On Recording and Friends

Monday night was a busy day for me and my husband. I did my usual 9-5 job thing, and after work went straight to church. Ok, well, I got a couple burritos and a half-dozen dounuts on the way...

Anyway, the plan for the evening was to have a recording session at my church. I wanted to record myself singing a few arias to have on hand as demos. I bought some high tech vocal microphones, on Svet's recommendation, a few months ago. These AKG mics are highly sensitive and are especially made for solo instruments and vocals, and they're rather expensive. I figured this would be a long-term investment, and I hope these are the only pair of mics we have to buy. Svet had all the rest of the recording hardware and software needed to record. I contacted the best accompanist I could think of in the area, Eric Trudel, who was available to help out. SCORE! I also had a fellow soprano friend contact me a few months before to ask if I had any suggestions on how she too could make a demo. I figured, if we were going through the whole ordeal of having to set up for a recording for me, it wouldn't be a big deal if she joined us to record some of her own arias too. So, I extended an invitation to my pal, and once everyone gathered at the church, we got going started.

We got to the church, only to find that the piano wasn't really tuned, and, well, wasn't what I thought it would be. It's a nice old piano, but it needed some work. I had thought about every detail of this recording session beforehand, but had taken for granted that the piano would be "in shape." Lesson #1.

Once we got set up, my friend began with a lovely Berlioz aria. She's got a great voice, and she's technically very strong. She chose very long, florid arias, in general, all of which showed off both legato/sustained and mellismatic/florid styles of singing. My only concern was that they were rather long. Do people who listen to demo CDs actually listen to a 7 min aria all the way through? It's a sincere question, because I don't know. Maybe a CD recording is just the place to present a longer aria. The adjucator can always fast forward if they want to, unlike in live auditions.


At the end of her first aria, my friend admitted that she felt she was getting sick. And it showed in her voice toward the end of the 2nd time through of the Berlioz. It just sounded tired. I suggested that she let me record something, thereby giving her 20-30 min of vocal rest. She could always come back to it later and see if it's any better.

So, I started with the most delicate, exposed piece of my three scheduled for the evening -- "Lorsque vous n'aurez rein a faire" from Cherubin. It was first because I didn't want to risk vocal fatigue while recording something so exposed. The damn piano was also pretty exposed in this piece, showing off its refined flat tuning and stunning squeaky sustain pedal...

After I had taken as many takes I figured I needed to choose from, my friend came back for round two - Donizetti's "O luce di quest anima." That aria is no walk in the park, yet, with the 30min of vocal rest behind her, she came back strong! Lesson #2.

The rest of the night went like that. She and I alternated, and we both benefited from the moral support, vocal rest, and even singerly advice to each other. Granted, the poor pianist didn't get much rest, but he was a great sport about it.

So there you have it. Two lessons, one blog.

Cold Fronts and the Not-So-Reluctant Receptionist

I guess from the 22 years of conditioning I went through while in school (K-12 plus the extra 1st grade I had to take, plus 1 year of undergrad, 2 years of Associates Degree, 3 years of Bachelor Degree, and two years of Masters Degree), fall weather always makes me feel complex. It's this complicated mixture of excitement, dread, anxiety, new beginnings, old friends, goal setting, people meeting, school shopping, first impressions, earlier crepuscular hours... It's a general increased activity to prepare for the upcoming year.

Is it any coincidence that at the same time our hibernating animal friends also go through the same increased frenetic preparatory activities? I don't think so.

Anyway, I'm going on the second fall season in a row in 24 years when I'm not beginning classes. Yet, I still have some of the same conditioned freneticism. This feeling last year was bothersome -- I was just settling in to a new state and city having moved that summer, I was maintaning an easy cosmetics job that I had already grown to hate, and was just about to start my new church job. I entered the cool New Haven autum season with a rather simple life (no, not Paris and Nicole's "Simple Life"): I had two great "gal pals," Svet and I had a tight one-bedroom apartment in which to explore co-habitation - I wasn't doing much more than work and church... But, I got kind of depressed. Dusk's early approach, my unflattering winter clothes, my strickingly short ackward-growing-out-stage of a boy-cut hair style left over from the last opera I did, all didn't do much to help me along into the first season of a lifetime of playing hooky from school. Not to mention we were living in a big college town. And not just any college town - Yale's college town.

And then September came. Something clicked in me around August 31st/September 1st. The first cool front of the season brought with it a gradually increasing amount of adreline. I decided even on my near poverty-line income level, and yes, even with the repayment of my enormous school loans fast approaching, that I needed a car. Not just any car, a new car. I didn't really have a reason to get a car. I mean, I walked to work, and could always get rides from my fellow church goers. But, something in me said that I needed to make a big jump and make my very first car purchase.

I bought my new Toyota on September 11th last year. Random.

And about a week after that, I left my cosmetics job (a field I had been working in for more than 10 years while in school) and was placed in an office as a receptionist/admin assistant by a temp agency. I bought the car before I had the job. By the middle of October, I was the permanent receptionist at a nice little family office that paid me fairly. Not a lot, but fair. And by that point I had received my first pay check from church. That's when I learned exactly why people have church jobs.

I know all that doesn't really sound like much, and has nothing to do with music, but it does. I took some risks, got proactive and made some changes that seemed like big deals at the time. I went from a restrictive day-job surrounded by high school dropouts, to a desk job which allowed me to work on my resume, bio, website, networking and side projects for 6 hours out of an 8 hour work day. From my desk, I was able to organize concerts, gather choir members, plan recitals, and generally keep busy. Ok, so maybe I was using some of their nice stationary too, but never too much.

So, here it is a year later and I'm about due for a raise. I'm again wrapped in the complex weather induced blanket of emotions. What am I cooking up this time around? No new car, and I'm keeping my job this time around (well, for now, at least). But I am gearing up to make my professional stage-directorial debut with Harbor Opera, and something else totally top secret, but oh-so-cool. I should be able to make a big announcement about it in a few months. And no, it has nothing to do with being or getting prego. That's not on the schedule till 2010 (fall, maybe?). I don't think it's totally a coincidence that Svet and I are planning our wedding ceremony for the fall, either.

Beyond my top-secret project which is keeping my plate rather full, I'm learning how to write grants and to fundraise. I've got lots of ideas but no money to do it with. That is one part of the job description that should be taught in school. We all know that most parents try to talk their kids out of a career in music because there's not as much money in it as, say a doctor or lawyer. But, if we were all trained how to create and maintain the financial nuts and bolts of a career in music, maybe fewer parents could think of a reason to deter their kids from this life. (But then again, that would mean more competition for us. Ah, Natural Selection, you are kind.) I think Peabody offered a business of music class, which I totally should have taken. Alas. I'm learning now, though. Crash course.

I am excited to see what else the season cooks up.

On Her Feet And Running.

All the cool kids are doing it, now. With cool things, I'm either on the cutting edge of cool, or I lag far behind the hip bus. No middle ground for me. But, it's better late than never, even with blogging.

I imagine most of my Blog-Visitors will be curious family, close friends, a few colleagues, and random people who search tags that say "opera," "swing dance," "soprano," "early music," or "dachshunds." With that being the assumption, there is no need to introduce myself. You already know who I am. And if you don't, then ask yourself if you're just being nosy or if you're a stalker/killer/bad person. If the answer is the former, then welcome. If the answer is the latter, then go away. And if you don't know how "former" and "latter" work in writing, then go away too (unless you're a kid, then I guess it's ok). Okaythanksbye.

Explanation on my blog title:

When I was in high school, my former and most beloved voice teacher, Kathleen Terbeek, gave me a book for my birthday. It was a book called, "A Soprano on Her Head: Right-Side-Up Reflections on Life and Other Performances," by Eloise Ristad. Eloise deals with topics such as inner judges, alternative learning methods (like standing on your head to sing), and a lot of common sense advice that transcends simple practical application. It's one of those books that stays with you, and calls you back from time to time to read it again. My Blog-Name is a personal tip-o-the-hat to Ms. Ristad.

Explanation on my blog purpose:

I intend this blog to delve more into the professional rather than personal side of my life. The reasons are probably obvious. I hope to be one small soprano voice in the blog-o-sphere that can shed some light on just one of the multitude of paths a young singer can take in his or her career. No one path is the "right" journey in a career in music -- especially vocal music.

With that said, I also hope to also throw in some purely random thoughts out there and see how they compete in the galaxy. If you know me, then you know I'm also a Very. Big. Goofball.

Okaythanksbye.