frescamari// Welcome, visitors, to my virtual music suite! Here you will find are a trio of chambers you can visit and enjoy.
The first chamber, "Frescamari's Practice Room" is meant to be a fun place that is filled with my vocal works in progress. An explanation of what I am doing in the practice room can be found on my Avocational Singer blog specifically in the post titled Welcome to My Vocal Studio In the practice room you may browse around, listen, even learn something about the process of building a voice and learning a song, or developing thinking about vocal science. I don't pretend that any of this is a finished product. If I ever have that, I'll invite you to a recital or concert.
The third chamber, "Frescamari's Guest Salon" is under construction and reserved for a future idea I have of avocational singers sharing their work in a salon-like format. It will link to guest posts, by invitation only, from avocational singer on my main Avocational Singer blog.
Sang this at a recital a bit under-prepared because I had not worked with the pianist enough. In the middle of the recital, I forgot that there was a section that was similar to the ending of the piece. I got confused, and thought at first that the pianist had skipped the second verse and was going straight to the end. It was not my favorite moment of my song, but I got back on track soon enough (with help from the kind pianist).
Anyway, today I wanted to sing through the whole piece with the karaoke just to soothe my soul!Here it is:
Now I've listened to it a few times and so have you. (Well, maybe you only listened once, lol, or only to part of it!) It's not "bad" Intonation problems here and there. Okay, there are also some diction problems. And breathing problems. And having trouble feeling the pulse of the karaoke. and ... and ... and ...
But! Please don't tune out yet. I have been thinking about this all day. This and lots of stuff my teacher has been telling me about making more room inside, more space.
Decided to go all out. Be as big as I could. Make big space and use all I got. It felt almost like vomiting, Could this possibly be what I'm supposed to do? But it's so much. So big.
I made another recording later in the day (made that first one in the morning)
Here's the one I made tonight just a few minutes ago:
In order to make that sound I had to get sloppy with all the stuff I've been trying to perfect (and wasn't getting perfect anyway), I am going to work in this vein for the next couple of weeks and see what comes of it.
Since there's been such a buzz going about how the Star Spangled Banner was sung at the Super Bowl, I thought it appropriate to post the progress on my own rendition.
I have this karaoke mp3 file with this "band" playing it. It is hard to find good karaoke accompaniments, but we make do with what we can find.I think I've improved. It is useful for singers, especially Avocational Singer ones, to have this song under their belts. I have had to sing it three times for Kung Fu belt graduations (although I think I most recently lost my gig to this other Kung Fu student). At any rate, it's a song that one might have to sing, so here's my latest progress.
It was a year ago, December 16, that I recorded "Sebben Crudele" as the first of the 24 Italian Songs and Arias that I would learn in my project to learn 24 arias in 24 weeks. The recording was made after having worked on it for one week.
Well, I have been working all Fall on my vowels and I am finding out that it has made a huge difference in my singing. In my Avocational Singer blog I've written this week about how I have pulled out "Sebben Crudele" to work on my [e] vowel.So, here are the two recordings.First THEN (Dec. 16, 2009)
Then NOW (Dec 16, 2010) (total coincidence that it was exactly one year later)(oh, and pardon me that I accidentally named the second file wrong -- They are both truly "Sebben crudele")
Trying on keys to sing a song in can be a little bit like trying on sizes in the dressing room of a clothing store. Sometimes you can fit in the size a little larger or the size a little smaller too and it can be a little tricky determining the optimal fit.
Here I am singing "Auf dem Wasser zu singen" in three different keys (all three verses each time).The low key
Prac 10Sep13 Auf Dem Wasser Zu Singen 01 - Low Key
And the higher key. I'm not convinced I won't master singing it in this key some day. Perhaps I'm just stubborn, or perhaps I'm right. Only more work and time will tell for sure.
Prac 10Sep13 Auf Dem Wasser Zu Singen 03 - Higher Key
I think it's time to repeat a little disclaimer-type thing here. I am a total amateur and do not know what I'm doing exactly. I get these ideas, and am exposed to various things, and I experiment, discover and explore. So, sometimes in this practice room, which I have opened up to the public ear, you will hear me do some really great things -- maybe even inspired -- and other times you will hear me do some dumb things that go nowhere. I will discard what ends up being useful and keep what ends up progressing me along in my quest toward vocal mastery.
In this room, I'm showing you many things, including the dumb things.
I do expect to get smarter and smarter about it as I go along -- or at least that is my hope. I do expect to sound better and better as I go along. But sounding good is not exactly what this practice room is all about. It is more about figuring out how it all works.
Having said that, I will share with you my learning of the song Auf dem Wasser zu singen. If you are reading my Avocational Singer blog, you will know that I am now teacherless, so maybe I'll veer off a little more into crazyland, or maybe not.
I was recently introduced to Count Singing at the Westminster Choral Festival. I know that this is a choral tool, but I was amazed at how using count singing informed my body about the tones I was singing and the rhythm and where breaths had to come. I believe that count singing can be useful to the solo singer as well, and to test my theory I am experimenting with count singing to teach myself this Schubert song.
I like that in count singing I am able to change vowels: "One and Two and Three and" gives me "uh" and "u" and "i." If I learn a song on a single vowel, like "ah" or "u" or "i" I tend to get locked into that vowel position and develop tension. I think that count singing helps me avoid building tension while learning a song.
While "i" can be used to get focus and good closure, sometimes it's too much "i" to sing the whole song with that vowel. It can tend to get harsh, and then if there are higher notes in the song, the "i" can strain the voice. With count singing, there is an "i" in there to get the focus back in case you're getting off track. Or at least it seems so to me.
So, there are going to be a bunch of files below (if my google email will allow me to put them all here.) These files show me trying to use count singing to achieve different things.
I have been reading recently in a book of collected letters by choral conductor Robert Shaw, that assigning a time value to breaths is desirable (Actually, I guess most singers know this, but in reading the letters by Shaw, I connected with this recently). So, in this next file, I attempt to use count singing to find where in the counts I must put the breath.
Prac 10Aug17 Auf Dem Wasser 03 - Count Sing Breath
I have realized at this point, that when I am in a higher part of my voice, I'm having trouble enunciating the "t" in "1+2+T+". I am saying "d" instead of "t." This indicates to me that there is a lack of vocal freedom and breath. If the voice and breath are free -- free from tension -- I should be able to sing the "t". So, I use count singing in the high phrase to try to be free and get the "t" enunciated. I think the vocal tone improves when I do this.
I have a continuing problem with tension building up when I sing phrases that sit high. I get locked up at the end of the phrase and being locked up so makes it hard for me to take a catch breath. I use count singing the phrase to focus on completely releasing the buildup of tension at the end of each phrase.
Prac 10Aug17 Auf Dem Wasser 06 - Count Sing Release Built Up Tension
While I was doing all that work on the song itself, at one point I experimented with making up some exercises on the side to help get the breath on the + of "t" both while singing low and high.
I've been improving Schubert's An Die Musick. It's getting there. I'm now running this song with the accompanist that I get together with on Monday nights.
I got very excited about a new tool for working on a song that I was exposed to at The Westminster Choir Festival -- Count Singing!
Although count singing is a tool used in choir, I had such a good bodily response to it that I think I can use it to improve many aspects of my solo singing.
I've decided to use some count singing on this one day of practice to see if it helps An Die Musick.
Now I'm ready to try it with the words again and see if the count singing improved anything. I think it did. Some of the improvement can be that I got more warmed up by now, but I think the internal pulse and life of the song has been improved.
As I say on the recording, since some of what count singing is doing working and training internal muscles, there will be even more improvement if it is used regularly. There are other benefits that are immediate, such as informing the body where the pulse actually is. (Knowledge is Power -- ha ha), but the actual training of the muscle memory will just take repping it on subsequent days.
I am having trouble, while here at the Westminster Choir Festival, managing a part of the Mozart's Requiem. Overall, it seems that I am handling the music vocally competently (at least I hope I am) But this phrase is difficult and I think I may have been "called out" on it by the conductor today. (Not by name, but "someone" was not getting a good vowel sound on it and he was trying to fix it, and another singer sitting near me gave me a tip to fix it and I decided I was the problem.)
So-o-o-o-o-o-o, what do I do in this situation? I don't have a teacher to consult here (In fact, I am completely teacherless at the moment, since I've lost my wonderful voice teacher -- explain another time), although there are many many voice teachers in the chorus. But these teachers are not really here to teach voice lessons. Oh, they're all so nice. Probably someone would help me. But, it is a weird situation for me.
So, here I am at hotel room, trying to work on it. I have my digital voice recorder here, my trusty Edirol R09, so at least I can listen to my vowel problem. It seems that I'm too "eh" on "Trem[eh]........" It doesn't sound [eh] to me when I sing it, but when I recorded it back in the hotel room -- well, what do you know, it certainly was very eh-y!!! Now, how to fix?? Well, the fellow alto -- who also happened to be a doctor of music and a professor who taught some conducting at the conducting master class as well and is singing in the elite little chamber choir -- suggested a schwau sound. At least I think that's what she suggested. She was whispering and I barely heard and another alto next to me told me what she said.
So, I try that on these tapes. I also have a LOT of trouble with my breath in these phrases. So, I'm using a some lip trills. I bet lip trill practice every day for a couple of weeks would do marvels, but I only have two days to fix it, and I'm not sure it's fixable in that short amount of time, and I'm afraid I might have to not sing at all on the phrase.I'm giving the lip trills a try because sometimes you can get a little correct muscle action going in a short time if you work the right way with singing stuff.
Also, he mentioned that he wanted a rolled R on the "rex" which I was achieving at the start of the phrase, but missing on the second "rex." To try to fix this, I am singing the phrases on a rolled R trill.
Another thing I try is just singing it all colloquial.
If I can't get the mp3 files to load up from the hotel room here, I'll add them when I get home, which will be next Sunday, after the concert.
Well, I tested with these two files, and it seems to have worked, so I'll add the rest in a few minutes. There are a bunch of them, but essentially the first one is where I just sing it to see where my starting point is and to hear my vowel. Then the rest is just a bunch of attempts to work on the phrase.
Three videos of my using stuff in my backyard to massage the plantar fascia tissue on the bottom of my foot. This is going to go with a post I'll put upon Barefoot Fresca blog.
