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Oct. 30th, 2003 01:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darcydodoDude, the soloists for the Haydn are all pretty fucking awesome, but the alto just kicks major ass. She's so, so fucking incredible!!!!!! I want to be her when I grow up. And the baritone used to be in Chanticleer. Berkeley's such a great place to sing. :) The only soloist that I don't care for quite so much is the tenor; he sounds like he doesn't know his notes, but since he presumably does, I don't know what the deal is.
Also, my lesson today was good; I'm starting to remember problems I've encountered in the past and identify new ones beyond those. Maybe this whole being a singer thing could actually work some day. In the very far off future. I'm pretty sure, actually, that I'd take it over being a classicist, except I suppose it's a lot more uncertain. What if you're sick? Or just have a really bad day? Or does that just not happen once you're good enough that you're Really Good? (Well, being sick obviously happens, but I heard Dawn Upshaw sing when she was sick, and she still sounded fantastic, she just didn't do the pieces she would otherwise have done that went above high C.) Also, I'm convinced that I sing better when I'm singing in my lesson. Which isn't to say that I can't sing like that in other situations, of course, just that I've not yet figured out how; and this is problematic, because I don't know what the difference is. I can't hear myself as well or identify problems as well when I'm not singing for Deborah.
Glug.
And I need to memorize all my P5 pieces so that we can sing them in churches at random whims without having bits that fall apart or go randomly out of tune. (Though the out-of-tune-ness on "Timor" was due to lack of parts, I think.)
Oh, and I so want to sing the rest of the pieces that go with Josquin's "Ave Vera Virginitas," now that Esther's told us that it's an entire cycle.
I felt bad for telling Lily to shut up so sharply today, but she's such a child, it's ridiculous. If someone asks you to be quiet, then you be quiet! Ugh!!! (Especially when you don't know the person. It's called respect. Honestly.)
Also, my lesson today was good; I'm starting to remember problems I've encountered in the past and identify new ones beyond those. Maybe this whole being a singer thing could actually work some day. In the very far off future. I'm pretty sure, actually, that I'd take it over being a classicist, except I suppose it's a lot more uncertain. What if you're sick? Or just have a really bad day? Or does that just not happen once you're good enough that you're Really Good? (Well, being sick obviously happens, but I heard Dawn Upshaw sing when she was sick, and she still sounded fantastic, she just didn't do the pieces she would otherwise have done that went above high C.) Also, I'm convinced that I sing better when I'm singing in my lesson. Which isn't to say that I can't sing like that in other situations, of course, just that I've not yet figured out how; and this is problematic, because I don't know what the difference is. I can't hear myself as well or identify problems as well when I'm not singing for Deborah.
Glug.
And I need to memorize all my P5 pieces so that we can sing them in churches at random whims without having bits that fall apart or go randomly out of tune. (Though the out-of-tune-ness on "Timor" was due to lack of parts, I think.)
Oh, and I so want to sing the rest of the pieces that go with Josquin's "Ave Vera Virginitas," now that Esther's told us that it's an entire cycle.
I felt bad for telling Lily to shut up so sharply today, but she's such a child, it's ridiculous. If someone asks you to be quiet, then you be quiet! Ugh!!! (Especially when you don't know the person. It's called respect. Honestly.)
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Date: 2003-10-30 10:01 pm (UTC)Oh, I'd agree that this is definitely the case as well. However, I was noticing this morning, while looking at the very simple Gluck aria, that I was actually registering better what notes on the staff were what, and hence there was much less delay between me looking at the page and me hitting the note on the keyboard. :)
I'd lend you a load of scores, except I'm in Italy, you're in California and my scores are in Scotland. But if you've got a big telescope you might see them.
*sniffle* I'll have to go up to the Lawrence Science Lab and take over the telescope, and refocus it down to earth.
I'm not sure what the deal is with non-music-students actually checking scores out of the library, but it's probably OK, so long as they're not on reserve.
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Date: 2003-10-31 03:06 pm (UTC)Be very carefully when reading music that you aren't thinking... this is an A, there is an A on the piano I'll play that note. Sure, you have to think like that to find the first note; but after that there is no need to 'spell' the music.
When you read words, you don't read the individual letters in them, and then put the letters together to recognise the word. You recognise the entire word as a pattern, if it's not a word you recognise you go down one level into syllables, etc... If you try to read an unpronouncable word in some slavic language, you are so slow because none of the patterns in the word make sense.
And similarly with reading music. Once you've got your fist note, read the next note relative to the first. It is most likely to be up or down a step; sometimes up or down a third. Until the 20th century, almost all lines went up or down a step or a small interval almost all of the time. Then because the piano is an ordered array of notes, if it goes up a step, you go up a note on the piano; and play that note. It doesn't matter what it is called. It is very important to try and teach yourself to think like this at the beginning. As a singer; you are most likely to do this anyway.
Eventually, you then start noticing bigger sets of patterns; that simply comes with practice. There are excercises you can do to help this along, but they will come later. And one of the biggest advantages of learning the piano for a singer is reading patterns in music. You see a pattern on the page - you think, oh I played that pattern before, it sounded like this. And then you sing it without even thinking.
I could (and have done in the past) go on about this for hours. I think my methods work as well: I was fairly succesful at teaching sight-singing, and beginner pianists to read music; and also (without modesty for a change from me!), I'm one of the best sight-readers I know (comes partly from being lazy when I was young, if I could sight read a piece, I wouldn't have to practice it; and my teachers then usually didn't know the difference...)
Once more, best of luck with it all!