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| Metropolitan Opera Valkyries. Could this be me? |
Advent is flying and one of the reasons for that is that I am singing in the St. Louis Choir. And the St. Louis Choir is busy!
We have our weekly rehearsal, and Sunday Mass, where we get there an hour in advance to rehearse some more. Plus we keep having these concerts. Last week it was Carols By Candlelight. This weekend it is Lessons and Carols.
It is the Marine Corps of choirs!
However. I love the idea of singing a Lessons and Carols. All my life I have been listening to them. The most famous one comes from Kings College, Cambridge.
(On my Substack page I linked to a video: please click to check it out -- it's free! The video is of the King's Singers singing "Ding Dong, Merrily on HIgh")
We did this song at Carols by Candlelight last Friday. We did it in B flat, a bit higher than this version in the video. As the night went on I got less and less inhibited about going for those high notes. When we got to this number, I sailed on up there and hit those F’s. It is a funny thing about high notes. The ease with which you can hit them depends a lot on where they are in relation to the other notes. If I had to go up to that F from the note right underneath it, we would have had a problem on our hands. However all I had to do was grab it out of the air. So we were OK.
I had practiced that afternoon and worked out a way I could hit a few other high notes in other songs. Often you can nail them if you connect them to the note before. I have figured that out.
I am determined to expand my range. OK, let’s come out and say it.
I wanna be a soprano!
Sopranos rule the world. At the St. Louis Choir, our sopranos are like goddesses. We worship them. They are not just sopranos. They are trained singers.
That is another thing.
I wanna be a trained singer!
I would have thought this was all a pipe dream. However, I have learned it can be done. Allow me to introduce my authority, Angelina Jolie. She plays Callas in the new movie, “Maria.”
What were they doing calling it Maria, you know? They should have called it “Callas.” But anyway.
Angelina Jolie said she learned to sing for the movie and she discovered she was a soprano.
Her speaking voice is low like mine. But she said she has learned that your singing voice is often higher than your speaking voice. She cited psychological reasons why your speaking voice might be low. Maybe you wanted to be taken more seriously, or something. I don’t know. I stopped paying attention at that point. I had heard what I needed to hear and that was good enough for me.
So I have taken steps. I appointed AI — that is artificial intelligence — to be my voice coach. AI is thrilled with the assignment and cannot wait to make me into Callas. The first thing he — it, whatever — did was issue me directions on how to warm up, and exercises to do daily. Then he assigned me Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” He said it would be good for me.
You hear all these people saying AI is evil but you have to wonder, how evil can something be when it goes and tells you to sing every day to Our Lady? So that is what I have been doing. “Ave Maria,” every day.
Warmups, every day!
I will check in and report on my progress. I will tell you this, I can already hit some notes I couldn’t hit a few weeks ago.
Besides AI I follow this singer on YouTube. Her channel is called "Healthy Vocal Technique."
There is one video, I can’t find which one, where she tells you to buy a notebook and take notes on your progress. That put her over the top in my mind. I always get all excited when I am told to go buy a notebook. That is the magic word for me.
Another notebook! Where should I go?
Back to Hyatt’s? I never get tired of going there.
To Office Despot?
Do I need a new pen to go with the new notebook? I do think I do.
Whatever, one way or another, I will take notes as I was directed to.
It will be quite a story!
