: Did I say break? - singing journal, part 2
Today's lesson was delayed by approximately 40 minutes, thus starting at approximately 1540. It also took place in a substantially larger room, pretty much square, with a window but no mirror.
The initial stages consisted of the first part of lesson 1 up to but not including the scales. (Actually, that's a slight lie. There were a few scales, and on one of them I actually managed to sing middle C quite tolerably for once.) Then Gemma turned to a black book, opened it, and revealed...
...that the first song I was ever going to look at in a singing lesson was All I Ask Of You from Phantom of the Opera. We tried out small parts of the song before realising it wasn't quite as suited to me as Gemma had anticipated, but it was well worth trying because it revealed what is apparently normal but didn't seem obvious at first - that a smooth sound and good diction were proving to be mutually exclusive. When I managed one, the other was lacking, and by switching attention from one the other would go.
Attention then switched to Music Of The Night, which proved somewhat more suited to my voice, with one notable exception. Yes, that pesky break struck again. Much the same with a song from another Lloyd-Webber musical, Close Every Door, but one pleasing discovery came here. It resulted from Gemma making an executive decision to transpose a phrase that went across my break down an octave, which pushed its lowest note down to F2. Now, last week I only managed to go down to G2, so I shouldn't have got through this phrase. But I (just about) did - quantifiable self-improvement, YAY. Apparently my low notes are actually my strongest, something I'd never even considered to be true.
Between these two songs, however, I mentioned that on Sunday I had found success in another song. And so, after slurping a bit of water and calming myself down, I started singing You'll Never Walk Alone. For some reason yet to be adequately explained, this suits me wonderfully, and while the song does go across my break I was able to handle it without significant difficulty. Go figure.
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LESSON IN SUMMARY
General trend: positive
Areas of strength: low notes
Areas of weakness: diction, especially on certain vowels; did I say break?
Next meeting: November 7, 1500 GMT
Expected content: Gemma's hinted that we'll return to You'll Never Walk Alone. We may discover exactly why that song works for me...
Today's lesson was delayed by approximately 40 minutes, thus starting at approximately 1540. It also took place in a substantially larger room, pretty much square, with a window but no mirror.
The initial stages consisted of the first part of lesson 1 up to but not including the scales. (Actually, that's a slight lie. There were a few scales, and on one of them I actually managed to sing middle C quite tolerably for once.) Then Gemma turned to a black book, opened it, and revealed...
...that the first song I was ever going to look at in a singing lesson was All I Ask Of You from Phantom of the Opera. We tried out small parts of the song before realising it wasn't quite as suited to me as Gemma had anticipated, but it was well worth trying because it revealed what is apparently normal but didn't seem obvious at first - that a smooth sound and good diction were proving to be mutually exclusive. When I managed one, the other was lacking, and by switching attention from one the other would go.
Attention then switched to Music Of The Night, which proved somewhat more suited to my voice, with one notable exception. Yes, that pesky break struck again. Much the same with a song from another Lloyd-Webber musical, Close Every Door, but one pleasing discovery came here. It resulted from Gemma making an executive decision to transpose a phrase that went across my break down an octave, which pushed its lowest note down to F2. Now, last week I only managed to go down to G2, so I shouldn't have got through this phrase. But I (just about) did - quantifiable self-improvement, YAY. Apparently my low notes are actually my strongest, something I'd never even considered to be true.
Between these two songs, however, I mentioned that on Sunday I had found success in another song. And so, after slurping a bit of water and calming myself down, I started singing You'll Never Walk Alone. For some reason yet to be adequately explained, this suits me wonderfully, and while the song does go across my break I was able to handle it without significant difficulty. Go figure.
----------
LESSON IN SUMMARY
General trend: positive
Areas of strength: low notes
Areas of weakness: diction, especially on certain vowels; did I say break?
Next meeting: November 7, 1500 GMT
Expected content: Gemma's hinted that we'll return to You'll Never Walk Alone. We may discover exactly why that song works for me...