So yeah what a weekend and week...haha
Last weekend was much fun--lots of much needed relaxation.
This week has proven to be insanely stressful unfortunately!
On top of it being extremely busy at work I coached and rehearsed way too much this week probably...
I sang for a total of 3 hours yesterday and by the end my voice was definitely wasted...sad to say but very true. I'm not used to singing at that great of a length. The past couple of days the art song rep has been going really well. Today it was off because I was so bloody tired, but it always ends up coming together somehow.
I sang in studio seminar on Tuesday--It was TERRIBLE! I truly haven't had a sing so bad in front of your peers experience like that in a long time. Of course people are nice and always say it wasn't as bad as I think--but I'm generally a good judge of myself enough to say that it sucked ass. I was incredibly tense for some reason...which in turn I ended up manipulating my sound WAY too much--which was frustrating me even more because I was making myself tired by doing that-rather than engaging support.
Let me talk about support for a moment...
everyone seems to have their own ideas about it, etc........my support system is often wacked out I'm finding. I'm finding my technical imperfections rather annoying and have decided that after art song I'm putting away all of my music, taking an incomplete for the semester in voice (so I won't have to do rep for a jury) and I'm GOING to FIGURE this shit out and start fresh. It's really annoying me that there always seems to be something getting in the way of good old fashioned vocalizing. It's like I have to prioritize my own practice time and often put the vocalizing to the side because of repertoire demands--and then try to fit the technical stuff into the repertoire all at one. I need to get the instrument going. This is the problem these days I believe with trying to be a singer in this fast paced, get your degree in 2 years type world we live in. Everyone is like on a time clock...like OH MY GOD IF I'M NOT MAKING MY MET DEBUT IN 12 YEARS THEN SOMETHING IS WRONG! NO....what happened to the good old days of people taking their time to FIND their voice, to let go of the shit that holds them back, and let their voices mature naturally with age? Christ you would spend 2 or 3 years just vocalizing before your teacher even gave you a song, and when they gave you a song it was some real simple little Italian thing that now we give our high school students who can barely hold a pitch for 2 seconds. Perhpas it's my angst with our society--but it's rather depressing sometimes to look at the reality of it all. I genuinelly came from having NOTHING a voice to being where I'm at today--which is great....but there is always SOOO much work to do and never seemingly enough time. I long for the day when I simply just vocalize to warm up and maybe feel a few things...open up a score...and just sing and all I have to do is think about the character and a few phrases here and there. Of course male voices take longer to mature--well damnit! haha But I'm beginning to make myself angry when I catch myself wanting to rush things....so my new resolution is to come to piece with myself about all of this and just take my own time.
Art Song is Saturday...it's always an experience getting out their and sharing your collaboration with people who may or may not understand the connection. I have no hopes or visions of winning, placing, or even making it to finals of course it would be lovely-but the truth is you NEVER know what people hear they may like it and they may not. It's all so subjective...the best thing I can do is go out there with the attitude of not tryign to prove anything and just share the collaboration Kate and I have done. Finite....
With that said I'm off to continue studying texts and doing Doc Ellison stuff with my songs.
HAVE a good weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
XOOOXOXO
Justin