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From:  Dre de Man <dredeman@y...>
Date:  Thu May 18, 2000  3:23 pm
Subject:  1st recital, longish, sorry, with 2 questions


Dear list,

after having worked very very hard for four months,
having read hundreds of emails from vocalisters, and
having tried many things I've read here, I gave my
first recital (for program see below).

Maybe you remember from the 'Never again a singing
teacher' discussion, that in the past four months I
... changed my breathing/support, relaxed my jaw,
changed the position of my tongue, changed my
placement in such a way that as much as possible the
complete vocal tract was used for resonance, which
amongst other things made my low notes much better,
learned to pronunciate every consonant and vowel
clearly (Fritz Wunderlich: 'The words should melt like
caviar in your mouth'), learned how to sing legato,
finally understood how to treat the passagio notes
without pushing (much less air, many thanks again,
especially to Lloyd W. Hanson), sing much opener
etcetera.

Besides the things I learned by reading the vocalist
mails, I learned - last but not least - in those
months very much from my accompanist.
She taught me to understand harmonics and how to treat
vocal and melody lines, the difference between Mozart,
Schubert and Schumann, and how to sing a song like
'Intermezzo' from Schumanns opus 39, where the pianist
and the voice are 1/16th apart from each other and
have to accelerate!.

Well, after having done all this (11 of the songs were
new to me and I do have a normal job) I should have
ended up in a mental institution, but instead of that
I gave this recital in a very beautiful place, with a
big Boesendorfer, the place with almost ful, the
weather was beautiful, and it went great, that is to
say: the public was enthusiastic about it.
Of course not everything I sang was perfect (I still
have to learn a lot, I know), but compared to the way
I sang just a few months before, it was so much
better, everybody also said I made so much progress.
What was bad: I had some intonation problems now and
then (when going down the scale), in the past, when I
sang less legato, I did not have those problems. I
know that when concentrating on it and keeping my rib
cage open, it does not happen, so I don't despair, but
I must say I feel always very ashamed when a note is
not in tune, or even not in place.

One big improvement: my voice did not even crack once;
all the higher notes (between f and a flat, there were
no higher ones in this program) were sure.
I also was very happy about the fact, that although my
nervousness made me sing less open here and there, I
did not compromise on the expression part: I sang
piano and pianissimo where en whenever I wanted to,
and also took all the tempi like we agreed on before.
The fact that my diction and my low notes got so much
better, enabled my also to compensate for the relative
lack of drama: 2'12 for Mozart's An Chloe and '45 for
'Ein Juengling liebt ein Maedchen'
(Schumann/Dichterliebe) is really fast, don't you
think?

Now the questions:
1. After the first part, my 'support muscles' (between
hips and navel) really hurted, it felt like having
done sports very very intensively. I had to lay down
for ten minues and then it was gone. After the pause
everything went much easier. Did I oversupport? I have
sung the complete program a couple of times before you
know, and then it did not happen. This question is
related to:
2. After the pause I also sang, besides Schubert,
Mozart. It were those songs, that went the best, by
far. Is not that strange? Mozart wants you to go up
and down your passagio range quite often, and mostly
does not give you even time to breathe. My accompanist
says, it is because Mozart was a genious and knew
exactly how to write for each instrument (so certainly
for a 'Mozart-tenor'). In my experience working on the
songs was also very strange: it started very
difficult, but each time I sang them they became
easier, until it sounded quite, how shall I put it,
instrumental, the notes just came out of my throat as
if I did not have to do anything for it. Should I
continue singing Mozart now, as a kind of vocal
exercise or should I try to find the same feeling when
singing Schumann, e.g.? Or is it only the difference
between singing higher (Mozart) and lower (Schumann),
and am I just surprised because singing in the
passagio used to be difficult, but now should be
considered as easy? (Some of the passagio notes like f
and f sharp I love to sing meanwhile, it is something
physical.)

Many greetings and thanks,

Dre

Program:
Schubert:
Liebhaber in allen Gestalten D 558 (Goethe)
Fruehlingsglaube D 686 (Uhland)
Im Fruehling D 882 (Schulze)
Robert Schumann
from: Dichterliebe, op. 48 (Heine)
Hoer ich das Liedchen klingen (X)
Ein Juengling liebt ein Maedchen (XI)
Am leuchtendem Sommermorgen (XII)
from: Liederkreis op. 39 (Eichendorf):
In der Fremde (I)
Intermezzo (II)
Auf einer Burg (VII)
--pause--
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
An Chloe KV 524 (Jacobi)
Abendempfindung an Laura KV 523 (n.n.)
Das Lied der Trennung KV 519 (Schmidt)
Franz Schubert:
Auf dem Wasser zu singen D 774 Stolberg)
An Silvia D 891 (Shakespeare, transl. Bauernfeld)
Staendchen (from: Schwanengesang)D 957 (Grillparzer


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  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
1713 Re: 1st recital, longish, sorry, with 2 questions DIANE M. CLARK (MUSIC DEPARTM   Thu  5/18/2000   2 KB
1721 Re: 1st recital, longish, sorry, with 2 questions John Alexander Blyth   Thu  5/18/2000   3 KB
1739 Re: 1st recital, longish, sorry, with 2 questions Ian Belsey   Fri  5/19/2000   4 KB

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