Going offline for a while

My family and I are a month away from emigrating to Australia.

I will try to come back to posting as soon as we are settled in Victoria, but guess that it will take a while to get to that point.

I desperately want to finish the Singing Success course and so I will definitely come back to it.

In the meanwhile, thanks for following my journey so far and a special thanks to everyone who has contacted me with their support – especially Worship1, David Baraff and, most of all, Nigello.  You all kept me going!

If you come upon this blog trying to decide whether to go for Singing Success or not, I hope I have convinced you that it’s seriously worth a look – just stick with it and practise a lot!  Messages will still reach me (eventually) so feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Robert

Starting back

Ok, so it’s been nearly 3 months since I last worked on my voice so tonight I thought I would make some initial checks on how my voice is doing.

In the past, I have noticed that my voice benefits from periods of ‘rest’ – especially after having worked it as hard as I did between August and this March.  I recorded two songs.  One that I did before, the one with the high B flats and a new song in Russian that I have come to love.

Ingemisco – the first top B flat was amazing compared to before and even the last one wasn’t awful.

Ya vas liubil – “I loved you” by Cesar Cui – not vocally challenging but a nice tone.

After that I ran through the exercises in Lesson 3 of Singing Success.  If I say I was shocked, that would be an understatement!

I did the lip roll long scale and was pleased that it wasn’t difficult up to about male top C.  I thought I would carry on to see whether the top E was still my limit.  I hit top E and then there was a little more pressure.  I got top A flat above male top C, though it was a bit screechy, but didn’t stop.

In the end, I had to give up at top B above male top C – that’s a semitone before female high C.  I’ve NEVER got that high before!  It was really screechy but still………

All the others were pretty fluent up to top C though I could feel that my voice was a bit tired.

Still singing

Hi everyone!  I’m sorry I haven’t posted recently but life has been quite hectic and fitting exercise time in has been a bit hard.

I’ve still got a lot of the Singing Success programme to get to and by the time I get there, I’ll have to go over the first few lessons to get my voice back in shape.

Operatic Class

Tonight’s class was the one I was dreading.  I had chosen “Che Gelida Manina” from La Boheme and, to be honest, it was right out of my comfort zone.  If the B flat in the middle wasn’t difficult enough, there was a top C on the last page.

Rehearsing earlier this evening, I wimped out on the B flat and sang it pure head voice and pianissimo.  During the practice I had hit the top C but even when I started the song, I wasn’t sure if I was going to sing the high part at the end or whether I would sing the alternative line that was written on the music that topped out at A flat (my comfortable one).

I really, really didn’t want to sing tonight because I was uncomfortable with the pieces, but as it’s my last solo performance I thought I’d better.

The beginning wasn’t bad but the top notes suffered from my nerves (this was the only one I’ve been nervous about this week) and they certainly weren’t the best.  The head-voice B flat was weedy to say the least and I bet it showed in my voice.  As I approached the last page, I still hadn’t decided which version to sing but in the end thought “Blast!  Let’s do it anyway!”.  I hit it, but it wasn’t as secure as many I had got in various practices over the past weeks.  Mind you it was the 5th day of singing and already 9.20pm after a full day’s teaching using my voice.

Whatever I did, the adjudicator appreciated my voice and gave me second place with 87 marks.  I had family in the audience tonight and they confirmed that I had looked nervous for the first time they’d ever seen.  They also confirmed that the B flat and C hadn’t matched the quality of the rest of the song so I think that I was lucky to get second place!

I’m going to have a couple of week’s rest and then I’m going to come back to the Singing Success programme.

Lieder Class

I sang “Wir Wandelten” by Brahms.  It’s a lovely, seemingly simple, melody and I was worried in case the adjudicator thought it was too easy.

However, I was pleased when she gave me and my accompanist first place (it was a joint class so both of us were judged).

The hard part was that the class began at 10.10pm!  Far too late for singers to be enthusiastic about singing in my humble opinion!  It was like the graveyard shift backstage!

Voice and Piano Class

BBC Radio Guernsey decided to play my winning entry this morning on the radio.

The Choirmaster’s Burial

I had a massive amount of saliva build up in my mouth during one phrase so listen out for the gulp in the middle of one longer passage.  I still won though.

Classe Superieure and Voice & Piano

It’s been a busy night tonight but I got to sing some of my favourite songs from this year’s selection.

The Classe Superieure had “At the Ball” by Tchaikovsky (in Russian) and “Five Eyes” by Armstrong Gibbs.  Neither of them difficult technically but good ’storytelling’ songs.  I got 85 marks (I think) which was joint second.

For the Voice and Piano, I did “The Choirmaster’s Burial” by Benjamin Britten.  This has been a nightmare to rehearse as the piano and voice parts don’t seem to match at all at any point.  I’ve been panicing about my entries and whether I’ve timed them right.  Thankfully, everything came together tonight.  I even managed some more characterisation in my voice to cover the different people in the story.  I really, really enjoyed it and won with 87 points.

It must have been a hard class to judge as I was sandwiched in between Summertime and an Eva Cassidy version of Autumn Leaves together with a couple of other ‘classical’ songs.  The singers were all strong so actually, it was a bit like a concert anyway and one I would’ve paid to go and hear, I think.

German Lieder tomorrow – Brahms’ “Wir Wandelten”

Oratorio Class

This was “ingemisco” with the two top B flats!

The concert hall where the competition took place has great acoustics and so on the unaccompanied first line of the song, my voice rang out really well.

As I climbed to the first B flat, something wasn’t right.  When I got there, there was no way I would have made it with good mix so I chickened out and used an edgy head voice instead.  It was a bit of a cheat but didn’t sound awful.

When I got to the last line, and again climbed to the top B flat, everything seemed fine and out popped the B flat!  Ok, so it wasn’t perfect, but it also wasn’t awful.

Unfortunately, I placed joint last with two other singers.  To be fair, the other two singers are very good so I don’t feel bad.  We all got 84 points.  One of the girls got 85 but even she admitted that she made mistakes and you could see her shake all the way through.  The last of the singers (who won with 87 points) sang a song that I felt was too difficult for her.  It was quite florid and so sounded impressive but there were places where I couldn’t even hear her voice.  She was flat in several places and her diction (for Latin) was very plummy English!  I don’t want it to sound like sour grapes but I thought I did much better than them all.  To be fair this lady also won last year and it was well deserved!  She is a good singer, I just think she overreached herself this year.

Oh well, I’m pleased with my performance.  I did my best and I think I did a good performance as far as the audience was concerned which is important.  As for the adjudicator – well, I’ve learned not to trust her judgement.  I guess the rest of the classes will go the same.  At least I’ve got one win under my belt.

One down 7 to go

Last night was French song which I won with 87 points.  I don’t set much store in the adjudicator’s marking as she seems a bit random but then that’s what you get if you give the judging to one person.  Anyway, I won so that’s good.

I sang “L’Invitation au Voyage” by Henri Duparc which I have come to love.  Before I started the Singing Success course, I couldn’t ever have attempted it because the high notes would have killed me.  Now they come easily and I don’t even think about them.  Progress.

No I haven’t gone away!

I’ve spent most of my time in recent weeks practising for the Guernsey Eisteddfod which begins for me on Saturday with the French Song class.

I’ll report back how the classes go – especially how the top B flats and C go!

After the Eisteddfod finishes, I need to go back to the Singing Success course.