2008
Gratitude
A former voice teacher sent me a wonderful quote last week:
"Every day I remind myself of all that I have been given. With singing, you never know when you are going to lose the voice, and that makes you appreciate the time that you have when you are still singing well. I am always thanking God for another season, another month, another performance." ~Luciano Pavarotti
Sometimes, even though I love singing, practicing can be a little frustrating. Especially when I'm trying to work out a technical bug or things don't sound just as I want yet or maybe I'm just low energy and "don't feel like it", it can require a little motivation. But remembering what a gift this is to be able to sing, to have that joyful opportunity, and realizing that it is ephemeral gives me that boost I need. Someday, I know I'll give anything for the chance to sing one more time like I can now. And that knowledge is a gift in itself, a way to be grateful and fully present in the moment.
Do you have anything that you just love to do and that you realize is a potentially fleeting gift?
~Hope
"Every day I remind myself of all that I have been given. With singing, you never know when you are going to lose the voice, and that makes you appreciate the time that you have when you are still singing well. I am always thanking God for another season, another month, another performance." ~Luciano Pavarotti
Sometimes, even though I love singing, practicing can be a little frustrating. Especially when I'm trying to work out a technical bug or things don't sound just as I want yet or maybe I'm just low energy and "don't feel like it", it can require a little motivation. But remembering what a gift this is to be able to sing, to have that joyful opportunity, and realizing that it is ephemeral gives me that boost I need. Someday, I know I'll give anything for the chance to sing one more time like I can now. And that knowledge is a gift in itself, a way to be grateful and fully present in the moment.
Do you have anything that you just love to do and that you realize is a potentially fleeting gift?
~Hope
Friday, October 17, 2008
Lullaby of Broadway
So tonight I went to hear the dean interview Charles Strouse, a Broadway composer. He penned "Put on a Happy Face", the score to Annie, the score for Bye Bye Birdie, and others you may not know as well: Golden Boy, It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman!, Rags, several film scores, a few operas, and more.
Mr. Strouse turns out to be a wonderfully kind and humble man. He has written an autobiography titled Put on a Happy Face that colorfully relates stories about his life in Broadway and his compositional beginnings. Turns out he always wanted to write "serious music". When he was in conservatory, his works sounded like Hindemith and Bartok, by his own descriptions. He was fortunate enough to be mentored by and study with Aaron Copland and Nadia Boulanger (who studied with Gabriel Faure). But Boulanger and others discovered that he had a gift for "light music". So he found Broadway, and we are all blessed as a result.
What was really neat to me was his demeanor, a combination of total humility, pungent irreverance, and an overall "Really? Did this really happen to me?" sense of being lucky, almost as though he's standing to the side and watching someone else grown in renown. He very sincerely said, "I hesitate to say this because I don't want to sound, well, goody-goody, but I really didn't believe I was a success. I felt like a failure. My successes, I thought, were lucky, and I thought I had just fooled people. It wasn't until recently that I was able to recognize that I have been gifted."
Onstage were two cushy brown leather armchairs, each wrapped with a microphone on the kind of stand that club piano players use. A table with a pitcher of water and two glasses crouched between the chairs. Behind this lovely PBS-like setup was a grand piano with its own mic. And Mr. Strouse did not disappoint. At the dean's prompting, he walked to the piano and played several of his best known hits, interspersed with his wonderful commentary. "Put on a Happy Face" was first, but then he migrated to "Applause", a song Annie sings when dreaming about her parents, "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow" and several others. He has worked with the top names in the business: Alan Jay Lerner, Mel Brooks, Lauren Bacall, and others, but he speaks about them as though they're your next door neighbors down the street. There's not a smidge of pretense or self-importance. It was so incredibly lovely to see.
This character carried over into the post-talk reception where he signed copies of his book. When I arrived at the front of the line, he took the time to ask me whether I was a student here and what I studied.
"Are you interested just in opera?" he queried when he discovered I'm a singer.
"Oh no, I love both opera and musical theatre. I'm so sorry I missed your talk earlier this afternoon," I said. (Mr. Strouse had mentioned in the larger hall that he'd met with some voice students this afternoon to talk about how to transition from opera into musical theatre.)
"Well, I gave them my email address," he said, "and I'd be happy to help. You know, one of the hardest things for young singers is to find an agent. I don't know many, but I know a few, and I'd like to help if I can."
I thanked him since that is such a sweet gesture, to reach out to students like that.
"You have a lovely musical theatre..." and here he paused, gesturing around his face. "Look," he filled in. I think "look" means some combination of actual physical appearance plus expressions/presence. He's a man who has nothing to gain by saying something like that, so I am very flattered and grateful for a genuinely kind compliment. As he handed me my book, he closed by saying "I look forward to hearing you sing soon!"
I love how generous musicians are. There is such a spirit of camaraderie, a sense of wanting to help others. Sometimes we think of the cutthroat sides of this profession, the Tonya Harding equivalents. But the truth is that there is just as much, if not more, goodwill and warmth that people exude. I certainly find all of that good stuff in the community here, and I haven't seen the competitive side. Some of this compassion and goodness of heart I think is a natural quality among artists. To perform well, you have to want to share something of yourself with your audience. And you have to have an enlarged capacity to feel emotion, especially as a singer. When you are so attuned to emotion itself, I think you develop a greater capacity for empathy. Plus, theatre by its nature is a connective medium, among the artists and between artists and audience members. So neat.
Anyway, bottom line, it was a truly lovely and inspiring evening. Such a joy to hear a tremendously successful composer who also turns out to be a warm and wonderful personality.
I am SO lucky to be here!!
~Hope
Mr. Strouse turns out to be a wonderfully kind and humble man. He has written an autobiography titled Put on a Happy Face that colorfully relates stories about his life in Broadway and his compositional beginnings. Turns out he always wanted to write "serious music". When he was in conservatory, his works sounded like Hindemith and Bartok, by his own descriptions. He was fortunate enough to be mentored by and study with Aaron Copland and Nadia Boulanger (who studied with Gabriel Faure). But Boulanger and others discovered that he had a gift for "light music". So he found Broadway, and we are all blessed as a result.
What was really neat to me was his demeanor, a combination of total humility, pungent irreverance, and an overall "Really? Did this really happen to me?" sense of being lucky, almost as though he's standing to the side and watching someone else grown in renown. He very sincerely said, "I hesitate to say this because I don't want to sound, well, goody-goody, but I really didn't believe I was a success. I felt like a failure. My successes, I thought, were lucky, and I thought I had just fooled people. It wasn't until recently that I was able to recognize that I have been gifted."
Onstage were two cushy brown leather armchairs, each wrapped with a microphone on the kind of stand that club piano players use. A table with a pitcher of water and two glasses crouched between the chairs. Behind this lovely PBS-like setup was a grand piano with its own mic. And Mr. Strouse did not disappoint. At the dean's prompting, he walked to the piano and played several of his best known hits, interspersed with his wonderful commentary. "Put on a Happy Face" was first, but then he migrated to "Applause", a song Annie sings when dreaming about her parents, "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow" and several others. He has worked with the top names in the business: Alan Jay Lerner, Mel Brooks, Lauren Bacall, and others, but he speaks about them as though they're your next door neighbors down the street. There's not a smidge of pretense or self-importance. It was so incredibly lovely to see.
This character carried over into the post-talk reception where he signed copies of his book. When I arrived at the front of the line, he took the time to ask me whether I was a student here and what I studied.
"Are you interested just in opera?" he queried when he discovered I'm a singer.
"Oh no, I love both opera and musical theatre. I'm so sorry I missed your talk earlier this afternoon," I said. (Mr. Strouse had mentioned in the larger hall that he'd met with some voice students this afternoon to talk about how to transition from opera into musical theatre.)
"Well, I gave them my email address," he said, "and I'd be happy to help. You know, one of the hardest things for young singers is to find an agent. I don't know many, but I know a few, and I'd like to help if I can."
I thanked him since that is such a sweet gesture, to reach out to students like that.
"You have a lovely musical theatre..." and here he paused, gesturing around his face. "Look," he filled in. I think "look" means some combination of actual physical appearance plus expressions/presence. He's a man who has nothing to gain by saying something like that, so I am very flattered and grateful for a genuinely kind compliment. As he handed me my book, he closed by saying "I look forward to hearing you sing soon!"
I love how generous musicians are. There is such a spirit of camaraderie, a sense of wanting to help others. Sometimes we think of the cutthroat sides of this profession, the Tonya Harding equivalents. But the truth is that there is just as much, if not more, goodwill and warmth that people exude. I certainly find all of that good stuff in the community here, and I haven't seen the competitive side. Some of this compassion and goodness of heart I think is a natural quality among artists. To perform well, you have to want to share something of yourself with your audience. And you have to have an enlarged capacity to feel emotion, especially as a singer. When you are so attuned to emotion itself, I think you develop a greater capacity for empathy. Plus, theatre by its nature is a connective medium, among the artists and between artists and audience members. So neat.
Anyway, bottom line, it was a truly lovely and inspiring evening. Such a joy to hear a tremendously successful composer who also turns out to be a warm and wonderful personality.
I am SO lucky to be here!!
~Hope
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Swedish Chef
Today was an incredible day.
I started with a two and a half hour masterclass taught by a famous Swedish opera singer. He cooked up a variety of lessons for the seven students lucky enough to perform for him, and the entire audience benefited. Some people who give masterclasses are too focused on the one-on-one interaction with the student and ignore the audience. Others treat it as a performance/self-aggrandizing opportunity for their own egos and ignore the student. This man was neither. He was kind, self-confident but never showing off, and warmly practical for both the performer and the audience.
My favorite themes were all about inviting the audience onstage with you, asking them to be a participant. This is done through facial and vocal expression as well as dynamic contrast and especially pianissimos. His theory is very much about telling a story to the audience members but not giving them the entire plot. "Let the audience solve the puzzle. Don't solve it for them," he mentioned. "Let them put in the last piece. Then they'll go home and say, "Mmmm. I gave a good recital tonight, didn't I?" A very, very neat point of view.
It's so exciting to get to see top flight performers like this, coming and sharing what they've learned. There's such a difference in a truly world class artist, and I love seeing the seeds of that (or in some cases much more than seeds) burgeoning in my fellow classmates here.
After the masterclass, I had a terrific voice lesson where we worked out some more bugs with my breath support. I feel so much easier in my sound and support now, although my voice is still full. I had been working on singing full-voiced and fully supported a little too much, a bit overboard. My teacher used a fantastic analogy:
"You tend to double, triple, or quadruple what's said. You need to be conservative," she explained. "Here's why. It's like making chocolate chip cookies and seeing that the recipe calls for 1 1/2 tsp of salt. You decide to put in a tablespoon. But that doesn't work out too well..." :) I'll try to keep the salty cookies in mind and not be quite as diligent. I also tend to want to "get it right", but she pointed out that practicing is all about the I N G - the process. Not the result. A wonderful mentality, and very different from my life in business/prior academia.
Tonight, I had my last Artistic Decision Making class, where we wrestled again with the issues of how to market a program that is a) largely intangible and b) that many audience members may immediately reject simply because they've never heard of the composer. What is the responsibility of an orchestra: to play favorites like Brahms and Beethoven because that's what the audience wants, that's what they'll pay for? Or is it to stretch the horizons, offering people something they may not desire sandwiched between two beloved favorites? If you segment your audience and subscription series, are you fulfilling or failing your mission? What role should marketing play: a support role providing data and selling tickets, or an influencer role, explaining that the data/model indicates that Mahler won't sell as many tickets as Brahms, so we should program Brahms?
I'm definitely sad that this class has finished. There are so many things we didn't touch that I would have loved to have addressed: union issues, more about how to negotiate with artists and agents, some concrete examples of truly creative marketing ideas that have worked (and why they worked in those communities), etc. The professor was such an excellent speaker, too. We all commented after class tonight that the whole course was fast paced and engaging. We all felt as if we could just pick that professor's brain for hours.
Also got the chance to grab coffee with a couple friends: a trumpet player from Turkey, a pianist from Scotland, and a trumpet player from Hong Kong. The pianist is like a stand up comic in his daily conversation, so our time was filled with laughter. What a beautiful way to spend an evening!
I hope everyone is enjoying the transition into fall and that the weather isn't too chilly wherever you are!
~Hope
I started with a two and a half hour masterclass taught by a famous Swedish opera singer. He cooked up a variety of lessons for the seven students lucky enough to perform for him, and the entire audience benefited. Some people who give masterclasses are too focused on the one-on-one interaction with the student and ignore the audience. Others treat it as a performance/self-aggrandizing opportunity for their own egos and ignore the student. This man was neither. He was kind, self-confident but never showing off, and warmly practical for both the performer and the audience.
My favorite themes were all about inviting the audience onstage with you, asking them to be a participant. This is done through facial and vocal expression as well as dynamic contrast and especially pianissimos. His theory is very much about telling a story to the audience members but not giving them the entire plot. "Let the audience solve the puzzle. Don't solve it for them," he mentioned. "Let them put in the last piece. Then they'll go home and say, "Mmmm. I gave a good recital tonight, didn't I?" A very, very neat point of view.
It's so exciting to get to see top flight performers like this, coming and sharing what they've learned. There's such a difference in a truly world class artist, and I love seeing the seeds of that (or in some cases much more than seeds) burgeoning in my fellow classmates here.
After the masterclass, I had a terrific voice lesson where we worked out some more bugs with my breath support. I feel so much easier in my sound and support now, although my voice is still full. I had been working on singing full-voiced and fully supported a little too much, a bit overboard. My teacher used a fantastic analogy:
"You tend to double, triple, or quadruple what's said. You need to be conservative," she explained. "Here's why. It's like making chocolate chip cookies and seeing that the recipe calls for 1 1/2 tsp of salt. You decide to put in a tablespoon. But that doesn't work out too well..." :) I'll try to keep the salty cookies in mind and not be quite as diligent. I also tend to want to "get it right", but she pointed out that practicing is all about the I N G - the process. Not the result. A wonderful mentality, and very different from my life in business/prior academia.
Tonight, I had my last Artistic Decision Making class, where we wrestled again with the issues of how to market a program that is a) largely intangible and b) that many audience members may immediately reject simply because they've never heard of the composer. What is the responsibility of an orchestra: to play favorites like Brahms and Beethoven because that's what the audience wants, that's what they'll pay for? Or is it to stretch the horizons, offering people something they may not desire sandwiched between two beloved favorites? If you segment your audience and subscription series, are you fulfilling or failing your mission? What role should marketing play: a support role providing data and selling tickets, or an influencer role, explaining that the data/model indicates that Mahler won't sell as many tickets as Brahms, so we should program Brahms?
I'm definitely sad that this class has finished. There are so many things we didn't touch that I would have loved to have addressed: union issues, more about how to negotiate with artists and agents, some concrete examples of truly creative marketing ideas that have worked (and why they worked in those communities), etc. The professor was such an excellent speaker, too. We all commented after class tonight that the whole course was fast paced and engaging. We all felt as if we could just pick that professor's brain for hours.
Also got the chance to grab coffee with a couple friends: a trumpet player from Turkey, a pianist from Scotland, and a trumpet player from Hong Kong. The pianist is like a stand up comic in his daily conversation, so our time was filled with laughter. What a beautiful way to spend an evening!
I hope everyone is enjoying the transition into fall and that the weather isn't too chilly wherever you are!
~Hope
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
2000 Pipes
Tonight, I saw the most amazing concert! A local church agreed to host a beautiful new organ for my school. This conservatory has an incredible organ program, and the community is quite supportive. This particular organ is a faithful reproduction of a Casparini Organ from 1776. The original, which is being restored, lives in Vilnius, Lithuania, so the professors, expert organ builders who specialize in this era, and other people from the local community traveled to Lithuania multiple times on research trips. They studied the 2000+ pipes of the original and had a master organ builder in Sweden recreate it for this church.
An organ from 1776 has bellows in the back which must be pumped. At least two people stand behind the organ and carefully step on the large levers to provide the air to the pipes. A third assistant is often required to operate the stops, the key-like appendages which I think open and close certain pipes. At tonight's concert, a live video feed was projected onto the screen you see in the picture above. The camera operators did a beautiful job filming the bellows and the stops as well as the feet of the organist. Most of the footage, of course, was of the organist playing the keyboards. A wonderful glimpse of how these magnificent instruments are played!
The music spanned the last few centuries. Most of the pieces were by Bach, who I think likely wrote for this type of organ. He died in 1750, so he may have composed for an earlier version of the instrument, but by and large, it seems like his music was designed for this kind of organ. Truly gorgeous waves of sound that filled the domed space in this church. It's not a cathedral kind of acoustic - that would imply too much resonance. Rather, it is a perfect space with ring that decays just right, allowing new sound to take its place.
We also heard a modern piece composed by a musician at this church. It involved the gradual addition of pipes (opening more stops) and seemed to me like daybreak rolling in. There was a bit of pitch bending, which I think they accomplished by very gradual opening of the stops. The piece also used the glockenspiel, a series of bells that are attached to the organ. It all sounded quite modern, and that seemed to be the intent. The goal was really to showcase this beautiful new instrument and all of its capabilities.
The final work was Mendelssohn's Sonata in F Minor, a virtuosic piece played by a wonderfully talented professor from my school. Like the other two organists who played tonight, he gestured to the organ when accepting his applause, much like a singer gestures to her accompanist or the actors onstage gesture to the pit. A very neat idea.
Sprinkled throughout were other multimedia endeavors to engage the audience. A few people spoke at the pulpit: the priest from the church, who expressed his joy in having an instrument that will bring students and others to the church, the head of a donor committee who thanked the donors, and the project head, a professor who used photographic slides and described the process of building this incredible instrument. There was also a dance troupe who performed modern dance with balletic elements to a Bach Adagio and Fugue. Finally, the camera work that was projected live onto the screens allowed us to see the musician's hands and the organ's inner workings up close. This was a practical blessing since the organ is located on a balcony above and behind the congregation.
I love being here! How amazing is it that I get to go see things like this? And that they're offered free to the community? Some of the best organists in the world playing one of the premier instruments in the world...all I can say is Wow. And I am very, very grateful.
~Hope
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Auditioning
I thought I might try to give you a taste of what it's like to do an opera audition here. This was roughly how my day went today.
---------------------------------------------------------------
You set your alarm for 2 hours before you have to walk out your door because it takes at least that long to get ready. Ideally, you'd give yourself 3 hours, but that would mean going on 5 hours of sleep. Since you need a basic amount of rest to have enough energy for breath support and to give your cords their "beauty sleep", you figure you'll err on the side of a slightly more hectic morning routine.
The buzzer sounds. After the normal teeth-brushing-contacts deal, you start on makeup. This is a complicated process, especially since you don't normally wear any. But auditions are like interviews; you need to look, as well as sound, your best.
Fixing your hair, ironing the remaining wrinkles from your dress, and a last minute mirror check comprise the rest of the appearance molding. Now it's time for breakfast. At least two bowls of cereal need to jump start you, and you pack a largish lunch for later. Singing is easier for you on a full stomach. (Not all singers feel this way.)
About 15 minutes of warmup eat the rest of your time, and you're out the door for your first class. Three hours later, you walk to a park bench to enjoy the sunshine and munch your lunch. Deep breaths. The nerves are starting to kick in. You stare at the blue sky and the colorful leaves and remind yourself to have perspective. This is supposed to be fun, after all. And, in the grand scheme of things, it's not really important at all.
It's 12:45. Your audition is at 2, so you need to find a practice room to finish getting your voice in line. You wander the halls and happen upon the most resonant one on the fifth floor. What's this? A new piano has recently been delivered! The Yamaha still has its tags on, and its pedals are covered in plastic slip covers. Score!
You sit at the bench to engage your lower abs and take your voice through the rest of your warm up technical exercises. You remind yourself to breathe low and focus on using your whole middle voice. Things feel pretty good, and the high notes are easy today. You run through the Debussy piece a couple times. It's 1:15. Time to stop singing. You switch to just plucking the notes on the piano while speaking the diction. During Friday's coaching, you fixed some vowels, and you want to make them clear, especially since the coach will be in the audience today.
1:25. You decide to switch to the Qi Gong exercise you learned in Opera Workshop. This feels like a form of yoga to you and helps you open your torso, breathe more fully, and center yourself. A great way to energize in the "right way" before your audition.
1:30. You run through a few lines of the Debussy just to make sure you're in voice, and you're ready to go. You walk to the large hall where you'll be singing.
1:40. You pick up the forms that talk about the opera schedule and ask a few questions: Who's your voice teacher? What year are you? What's your voice part? What's your contact info? And is there a particular role you'd prefer? You write down "Chorus" for the spring opera since you know that no role in this show will fit your voice type. The main role is too low. But you'd love to get some more stage experience. Chorus would be fun.
The forms take some time and keep your mind occupied on something other than the increasingly rapid butterflies. Soon, you're sitting in the wings, listening to the other singers. Wow. What gorgeous voices! It's tempting to melt into their sound, as if attending a concert. But you try to concentrate instead on breathing and releasing the nervous energy that's building.
Your accompanist arrives. You look around the wings a bit more. You're seated on rather comfortable but supportive chairs that face the black curtains. The floor has been coated with something that is spill resistant. There's a sign to your right that expressly prohibits any and all smoking. On the left is a big red ring that is to be pulled "in case of fire" to lower the fire curtain. You start to wonder whether anyone has needed to pull that ring in the history of this century-old theatre.
Soon it's time for your audition. You walk onstage into the bright lights. It's just you and the Steinway. Your accompanist walks ahead of you and takes her seat, turning to the right page in her music. Seated in the cavernous theatre are four people: the opera coach you've worked with, a directing student who happens to be in your voice studio (taught by your voice teacher), an opera director you're working with on a departmental assistantship, and the other opera director, who teaches your Opera Workshop. All the people are very kind and call a greeting to you. But you want to do well so much that you're still keyed up.
You announce your piece. "My accompanist and I will perform for you "La Romance d'Ariel" by Debussy."
"Thank you," they say, and they wait.
You stare at your feet for a moment, reminding yourself to stand with appropriate, relaxed posture, and trying to get into character. You raise your head. This is the signal for your accompanist to start. In 2 1/2 beats, you're in. You look at the upper tier in the hall, spotting this as your "montagnes douces". You find your focal points as you go, looking alternately at the first tier of seats, the second tier above it, the immediate orchestral seats, the stage at one point, the gold leaf trim out in the auditorium, but never the people. That would break your focus too much, eliminating the "fourth wall" of the stage and the piece and you. You need to stay in character, as Ariel, the Tempest sprite.
This is an interesting and odd experience. The stage takes your sound and throws it out into the hall, which so large and well-designed that you don't get any reverberation back. You know that's great for the audience since it means the sound stays all around their ears, but it also means that you can't use the room for feedback. You have to go on how it feels and on the immediate sound that's in the one foot radius around you. Are you filling the hall? Are you oversinging? Are you resonant enough? What about breath support? How are those vowels? That diction? How about your gestures? Are you fluid? It's not fresh enough. Where's your energy? Wait - stop - you can't think about that. You are not a singer thinking of technique. You are Ariel who needs to express this wanting, this longing for Miranda, the beauty of nature...and now this sense of loss.
The ending approaches. Here's your last leap to the high C sigh and down the octave. You pause, in character, as the piano sings its final ascent. You wait until the notes cease ringing in the hall before you finally relax your posture and final gaze.
"Thank you," they call.
"Thank you," you reply to them and then say again to your accompanist. You turn to your left and walk back towards the black curtains in the wings. "Break a leg!" you whisper to the next person as you gather your belongings and make your way back into reality.
~Hope
---------------------------------------------------------------
You set your alarm for 2 hours before you have to walk out your door because it takes at least that long to get ready. Ideally, you'd give yourself 3 hours, but that would mean going on 5 hours of sleep. Since you need a basic amount of rest to have enough energy for breath support and to give your cords their "beauty sleep", you figure you'll err on the side of a slightly more hectic morning routine.
The buzzer sounds. After the normal teeth-brushing-contacts deal, you start on makeup. This is a complicated process, especially since you don't normally wear any. But auditions are like interviews; you need to look, as well as sound, your best.
Fixing your hair, ironing the remaining wrinkles from your dress, and a last minute mirror check comprise the rest of the appearance molding. Now it's time for breakfast. At least two bowls of cereal need to jump start you, and you pack a largish lunch for later. Singing is easier for you on a full stomach. (Not all singers feel this way.)
About 15 minutes of warmup eat the rest of your time, and you're out the door for your first class. Three hours later, you walk to a park bench to enjoy the sunshine and munch your lunch. Deep breaths. The nerves are starting to kick in. You stare at the blue sky and the colorful leaves and remind yourself to have perspective. This is supposed to be fun, after all. And, in the grand scheme of things, it's not really important at all.
It's 12:45. Your audition is at 2, so you need to find a practice room to finish getting your voice in line. You wander the halls and happen upon the most resonant one on the fifth floor. What's this? A new piano has recently been delivered! The Yamaha still has its tags on, and its pedals are covered in plastic slip covers. Score!
You sit at the bench to engage your lower abs and take your voice through the rest of your warm up technical exercises. You remind yourself to breathe low and focus on using your whole middle voice. Things feel pretty good, and the high notes are easy today. You run through the Debussy piece a couple times. It's 1:15. Time to stop singing. You switch to just plucking the notes on the piano while speaking the diction. During Friday's coaching, you fixed some vowels, and you want to make them clear, especially since the coach will be in the audience today.
1:25. You decide to switch to the Qi Gong exercise you learned in Opera Workshop. This feels like a form of yoga to you and helps you open your torso, breathe more fully, and center yourself. A great way to energize in the "right way" before your audition.
1:30. You run through a few lines of the Debussy just to make sure you're in voice, and you're ready to go. You walk to the large hall where you'll be singing.
1:40. You pick up the forms that talk about the opera schedule and ask a few questions: Who's your voice teacher? What year are you? What's your voice part? What's your contact info? And is there a particular role you'd prefer? You write down "Chorus" for the spring opera since you know that no role in this show will fit your voice type. The main role is too low. But you'd love to get some more stage experience. Chorus would be fun.
The forms take some time and keep your mind occupied on something other than the increasingly rapid butterflies. Soon, you're sitting in the wings, listening to the other singers. Wow. What gorgeous voices! It's tempting to melt into their sound, as if attending a concert. But you try to concentrate instead on breathing and releasing the nervous energy that's building.
Your accompanist arrives. You look around the wings a bit more. You're seated on rather comfortable but supportive chairs that face the black curtains. The floor has been coated with something that is spill resistant. There's a sign to your right that expressly prohibits any and all smoking. On the left is a big red ring that is to be pulled "in case of fire" to lower the fire curtain. You start to wonder whether anyone has needed to pull that ring in the history of this century-old theatre.
Soon it's time for your audition. You walk onstage into the bright lights. It's just you and the Steinway. Your accompanist walks ahead of you and takes her seat, turning to the right page in her music. Seated in the cavernous theatre are four people: the opera coach you've worked with, a directing student who happens to be in your voice studio (taught by your voice teacher), an opera director you're working with on a departmental assistantship, and the other opera director, who teaches your Opera Workshop. All the people are very kind and call a greeting to you. But you want to do well so much that you're still keyed up.
You announce your piece. "My accompanist and I will perform for you "La Romance d'Ariel" by Debussy."
"Thank you," they say, and they wait.
You stare at your feet for a moment, reminding yourself to stand with appropriate, relaxed posture, and trying to get into character. You raise your head. This is the signal for your accompanist to start. In 2 1/2 beats, you're in. You look at the upper tier in the hall, spotting this as your "montagnes douces". You find your focal points as you go, looking alternately at the first tier of seats, the second tier above it, the immediate orchestral seats, the stage at one point, the gold leaf trim out in the auditorium, but never the people. That would break your focus too much, eliminating the "fourth wall" of the stage and the piece and you. You need to stay in character, as Ariel, the Tempest sprite.
This is an interesting and odd experience. The stage takes your sound and throws it out into the hall, which so large and well-designed that you don't get any reverberation back. You know that's great for the audience since it means the sound stays all around their ears, but it also means that you can't use the room for feedback. You have to go on how it feels and on the immediate sound that's in the one foot radius around you. Are you filling the hall? Are you oversinging? Are you resonant enough? What about breath support? How are those vowels? That diction? How about your gestures? Are you fluid? It's not fresh enough. Where's your energy? Wait - stop - you can't think about that. You are not a singer thinking of technique. You are Ariel who needs to express this wanting, this longing for Miranda, the beauty of nature...and now this sense of loss.
The ending approaches. Here's your last leap to the high C sigh and down the octave. You pause, in character, as the piano sings its final ascent. You wait until the notes cease ringing in the hall before you finally relax your posture and final gaze.
"Thank you," they call.
"Thank you," you reply to them and then say again to your accompanist. You turn to your left and walk back towards the black curtains in the wings. "Break a leg!" you whisper to the next person as you gather your belongings and make your way back into reality.
~Hope
Monday, October 13, 2008
Reflections
Despite the gorgeous August imposter day that you can see reflected in the glass above, I spent a solid chunk of today in The Library. It is its own time black hole. The stacks aren't particularly complicated, especially compared to my undergraduate libraries that probably had their own zip codes. It's more that music searches tend to be rather labyrinthian since each reference points you to another book. In a way, it's the ultimate scavenger hunt. Which edition do you want? Which library might have it? Oh wait - this score is for organ and three clarinets. But you wanted the vocal score reduction. In the composer's complete works. Which has mysteriously vanished from the shelves.
Okay, so it wasn't quite that twisty today. But I did find myself wandering the stacks long after I'd planned to be home practicing. Today was a bit of a time balancing act with the books (yes, entire books) I need to have read for tomorrow's opera seminar, the practicing to make sure I'm in good voice for an audition tomorrow, the two hour Feldenkreis (sort of like specialized physical therapy) class I squeezed in tonight, and the library class assignment. And don't forget about turning in early. Sleep is a crucial component for me to sing well.
The good news is that it's all interesting and fun. I'm a little edgy about tomorrow's audition, especially since I've never sung in this particular (giant) hall. But I love the piece I'm doing (the Debussy "La Romance d'Ariel"), and the folks for whom I'm performing are very nice. My wish is just for me to walk out of there tomorrow feeling like I was fully engaged in the music, centered in body and voice, and entertaining for the folks who have 12 hours of auditions to hear. Most of all, I want to enjoy it and have fun with it. Maybe I should concentrate on just one of these goals...
We'll see how it goes. Good wishes and warm thoughts are always welcome :)
~Hope
Friday, October 10, 2008
aeiou
Had a lovely discussion about French vowels in my coaching today. My professor pointed out that most of understanding French comes from these vowels, which are often quite different from one another. (In Italian, all vowels tend to remain a lot closer together in pronunciation, in a kind of "tube" as it were.) So many French consonants are not pronounced that you spent a lot of energy as a singer making sure your vowels are clear.
This led to his rattling off a phrase that would confuse the heck out of anyone just listening to it:
Le vert ver va vers le vert verre.
The green worm goes towards the green glass.
In pronunciation land, vert=ver=vers=verre.
Ver-y fun :)
~Hope
This led to his rattling off a phrase that would confuse the heck out of anyone just listening to it:
Le vert ver va vers le vert verre.
The green worm goes towards the green glass.
In pronunciation land, vert=ver=vers=verre.
Ver-y fun :)
~Hope
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Reprieve
The weather has turned unexpectedly warm here, and I'm thrilled. What a lovely chance to bask in the last golden glow of summer.
Today was filled with all kinds of catch up after the break. Classes, a voice lesson, and tons of music theory rounded out the day. A few tidbits for you:
The music bibliography class today talked about how to find vocal repertoire, especially if you only know a song title from a larger work. In music, there are so many indices for the indices, lists of various categories of repertoire. It's done by voice type, by subject ("songs about bears"), by vocal range, by composer, by you-name-it-and-it's-either-been-done-or-you-could-do-your-dissertation-on-it. I can't imagine being one of the folks whose life work is to compile these giant tomes of lists. Not entirely my cup of tea. But as a singer who searches for music, I'm very grateful to them for doing it.
My voice lesson was so much fun! I'm learning to use my middle voice much more fully, and it's an odd feeling. I grew up being so protective of my instrument, terrified of slipping too much into the infamous chest voice. (Think of the a cappella group sound with the very pop "sing from your throat" sound that many singers make.) If you sing entirely in chest voice all the time as a soprano, it's very hard on your vocal cords and you can strain your instrument or potentially develop nodes - little bumps on the cords that either require complete voice rest or surgical scraping or both. But it turns out that the alternative - singing almost entirely in head voice - isn't good either. I've been bringing head voice down "too low" in my voice, and my instrument hasn't been used, therefore, to its fullest extent. I'm not exactly singing in chest voice in the middle - it's a weird hybrid sort of thing that just requires a ton more energy.
For all the people who are not interested at all in the technical side, the short of this is that I have a much bigger, richer, fuller sound than I'd ever imagined. It's very fun and cool to figure out. But it definitely takes some work to learn how to energize my breath support in the new ways that are required. I'm using different muscles in the throat and through my "core", and that's a very interesting feeling.
The class I had tonight was Artistic Decision Making, taught by a local orchestral artistic adminstrator. Most of our discussion this evening was about how to handle artist negotiations - the conversations between the Artistic Administrator and the agents about fees, dates, repertoire, and all sorts of other combinations. It's a very interesting dynamic. The agents don't want the orchestra to go elsewhere (to another agency) for their guest artists, but they also don't want to forego much money. On the other hand, the artistic administrator doesn't want the artist to be hired by another orchestra for the dates that he/she is hoping for. Competition on both sides combined with multiple tiers (payment points) for artists mixes up the conversations quite nicely.
As for the music theory, let's just say that it's keeping me quite busy. I'm still learning how to do dictation effectively (where they play an excerpt, potentially tell you the key, and you notate it.) The written analysis isn't too much faster for me at this point. The other folks in the class have all had theory in undergrad, so this is a review/refresher course for them. For me, it's mostly new (but for the material I picked up over the summer), so I'm playing catch up. Good stuff to know, though.
Tomorrow's a busy (but fun!) day as well with opera workshop, a coaching in the morning, more music theory, library visits to continue refining my 19th Century Opera Singers topic, practice for a keyboard exam on Sunday, a meeting held by the school deans, and on and on...
Happy Almost Weekend!
~Hope
Today was filled with all kinds of catch up after the break. Classes, a voice lesson, and tons of music theory rounded out the day. A few tidbits for you:
The music bibliography class today talked about how to find vocal repertoire, especially if you only know a song title from a larger work. In music, there are so many indices for the indices, lists of various categories of repertoire. It's done by voice type, by subject ("songs about bears"), by vocal range, by composer, by you-name-it-and-it's-either-been-done-or-you-could-do-your-dissertation-on-it. I can't imagine being one of the folks whose life work is to compile these giant tomes of lists. Not entirely my cup of tea. But as a singer who searches for music, I'm very grateful to them for doing it.
My voice lesson was so much fun! I'm learning to use my middle voice much more fully, and it's an odd feeling. I grew up being so protective of my instrument, terrified of slipping too much into the infamous chest voice. (Think of the a cappella group sound with the very pop "sing from your throat" sound that many singers make.) If you sing entirely in chest voice all the time as a soprano, it's very hard on your vocal cords and you can strain your instrument or potentially develop nodes - little bumps on the cords that either require complete voice rest or surgical scraping or both. But it turns out that the alternative - singing almost entirely in head voice - isn't good either. I've been bringing head voice down "too low" in my voice, and my instrument hasn't been used, therefore, to its fullest extent. I'm not exactly singing in chest voice in the middle - it's a weird hybrid sort of thing that just requires a ton more energy.
For all the people who are not interested at all in the technical side, the short of this is that I have a much bigger, richer, fuller sound than I'd ever imagined. It's very fun and cool to figure out. But it definitely takes some work to learn how to energize my breath support in the new ways that are required. I'm using different muscles in the throat and through my "core", and that's a very interesting feeling.
The class I had tonight was Artistic Decision Making, taught by a local orchestral artistic adminstrator. Most of our discussion this evening was about how to handle artist negotiations - the conversations between the Artistic Administrator and the agents about fees, dates, repertoire, and all sorts of other combinations. It's a very interesting dynamic. The agents don't want the orchestra to go elsewhere (to another agency) for their guest artists, but they also don't want to forego much money. On the other hand, the artistic administrator doesn't want the artist to be hired by another orchestra for the dates that he/she is hoping for. Competition on both sides combined with multiple tiers (payment points) for artists mixes up the conversations quite nicely.
As for the music theory, let's just say that it's keeping me quite busy. I'm still learning how to do dictation effectively (where they play an excerpt, potentially tell you the key, and you notate it.) The written analysis isn't too much faster for me at this point. The other folks in the class have all had theory in undergrad, so this is a review/refresher course for them. For me, it's mostly new (but for the material I picked up over the summer), so I'm playing catch up. Good stuff to know, though.
Tomorrow's a busy (but fun!) day as well with opera workshop, a coaching in the morning, more music theory, library visits to continue refining my 19th Century Opera Singers topic, practice for a keyboard exam on Sunday, a meeting held by the school deans, and on and on...
Happy Almost Weekend!
~Hope
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Traveling light
Just returned from a long weekend with e, which explains the lack of blog posts over the last few days. It was beyond wonderful to see him, even if I am completely tuckered out from the cross country flights.
I love being here in school, but the long distance factor is definitely tough. It had been about 2 months since we'd seen each other, and it will be another 2 1/2 months till we meet up again. He's incredibly supportive about my being here, which of course makes me miss him all the more.
On the upside, I was able to go out to see him with a fairly empty suitcase and return with a fairly full one. All the studio class performances I'm doing here necessitate a different attire than the business world demands. Black pants and blouses are giving way to skirts and sweater tops. Yes, they're both fairly dressy, but while the skirts might work in the office, the black pants definitely don't work in performance. They conjure too many associations with conference tables and computers, leading me away from the music that needs to be my total focus. Plus, it just looks funny to my classmates. I've already kept the wheeling business computer bag for my music and books. A very practical relic to keep, but definitely not what most singers use here ;)
I hope everyone is having a lovely week! I'll be diving into the world of Emma Abbott, a 19th century opera singer who had her own touring company. My class requires a 20 page paper for my final project, and I'm hoping to find something amidst Miss Abbott's life that will suffice for an interesting topic.
~Hope
I love being here in school, but the long distance factor is definitely tough. It had been about 2 months since we'd seen each other, and it will be another 2 1/2 months till we meet up again. He's incredibly supportive about my being here, which of course makes me miss him all the more.
On the upside, I was able to go out to see him with a fairly empty suitcase and return with a fairly full one. All the studio class performances I'm doing here necessitate a different attire than the business world demands. Black pants and blouses are giving way to skirts and sweater tops. Yes, they're both fairly dressy, but while the skirts might work in the office, the black pants definitely don't work in performance. They conjure too many associations with conference tables and computers, leading me away from the music that needs to be my total focus. Plus, it just looks funny to my classmates. I've already kept the wheeling business computer bag for my music and books. A very practical relic to keep, but definitely not what most singers use here ;)
I hope everyone is having a lovely week! I'll be diving into the world of Emma Abbott, a 19th century opera singer who had her own touring company. My class requires a 20 page paper for my final project, and I'm hoping to find something amidst Miss Abbott's life that will suffice for an interesting topic.
~Hope
Friday, October 3, 2008
You have a big mouth; use it!
This was the advice given to me in yesterday's voice lesson. My teacher was speaking with respect to my high notes and passagio (D, E, F an octave up from middle C). As you get higher, you need to create more space for the notes. I tend to keep my mouth too small. When I do "open my big mouth," I end up with an enormous increase in volume.
Evidently I've only been using about half of my instrument. What's really there is opera-sized. Pretty cool.
:)
~Hope
Evidently I've only been using about half of my instrument. What's really there is opera-sized. Pretty cool.
:)
~Hope
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