(no subject)
"I forgot to take the a tempo."
"Ha ha ha ha ha, that will do it."
"I'm just not buying the breaths."
"It sounds too espangole."
(Me) "Help."
Yesterday was the first opportunity to put my Christmas present into action. Recording your lesson for the first time is a bit like seeing the town you've spent your whole life in from the air for the first time--everything is strange and foreign yet errily familiar, and some things that you never noticed but were right in front of you all along you notice for the first time. Lessons with Leslie almost always feature as much shits and giggles as they do actual musical instruction--I know this-- but hearing one played back I see for the first time the way laughter follows funny jokes just as frequently as the unfunny ones. Then there are the spots where Leslie swears I'm late to a downbeat or entrance, or I'm rushing, and I take her word for it without really knowing what she's talking about. But play it back and of course she's right. I mean it's so blatently obvious, anyone could hear it.
And my voice! I sound gayer than I realized. Listen to me say 'Maybe it's the barrel' or 'Can we both agree that the composer didn't have the performers in mind' and it's all there. The inflection upwards in pitch. The sighing at the end. The slurred articulation. Although I sound lower than I thought I did, there's still a boyish quality to it. At first I hated it, but once I got used to it, I decided it's not altogether displeasing. The dialect, too, is at once familiar (duh), but I have no idea where it comes from. Perhaps it is the composite of all the regional talk I have ever encountered (mostly southern and midwestern), or perhaps it is an imprinting of the voice of a single individual now long forgotten.
"Ha ha ha ha ha, that will do it."
"I'm just not buying the breaths."
"It sounds too espangole."
(Me) "Help."
Yesterday was the first opportunity to put my Christmas present into action. Recording your lesson for the first time is a bit like seeing the town you've spent your whole life in from the air for the first time--everything is strange and foreign yet errily familiar, and some things that you never noticed but were right in front of you all along you notice for the first time. Lessons with Leslie almost always feature as much shits and giggles as they do actual musical instruction--I know this-- but hearing one played back I see for the first time the way laughter follows funny jokes just as frequently as the unfunny ones. Then there are the spots where Leslie swears I'm late to a downbeat or entrance, or I'm rushing, and I take her word for it without really knowing what she's talking about. But play it back and of course she's right. I mean it's so blatently obvious, anyone could hear it.
And my voice! I sound gayer than I realized. Listen to me say 'Maybe it's the barrel' or 'Can we both agree that the composer didn't have the performers in mind' and it's all there. The inflection upwards in pitch. The sighing at the end. The slurred articulation. Although I sound lower than I thought I did, there's still a boyish quality to it. At first I hated it, but once I got used to it, I decided it's not altogether displeasing. The dialect, too, is at once familiar (duh), but I have no idea where it comes from. Perhaps it is the composite of all the regional talk I have ever encountered (mostly southern and midwestern), or perhaps it is an imprinting of the voice of a single individual now long forgotten.