I warmed up/practised in the car using the Singing Success programme and Jesse Nemitz’s product today.
Later in the evening, I spent some time singing through new songs as I’m aware that I will shortly have to commit myself to the repertoire that I will sing at the local music festival when the entries are given in in early November. To be frank, I didn’t have anything in my existing repertoire that I really wanted to sing so it’ll have to be all new stuff, well almost.
However, while singing, I did notice an incredibly freedom in my voice at the upper end of my register. In previous years, there would be no way I could cope with a song where the tessitura sat at and around the male top G mark. I could pull the odd G sharp out of the bag when needed and anything else above that would be falsetto and, therefore, unusuable. Because I was just singing for fun today, I was obviously quite relaxed. I regularly hit Gs, G sharps even As and Bs. I was aware that my larynx stayed lower and there was none of the ’strangulation effect’ that I talked about in earlier posts.
After an hour and a half of singing, I found ‘e la solita storia del pastore’ from L’Arlesiana. I remember hearing it many years ago but, as usual, it was out of my range. I’ve recorded the last few phrases including top Gs, As and a top B. The B is a bit weedy but it isn’t falsetto and there’s ‘room to grow’. I wonder what it would have sounded like earlier on in the practising?
E la solita storia del pastore
Overall, I class this upper register freedom as a bit of a breakthrough. I sang through several arias tonight – not once worrying about top notes. I think Singing Success is starting to pay off on the actual song side. I’m assuming that some of the Singing Success techniques are becoming more habit now.
I’ve just realized! I’m only on Lesson 2. If I’m happy with the results so far, what will things be like after the next lesson, and the next? Oh wow, and to think I’ve wasted 20 years putting up with a mediocre range…
