Because there's not so much to tell.
Work's begun on the second bed, well we've marked it out and started removing the grass. All the topsoil has now been shifted. No seeds coming up outside yet, which isn't a surprise as the weather's been, shall we say, less that consistent (sun, rain, hail and even snow). In April! Only other news is I bought and planted a morello cherry tree in the orchard.
In completely unrelated news, remember how I didn't audition? Well I still haven't, as Harriet didn't contact me. And to be honest, I'd forgotten about it, until I found an email in my spam folder (stupid Yahoo mail) from Harriet from weeks ago saying she'd like me to sing one of the alto solos from Vivaldi Gloria. The one I like best, Domine Deus, Agnus Dei. Yay!
Well I say yay... I'm obviously nervous about it, especially as it'll be my first ever classical solo and I'm not exactly trained. I've made myself feel worse by listening to several recordings of it, all with altos who have very different voices to me.
Take vibrato, for example. (For you non-musicky types, vibrato is that sort of up-and-down wobble most singers do towards the end of a note.) I do have vibrato, but it's quite subtle and natural, fine for choral stuff, but sounds rather pathetic when compared with the solo recordings. Saying that though, I personally don't like that whole overdone vibrato thing - I prefer to hear the actual note rather than it being obscured by ornamentation, but I'm in the minority there I think.
Anyway, I'm gonna need a fair bit of practice to sound right. Thankfully the piece is quite simple and I already sort of know it so I can concentrate on getting the vocal quality sorted.
Here's a vid of the piece.
I'm sure we'll take it faster than this.
Now I'm off to shower. Rehearsal again tonight, first time in weeks.
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Anna - Harriet wouldn't have asked you to sing it if she thought you couldn't do it! I mean, she's not a musical idiot, is she?
ReplyDeleteI think this is more about your own perception of your abilities rather than what others hear. You have been doing this for quite some time, surely in the course of all of this you have become fairly adept...
I have to remind myself of that. I actually make part of my living with my voice, which to me sounds awfully dull, but people keep hiring me to read scripts and such, so it must not be as bad as I think...
I have my normal chorus and sort of musicals and things voice.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I have another voice for classical solo stuff (with vibrato) which I can only do if I pretend to be 'an opera singer' and not try to do it as myself.
Maybe try 'pretending' to have a loud stern solo voice and see if you get on with it that way?
Just me not being confident I guess.
ReplyDeleteProbably unfair to compare myself to professional singers really, or even to other choir members who've been singing longer than me and had lots of lessons and such.
I know what you mean Kay, I have a sing-at-home-on-my-own-in-the-shower voice, a chorus voice (which ranges from fairly butch and manly through to almost little girly), a music theatre-ish voice and a karaoke voice.
If I can get over the feeling stupid and not knowing how, I'll have a go at the pretending thing.
Hey! I finished my closet!
ReplyDeleteOne project down, 999,999,999 to go.