Lea Ann Martin wrote:
<<Well, my voice teacher called me today. She tells me that
she will be staying in bed until her baby is born..somtime
early next month. And then she will take two weeks off. So
my recital is the first weekend of May,
She said she thought Lovliest of Trees would be fine for me
and to stick with it. She said Voi Che Sepate...was too
frivilous for me and to choose something more appropriate.
I mentioned that I didn't feel I would be ready at all for a
recital the first weekend in May, but she said I had ample
time to get ready.>>
I'm sorry your teacher is on a month of bed rest. My sister
went through that for almost two months with her second (of
three). It was not a pleasant experience! They finally let
her out of bed when the baby was a certain size, and then it
was two more weeks until my (now 15-years old and terrific)
nephew decided to come into the world.
As to the singing aspects, I'd say the stragey now should be
to "chill out." I think there's no point getting yourself
worked up over what sounds like a studio group recital,
where you're probably each singing 2 or 3 selections for
each other and a few friends (am I right?).
Either you trust your teacher, or you don't. Since you've
not been with her long, and the stakes aren't high, I'd
recommend trusting her for now and taking her advice. And
then do your best and don't worry any more about it. The
worst case, you don't perform the songs as well as you would
have liked to have. The world will keep on spinning, and
you'll keep on singing.
Or you can decide after singing the songs for your teacher
after she returns to teaching that you're not going to
perform - after all, nobody's holding a gun to your head!
As to a strategy for working on the new music in your
teacher's absence, use the time to get solid on the notes
and rhythms, and memorize the text apart from the music so
you can say it inside-out and backwards, with feeling. Any
foreign language text, use the time to make your own
word-for-word translation with a dictionary and memorize the
translation so you can say it out loud with meaning. Find
and listen to recordings of the music, and note differences
in interpretations and phrasings. If you run into vocal
problems with certain sections that you can't resolve in a
very few repetitions, I'd recommend not singing them (out
loud) further until you can work with your teacher. But if
you need to sing to learn the music, you can practice it an
octave down or a lower key or whistle. This is to avoid
accidentally working the new music into your voice the
"wrong way".
Good luck, and let us know how it goes for you.
Peggy
--
Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
"Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile"
mailto:peggyh@i...
|
