Journal Week 8
I have my performance this week. I plan on practicing quiet a bit to get ready for it....
On Monday I worked on the piece with my friend Karen. Karen is in voice lesson and she plays the piano so she was able to help me a lot. I don't like to sing by myself in front of others either so this also helped me to work on my nerves. Karen played the piano for me so we could stop when I really needed to work on something. The first thing we worked on was getting the rhythm right for the section in the middle of the piece..."....and there was music, and there was wonderful roses..." I was having a lot of trouble with this section but we worked it out. I can read music so Karen taught me a little about what the notes and rests were and thinking about this made it easier to get the section. After my workshop I knew that I needed to work on using my head voice and not singing from my throat so Karen helped me with this. She told me to really think about a sensation in my nose area and forehead and this helped, the practice helped me greatly.
On Tuesday I worked on the song with my boyfriend, Andy. Andy is in choir and also plays piano. I am most scared to sing in front of him because I have no experience and he has quiet a bit and I'm not confident in my voice yet. I thought that taking a risk and singing in front of him would really prepare my nerves for the performance. Andy gave me some good advice and direction as well. I noticed because I was so nervous my breathing got all messed up so I really had to work on this. The thing that ended up working for me was not thinking about who was listening and focusing on my self. Then I took deep breaths and thought about feeling my center of gravity and intercostals working. Once I got my breath worked out Andy said my sound was very immature and to fix this I might try working on pulling the sound out of my throat. So, even though I had worked on Monday with singing from my throat I still continued to slip back into a bad habit again. He suggested relaxing my face and jaw...like when Paul talks about the watching T.V face. I also worked on my performance and thought about what to do with my body and hands to make myself look comfortable.
I felt like performance went pretty well. At least it was better then I thought it would be. I realize I have trouble staring and getting into a piece because of my nerves but as I continue I relax and things get better. I really want to focus on this for my next performance.