Practice journal

I had great plans to practice a lot over this long weekend, but my body had other ideas. I'm feeling a lot better now and hope to get over to the school to do some singing tomorrow. All the listening and memory check stuff I've been doing is good, but I really need some singing time.

I'm working with Ruth again on Monday and I'm excited to get some feedback on what I've been doing. Since my voice still isn't at it's best, we'll probably work the lower/easier stuff.

I bought 2 more recordings on iTunes today. I really need to stop. It's easy to spend a lot when song are only $.99. I do think though that it has been worth it. I've done far more listening with these songs, and listened to more singers on each song than I ever have before. I think it has given me more ideas about what I want to do and what I want to avoid.

YouTube has also been a great resource. The other night I watched several performances by several different singers of "Vissi d'arte". There is one of Callas that is amazing. Another of her is great for the acting, but had some serious tuning issues at the end. Caballe is also interesting to watch. I have a
Tebaldi recording that I love, but the only video I could find of her singing this was not all that impressive. I wondered if maybe the reason it lacked dramatic interest was that even though there was a set and she was in costume, it was a
performance just of that song and not the full opera. I also watched a vocally glorious performance by Renee Fleming that seemed to have similar issues. For me, her facial expressions did not match what is going on in the opera at that point.

I'm planning to do some video recording as I get closer to performance so that I can make sure that I am conveying what I intend to convey.

I should be doing more audio recording now, but it just seems like a waste with all that I already know I need to work on.

-- Posted from my iPhone