Hello there LJ!
....long time no update! And I see quite a few things have changed about the general look of LJ while I've been navelgazing elsewhere....
You know how you think of lots of things you might want to tell people, but then you get distracted or lose confidence that anyone - even yourself - gives two hoots about what you have to say? Yeah. That.
I did do something of interest this weekend though! Two things, really; Saturday morning saw me and the Admiral/Superchoir gangs down Chapter Arts Centre in Canton, for a gig to raise money for Tenovus. It's always cool when we have gigs that combine several of the choirs, as the more voices the better the sound. It was a long set; three sets of three songs, followed by an encore after the raffle, but it seemed to go really, really well. Patrick, the Superchoir faciliator, was conducting us and Dave, the Admiral facilitator, was in amongst the Tenors. We usually struggle with getting enough male voices, but with the four choirs combined there were thankfully enough. Andrea, George and Emma came and joined the ladies for the encore, which was 'Lean On Me' - Andrea's voice always stands out when she joins us, being classically trained and everything :-) She lets fly with these lovely vocal runs at the conclusion to the songs, which always adds that little something extra.
Saturday evening, we treked our way to another remote part of the city across the motorway from the boondocks where we reluctantly reside, so I could have my first ever face-to-face singing lesson with a lovely lady called Angela. Angela knows and has worked with George and Andrea in the past, so I know she's good at what she does, and I thoroughly enjoyed my lesson. She had me working on getting the nasality out of my tone, and also some work on crossing over from my chest voice to my head voice - at one point she had me quite easily hitting the C above Middle C, which is around my break these days. It always frustrates me as I still feel like I should be able to hit that note like I did when I was younger. I realise that voices change as we get older, but that C still seems so low that it bugs me anyway! :-) It's the E above it that I should be struggling with, surely! *chuckles*
Interestingly, she didn't say anything to indicate she thought I was playing it safe singing as low as I normally do in choir - unlike when I had a Skype lesson with Eric. She actually kept me down in the Alto/high Tenor range for the most part, but maybe that's because she was just focusing on the break rather than exploring my head voice too. She also had some observations about my stammer in relation to my breathing - often describing it as a 'tsunami' of breath, and that I didn't tend to stammer if I hadn't taken a breath immediately prior to speaking. It was interesting, and she was a little affectionate-but-stern-school-teacher about working on improving that - which, to my dismay, made me choke up a little bit but I think I mostly retained my composure, and therefore a modicum of dignity. I think it was an element of 'holy crap, does this mean there actually is something that can be done?' All my year of therapy when I was sixteen consisted of was talking about my feelings with regards to my stammer, which did me no good whatsoever! I was in a good place the following year when the therapist asked me if I felt it was worth continuing - to which I responded an emphatic no! - but the April I turned seventeen was a good time for me; I'd met my best friends for life, I was in my first relationship and still pretty content with it, tertiary college was going well.... I was just generally fairly happy at that point in my life.
I'm booked in again in three weeks time, though that kind of gap between lessons is really not ideal. It's going to be a struggle getting the fee together for that though, let alone weekly lessons. This is something I want to do, though, and maybe I'm being selfish but it's just nice to do something for me for a change.
You know how you think of lots of things you might want to tell people, but then you get distracted or lose confidence that anyone - even yourself - gives two hoots about what you have to say? Yeah. That.
I did do something of interest this weekend though! Two things, really; Saturday morning saw me and the Admiral/Superchoir gangs down Chapter Arts Centre in Canton, for a gig to raise money for Tenovus. It's always cool when we have gigs that combine several of the choirs, as the more voices the better the sound. It was a long set; three sets of three songs, followed by an encore after the raffle, but it seemed to go really, really well. Patrick, the Superchoir faciliator, was conducting us and Dave, the Admiral facilitator, was in amongst the Tenors. We usually struggle with getting enough male voices, but with the four choirs combined there were thankfully enough. Andrea, George and Emma came and joined the ladies for the encore, which was 'Lean On Me' - Andrea's voice always stands out when she joins us, being classically trained and everything :-) She lets fly with these lovely vocal runs at the conclusion to the songs, which always adds that little something extra.
Saturday evening, we treked our way to another remote part of the city across the motorway from the boondocks where we reluctantly reside, so I could have my first ever face-to-face singing lesson with a lovely lady called Angela. Angela knows and has worked with George and Andrea in the past, so I know she's good at what she does, and I thoroughly enjoyed my lesson. She had me working on getting the nasality out of my tone, and also some work on crossing over from my chest voice to my head voice - at one point she had me quite easily hitting the C above Middle C, which is around my break these days. It always frustrates me as I still feel like I should be able to hit that note like I did when I was younger. I realise that voices change as we get older, but that C still seems so low that it bugs me anyway! :-) It's the E above it that I should be struggling with, surely! *chuckles*
Interestingly, she didn't say anything to indicate she thought I was playing it safe singing as low as I normally do in choir - unlike when I had a Skype lesson with Eric. She actually kept me down in the Alto/high Tenor range for the most part, but maybe that's because she was just focusing on the break rather than exploring my head voice too. She also had some observations about my stammer in relation to my breathing - often describing it as a 'tsunami' of breath, and that I didn't tend to stammer if I hadn't taken a breath immediately prior to speaking. It was interesting, and she was a little affectionate-but-stern-school-teacher about working on improving that - which, to my dismay, made me choke up a little bit but I think I mostly retained my composure, and therefore a modicum of dignity. I think it was an element of 'holy crap, does this mean there actually is something that can be done?' All my year of therapy when I was sixteen consisted of was talking about my feelings with regards to my stammer, which did me no good whatsoever! I was in a good place the following year when the therapist asked me if I felt it was worth continuing - to which I responded an emphatic no! - but the April I turned seventeen was a good time for me; I'd met my best friends for life, I was in my first relationship and still pretty content with it, tertiary college was going well.... I was just generally fairly happy at that point in my life.
I'm booked in again in three weeks time, though that kind of gap between lessons is really not ideal. It's going to be a struggle getting the fee together for that though, let alone weekly lessons. This is something I want to do, though, and maybe I'm being selfish but it's just nice to do something for me for a change.