Current mood:	excited and pleased
Current music:	Kelly Clarkson - Because Of You
Entry tags:	Helen, geekery, singing

Third time lucky: Helen, 6/2/08, 1000-1100
Ten hours before Fabio Capello had his chance to prove his reputation, Helen got her chance to prove a rather smaller and different one.

The meeting point was the northern entrance to the music-and-management building; Helen has a 9am seminar in the music end of it, I have a 9am lecture in the management end. (Well, the latter was cancelled this week but I digress.) The wait for Helen was extremely nerve-wracking and I was worried she wouldn't arrive in time. The HDTV displaying promotional messages for various university events and thingamijigs - and now the university's new text-based logo, removing the controversial 'dolphin' logo from the early 90s - had a digital clock showing the time. As it hit 10:00:00, Helen arrived. Timing!

Had a good chat on our way down to our room - and would you believe it, we're in the same room that Gemma used to use most of the time. Explained what I was looking for, and yes, mentioned the desire for upward expansion of my range. I actually ended up explaining utility theory to her, initially with regard to money (using the obvious game show example) but then by using range as the x-axis, and suggesting that a singer in a field emphasising pigeonholing would have a distinct point of inflection in their utility function (or as I put it non-technically to this musician; getting to a certain point earns them far more utility than any further progress), a singer-songwriter like myself will have a more continuous utility function, the derivative tending slowly to zero as notes become too high or too low to be of any real use. There's certainly more use in upward than downward expansion for me where I am, so that makes sense as a priority.

Oh, where am I? F2-E4. Helen remarked that the lower notes sounded better. Precisely what caused Gemma to pigeonhole me. The difference is that Helen - at least so far - at least accepted the opposite conclusion, that the weakness should be the priority. In all honesty, Helen feels like the person I actually wanted after Gemma; her approach is not dissimilar, but differs in precisely the right ways. Indeed, she made a point of saying that really everything comes down to breath support - certainly including range.

Eventually we got singing, Breakaway was the song, and to my pleasant surprise she approved of the choice. I'd explained my fight for independence to her, and that pretty much explained the choice; furthermore, she actually likes Clarkson herself. The main reader of this blog will approve heartily.

Biggest problem was that, while Helen's certainly a good pianist and a good musician, the rapid and awkward rhythms proved a slight problem in sight-reading. Still, once we got going it worked well. My emotional tie to the song was evident in the chorus; the verse provides an excellent opportunity to focus on diction.

As I put it at the end, singing is almost the physical adjunct to my writing, and that is what makes it so enjoyable. Without any question whatsoever, these lessons are worth the £5 per half-hour. This lesson ran to an hour, so £10 it was; this may or may not happen in future, and I hinted at the possibility of opting for the Daytime Game Show Compromise Duration of 45 minutes. I am to email her with confirmation when I decide; the 45 minutes is the likely option though, as I think hour-long lessons have the slight potential to drag but half-hour lessons really do feel too short. £7.50 for 45 minutes compares to £24 for an hour with Shylo; £16.50 per week in savings then, and with twelve teaching weeks left (plus a holiday and exam season) the savings this year alone will be significant. Between now and graduation, I estimate the savings compared to sticking with Shylo at over £500; even at the same price, these lessons might have been preferable. At the lower price, they're an absolute bargain.