Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Stop the presses -- a NEW blog entry will be coming soon
So, now that I'm only working part-time -- I can fulfill everyone's requests on Facebook that I update Life in the semifast lane."
I am hoping to become an active blogger in the arts community, since music and art are my main recreational interests.
I don't want to SPILL THE BEANS too early, but I'm applying for the first time to attend a preview event specifically to be a blogger about it. Sooooo -- I will let you know if this comes to pass!
Your friend,
The Midwest Gal
Monday, June 14, 2010
Are you motivated?
Do you think of yourself as a highly motivated person? I have to admit that I am not one. When the summer Olympics were on TV, a friend and I were admiring some of the women athletes, but remarked that neither one of us would put in the time and effort needed to excel in any type of sport. For me, possibly target shooting, since I am already fairly good at that, and it requires mainly being able to stand still and concentrate, which I am also pretty good at. But my boss, who is my age, decided at about age 40 to get in shape, and now 12 years later he has run at least a dozen marathons. He probably thinks I’m a big couch potato, but if I’m running, it is only because someone is chasing me. Band camp and swim team both seemed like way too much effort to be putting out during the summer, so I never did either one. Well, swim team for a week before I realized how totally lacking in fun it was, and fortunately I was allowed to quit.
“Work smarter, not harder” is definitely one of my mottos. I am extremely industrious at work, and I have created various shortcuts and streamlined procedures to get more done. I have even taught these to other staff members, but many actually prefer to plod along rather than learn or remember a new and easier procedure. I am sure I do not work as hard as several of my coworkers, but I get more done, and whenever we have a short-term project that has any high-volume aspect to it, I’m always one of the lead people because I will get it done and still get my other work done. But there are times when it might appear that I am goofing off, which I might be. I am fortunate in that my current boss has a similar working style, so he generally just leaves me to do my thing. He assumes if I am eating nuts and listening to something on headphones and have several extraneous papers out on my desk, I can also be doing my work, which I usually am.
Every once in a while I will get very interested in something new – an activity or a topic, and I may participate in it or read about it fairly heavily, but generally I do lose interest eventually and move on to something else. Something that has managed to hold my interest for over ten years now is Sacred Harp shapenote singing. For the first couple of years, I attended one or two singings a month and then spent a couple of hours a week at home learning tunes and practicing leading. Now, however, while I still enjoy it, I’ve only been going a few times a year, mainly because other interests have supplanted that. When I’m retired and have more time, I expect to go back to more shapenote singing. There are people who have been in the May Festival Chorus for 20 years or more, but I can’t imagine sticking with the same thing for that long. For one thing, that rules out doing so many other things. I have boxes of needlepoint and beading supplies from times when I was more interested in those activities, and they also may be things I will revisit in retirement. I planted all perennials because I can continue to enjoy them while no longer really having an interest in working with them on a daily basis.
Neurolinguistic Programming generalizes that there are 2 types of people, those that are motivated to move TOWARDS pleasure or what they want, and those that are motivated to move AWAY FROM pain or what they don’t want. I am generally an “away from” person – I floss my teeth every day because I don’t want gum disease; I arrive on time for work every day because I don’t want to get in trouble; sometimes I go along with the crowd because I don’t want to be criticized or ridiculed. I am willing to spend money now (replaced both oxygen sensors in the car when the engine light came on) to avoid MORE pain later (burning out the catalytic converter if I waited too long). I suspect that the “towards” people might feel a higher level of motivation to accomplish whatever their goal is as compared to my motivation mainly to avoid negative outcomes.
If I am motivated in the short term, it is often for some convoluted reason that many people would not even see as germane to the situation at hand. This has always been the case, and my mother picks up on that right away – “And you’re doing this because???” Over the years she has been surprisingly supportive when I wanted to do something off-the-wall for some bizarre reason, usually a reason that I would not even reveal. I am still this way, and I can be found at meetings or activities in which I have no real interest, but there is some tangential thing that does interest me – possibly just the building it is held in, or someone I hope to meet who may or may not even be coming, or I think something will happen that will be worth watching, because I do like watching interesting things going on. On occasion I’ve been pleasantly surprised and developed an interest in something new once I got involved, so this tendency does expand my horizons.
I’ve recently been doing … something … that seems to me to be a total waste of time in terms of what the goal is SUPPOSED to be, but there is one aspect that I am enjoying a great deal that is not a component of any other activity I have done, and it takes up most of the time, and for me, that is good enough reason to participate. The thing I like so much is even optional, and we had the choice to not include it. Without this “option”, I would not be interested at all – which I would not say because it seems to me rather shallow, so I don’t want to admit it. I happen to also like the building and grounds where this takes place, and I would otherwise have no reason to go there. So I just go and I don’t make many comments -- I think there would be some hurt feelings if I told people who are serious about the activity that I think it is a waste of time, and on occasion, a bit too close to laughable – last time around there was something new that caught me off-guard that struck me as really funny and I was glad none of my snarky friends were with me or we would have been giggling and possibly asked to leave. I was telling my mother about it, though, and she observed that perhaps over time I will find the real value in this activity. Ya never know, it is quite possible. My mother is usually right.
On occasion I do get genuinely motivated. Right now I am very gung-ho about my classical singing. While rehearsing the Bach cantata “Wachet auf” (which I was doing as a favor to the director and not because I had much interest in doing it), I was filling in one time on soprano and realized I could now hit notes that totally eluded me when I was a voice major in college. Then I joined the women’s chorale “Women in song” (because I wanted to work with the director, who left before I even joined, but I decided to check them out anyway), and the new director was OK with me singing along with the sopranos during the warm-ups, and I felt the same way – that I finally could hit the notes that I never could back when it would have mattered.
So now I’m taking voice lessons. I am not sure exactly what my motivation is – I get hired all the time and I don’t need to sing better to get gigs. The fact that the new director of Women in Song teaches voice and is a fascinating individual is a big part of it. A male soprano, formerly of Chanticleer, and even after the initial shock value of hearing a guy sing soprano wore off, I was very impressed with his vocal technique. I had the feeling, “I could sing that way”, while more often I hear or see someone really good and think that I could NEVER sing that way. He also was very patient during the stressful times of final rehearsals, unlike many musicians I have worked with. In many ways I want to get over all my bad memories of studying voice more than I want to be all that much better – all of which I told him at the outset. I never felt comfortable enough to be honest with my original voice teacher in college, so I wanted to be sure I didn’t recreate that situation now. If I end up singing better, that will be fine, but if I just end up feeling better about singing, that is enough for me.
I don’t know when something new will motivate me and maybe I won’t want to devote so much time to singing. I do have two banjos collecting dust in my master bedroom ….
“Work smarter, not harder” is definitely one of my mottos. I am extremely industrious at work, and I have created various shortcuts and streamlined procedures to get more done. I have even taught these to other staff members, but many actually prefer to plod along rather than learn or remember a new and easier procedure. I am sure I do not work as hard as several of my coworkers, but I get more done, and whenever we have a short-term project that has any high-volume aspect to it, I’m always one of the lead people because I will get it done and still get my other work done. But there are times when it might appear that I am goofing off, which I might be. I am fortunate in that my current boss has a similar working style, so he generally just leaves me to do my thing. He assumes if I am eating nuts and listening to something on headphones and have several extraneous papers out on my desk, I can also be doing my work, which I usually am.
Every once in a while I will get very interested in something new – an activity or a topic, and I may participate in it or read about it fairly heavily, but generally I do lose interest eventually and move on to something else. Something that has managed to hold my interest for over ten years now is Sacred Harp shapenote singing. For the first couple of years, I attended one or two singings a month and then spent a couple of hours a week at home learning tunes and practicing leading. Now, however, while I still enjoy it, I’ve only been going a few times a year, mainly because other interests have supplanted that. When I’m retired and have more time, I expect to go back to more shapenote singing. There are people who have been in the May Festival Chorus for 20 years or more, but I can’t imagine sticking with the same thing for that long. For one thing, that rules out doing so many other things. I have boxes of needlepoint and beading supplies from times when I was more interested in those activities, and they also may be things I will revisit in retirement. I planted all perennials because I can continue to enjoy them while no longer really having an interest in working with them on a daily basis.
Neurolinguistic Programming generalizes that there are 2 types of people, those that are motivated to move TOWARDS pleasure or what they want, and those that are motivated to move AWAY FROM pain or what they don’t want. I am generally an “away from” person – I floss my teeth every day because I don’t want gum disease; I arrive on time for work every day because I don’t want to get in trouble; sometimes I go along with the crowd because I don’t want to be criticized or ridiculed. I am willing to spend money now (replaced both oxygen sensors in the car when the engine light came on) to avoid MORE pain later (burning out the catalytic converter if I waited too long). I suspect that the “towards” people might feel a higher level of motivation to accomplish whatever their goal is as compared to my motivation mainly to avoid negative outcomes.
If I am motivated in the short term, it is often for some convoluted reason that many people would not even see as germane to the situation at hand. This has always been the case, and my mother picks up on that right away – “And you’re doing this because???” Over the years she has been surprisingly supportive when I wanted to do something off-the-wall for some bizarre reason, usually a reason that I would not even reveal. I am still this way, and I can be found at meetings or activities in which I have no real interest, but there is some tangential thing that does interest me – possibly just the building it is held in, or someone I hope to meet who may or may not even be coming, or I think something will happen that will be worth watching, because I do like watching interesting things going on. On occasion I’ve been pleasantly surprised and developed an interest in something new once I got involved, so this tendency does expand my horizons.
I’ve recently been doing … something … that seems to me to be a total waste of time in terms of what the goal is SUPPOSED to be, but there is one aspect that I am enjoying a great deal that is not a component of any other activity I have done, and it takes up most of the time, and for me, that is good enough reason to participate. The thing I like so much is even optional, and we had the choice to not include it. Without this “option”, I would not be interested at all – which I would not say because it seems to me rather shallow, so I don’t want to admit it. I happen to also like the building and grounds where this takes place, and I would otherwise have no reason to go there. So I just go and I don’t make many comments -- I think there would be some hurt feelings if I told people who are serious about the activity that I think it is a waste of time, and on occasion, a bit too close to laughable – last time around there was something new that caught me off-guard that struck me as really funny and I was glad none of my snarky friends were with me or we would have been giggling and possibly asked to leave. I was telling my mother about it, though, and she observed that perhaps over time I will find the real value in this activity. Ya never know, it is quite possible. My mother is usually right.
On occasion I do get genuinely motivated. Right now I am very gung-ho about my classical singing. While rehearsing the Bach cantata “Wachet auf” (which I was doing as a favor to the director and not because I had much interest in doing it), I was filling in one time on soprano and realized I could now hit notes that totally eluded me when I was a voice major in college. Then I joined the women’s chorale “Women in song” (because I wanted to work with the director, who left before I even joined, but I decided to check them out anyway), and the new director was OK with me singing along with the sopranos during the warm-ups, and I felt the same way – that I finally could hit the notes that I never could back when it would have mattered.
So now I’m taking voice lessons. I am not sure exactly what my motivation is – I get hired all the time and I don’t need to sing better to get gigs. The fact that the new director of Women in Song teaches voice and is a fascinating individual is a big part of it. A male soprano, formerly of Chanticleer, and even after the initial shock value of hearing a guy sing soprano wore off, I was very impressed with his vocal technique. I had the feeling, “I could sing that way”, while more often I hear or see someone really good and think that I could NEVER sing that way. He also was very patient during the stressful times of final rehearsals, unlike many musicians I have worked with. In many ways I want to get over all my bad memories of studying voice more than I want to be all that much better – all of which I told him at the outset. I never felt comfortable enough to be honest with my original voice teacher in college, so I wanted to be sure I didn’t recreate that situation now. If I end up singing better, that will be fine, but if I just end up feeling better about singing, that is enough for me.
I don’t know when something new will motivate me and maybe I won’t want to devote so much time to singing. I do have two banjos collecting dust in my master bedroom ….
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Voice lessons
With some amount of trepidation, I am going to start taking voice lessons this Thurs. after work. Other than one summer of lessons close to ten years ago, I have not had voice lessons since I graduated from college with a B. Mus. in voice, in 1980.
My experience in college was pretty dismal. My teacher was intimidating, and he was probably in his mid-60's and had not sung in public in many years. Any singing that he would demonstrate bore no resemblance to how anyone would want to sound. He thought this shouldn't matter, since I was supposed to learn a particular TECHNIQUE, and not imitate a kind of sound. Well, it did not work for me, and I now can identify what he was teaching as the old-school German technique, which was not good for me, but it wasn't until he got really angry with me at the end of junior year and threw me out that I even thought of studying with someone else. Senior year I studied with a mezzo-soprano who did still sing, and that went fairly well, but it was too late to salvage enough to get into grad school in voice. I didn't think I'd ever sing classical again, and I pretty much gave it up and sang pop and bluegrass music for many years.
Once I got into a classical group (auditioning on a dare), I was really impressed with the singing of one of the members, and he taught voice, so I took a summer's worth of lessons. I did learn some things, but he insisted that the piece I work on all summer would be Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, because he imagined that my voice would be perfect for those. And in fact it is, but I hated them -- I don't like Mahler in general, and these, "Songs on the deaths of children", were definitely not what I had in mind for summer singing. He insisted, so I did sing them, but I didn't enjoy it, and I am sure I will never sing them again. He also did not "believe" in registers in the female voice and told me I only "thought" I had a register break. I definitely do have a very obvious break, and I play around with it a lot in my singing and it is pretty critical to what I consider my success in singing, so to try to deny that it was there didn't seem very helpful. I did get some benefit from the lessons, in part just by working on classical singing again, but the whole situation didn't help our friendship, and I quit when the "block" of lessons I had paid for was over.
So why now? I'm singing in a women's group that is directed by a male soprano. He calls himself that, rather than countertenor, and I must say he sounds more like a female soprano than any guy I've ever heard. I want to sound like HIM, more or less. At least a few of his high notes would be very nice to have. He has taught voice at Indiana U., where I didn't even get in as a student, and I'm impressed with how he works on vocal technique with the group. I also think he won't stay in Cincinnati permanently, so why not take advantage of this opportunity? I think I am less uptight now about singing and technique than I was in college -- though it really did take almost 30 years to undo some of that experience. This person I think can relate -- he studied as a tenor through undergrad, but then decided that tenor was not "working" for him, so he became a soprano. You don't find that happening every day, and you must admit it would take quite a bit of nerve to audition for grad school as a male soprano.
Because I sing in some semi-professional groups, I know a lot of voice teachers, and several have offered or suggested I study with them. I am reluctant to study with a friend, since that didn't go well before, and I would not study with someone whose singing didn't impress me, in part because of that old situation with my college teacher's singing. The couple of friends who would be the most likely both live over a 30 min. drive away, so that isn't that convenient anyway, and I think we are more likely to remain friends and singing buddies if I don't try to become one of their students. My very favorite singing friend, who knows who she is if she is reading it, is just too important as a friend to risk ruining that because I am such a lousy and anxious student, and that might ruin our singing of "Sull'aria" together.
I've also had a variety of people ask me if I TEACH voice, or to help them with singing, but I almost never do -- I'd rather refer them to one of my friends who does teach. Singing is a little too personal to teach to friends, in my opinion. I've taught banjo and guitar, but then I'm not commenting on the actual PERSON -- and since in voice, you ARE the instrument, comments can seem hurtful even when they are not meant to be. And some people just should NOT sing, period, and you who are reading this KNOW who you are! Dad, in particular. I also don't know all that much about how I physically make the sound that I do. My voice was always fairly similar to what it is now, even before any training. Plus, most voice teachers have a lot of criticism about my technique, so I wouldn't want to teach whatever it is to someone else. I do lots of "bad" things -- imitate other singers, play around with the break, change the sound sometimes to make an "effect", and on top of that I do a lot of bad "vocal hygiene" things, like belt out shapenote, sing without warming up, and switch between tenor and soprano in the same rehearsal. None of which I could recommend to others.
My voice is very unusual -- I know this because the first time a trained singer hears me, they generally say, "Wow, your voice is very unusual!" I am probably a true contralto, not a mezzo, but contralto has been out of fashion since the 1950's, so we call ourselves mezzos just to get some respect. Eula Beal and Marian Anderson were contraltos. So what works for my voice might not work for most. I refuse to try to force my voice up. The one time I did teach someone, it was an old friend who happily sang in local productions -- UNTIL he took some voice lessons, and then he suddenly got so uptight that he could hardly sing at all. I had him bring the songs he was working on, and I immediately told him they were WAY too high for his voice. He said he could never hit the high notes at his lessons, but the teacher had insisted on those keys because she thought he "should" be a tenor, even though he had always sung baritone up until that point. Fortunately he wasn't taking lessons any more, so we got him some songs in a lower key for baritone and suddenly he could sing again. Duh.
In the past 2 years or so, I have added a good minor third in range to the top of my voice, rather unusual for someone "my age." Why didn't I do this earlier? The reason is really stupid -- I was sure I knew what I would have to change in terms of vocal technique in order to get any decent high notes, and I was not willing to do it. So I never really tried at all, not even at home. I did eventually notice, though, that in shapenote I was hitting quite a number of those higher notes, and it didn't require nearly as much effort or change as I had expected. Then in the Bach group, when the sopranos were repeatedly not hitting the 3 high notes in the "Wachet auf" chorale and the director was getting upset, for some reason I thought, "I feel like I can sing that part." I told the tenors that I was going to switch to soprano on the chorale, since I sing tenor in this group and they generally follow whatever I do (that would have been interesting). I did hit the notes, the director seemed OK with it, and from then on I sang soprano on that chorale. So when I got into a women's group as a 2nd alto, I would occasionally help out the sopranos when the altos were not singing. I have to be careful because I still sound like an alto, so blending is a bit of a challenge, but I'm learning how to do it. But for the most part, all I had to do was have a different feeling about my ability to hit the notes! How would that be for advice during a lesson -- try to feel better about the notes. You would probably say, "for this, I'm paying money?" It is pretty pathetic now to think about it -- that I never really tested out my theory of what I would have to do in order to hit any higher notes. And on those days I can't have the right feeling about the notes, I cannot sing them.
So that brings me to now, and wanting to have some better high notes, and thinking that someone who switched from tenor to soprano might be a good person to help me with that. I'm a little concerned about no air conditioning there -- hoping I do not pass out during the lesson. Progress report to follow after I've had a few lessons.
My experience in college was pretty dismal. My teacher was intimidating, and he was probably in his mid-60's and had not sung in public in many years. Any singing that he would demonstrate bore no resemblance to how anyone would want to sound. He thought this shouldn't matter, since I was supposed to learn a particular TECHNIQUE, and not imitate a kind of sound. Well, it did not work for me, and I now can identify what he was teaching as the old-school German technique, which was not good for me, but it wasn't until he got really angry with me at the end of junior year and threw me out that I even thought of studying with someone else. Senior year I studied with a mezzo-soprano who did still sing, and that went fairly well, but it was too late to salvage enough to get into grad school in voice. I didn't think I'd ever sing classical again, and I pretty much gave it up and sang pop and bluegrass music for many years.
Once I got into a classical group (auditioning on a dare), I was really impressed with the singing of one of the members, and he taught voice, so I took a summer's worth of lessons. I did learn some things, but he insisted that the piece I work on all summer would be Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, because he imagined that my voice would be perfect for those. And in fact it is, but I hated them -- I don't like Mahler in general, and these, "Songs on the deaths of children", were definitely not what I had in mind for summer singing. He insisted, so I did sing them, but I didn't enjoy it, and I am sure I will never sing them again. He also did not "believe" in registers in the female voice and told me I only "thought" I had a register break. I definitely do have a very obvious break, and I play around with it a lot in my singing and it is pretty critical to what I consider my success in singing, so to try to deny that it was there didn't seem very helpful. I did get some benefit from the lessons, in part just by working on classical singing again, but the whole situation didn't help our friendship, and I quit when the "block" of lessons I had paid for was over.
So why now? I'm singing in a women's group that is directed by a male soprano. He calls himself that, rather than countertenor, and I must say he sounds more like a female soprano than any guy I've ever heard. I want to sound like HIM, more or less. At least a few of his high notes would be very nice to have. He has taught voice at Indiana U., where I didn't even get in as a student, and I'm impressed with how he works on vocal technique with the group. I also think he won't stay in Cincinnati permanently, so why not take advantage of this opportunity? I think I am less uptight now about singing and technique than I was in college -- though it really did take almost 30 years to undo some of that experience. This person I think can relate -- he studied as a tenor through undergrad, but then decided that tenor was not "working" for him, so he became a soprano. You don't find that happening every day, and you must admit it would take quite a bit of nerve to audition for grad school as a male soprano.
Because I sing in some semi-professional groups, I know a lot of voice teachers, and several have offered or suggested I study with them. I am reluctant to study with a friend, since that didn't go well before, and I would not study with someone whose singing didn't impress me, in part because of that old situation with my college teacher's singing. The couple of friends who would be the most likely both live over a 30 min. drive away, so that isn't that convenient anyway, and I think we are more likely to remain friends and singing buddies if I don't try to become one of their students. My very favorite singing friend, who knows who she is if she is reading it, is just too important as a friend to risk ruining that because I am such a lousy and anxious student, and that might ruin our singing of "Sull'aria" together.
I've also had a variety of people ask me if I TEACH voice, or to help them with singing, but I almost never do -- I'd rather refer them to one of my friends who does teach. Singing is a little too personal to teach to friends, in my opinion. I've taught banjo and guitar, but then I'm not commenting on the actual PERSON -- and since in voice, you ARE the instrument, comments can seem hurtful even when they are not meant to be. And some people just should NOT sing, period, and you who are reading this KNOW who you are! Dad, in particular. I also don't know all that much about how I physically make the sound that I do. My voice was always fairly similar to what it is now, even before any training. Plus, most voice teachers have a lot of criticism about my technique, so I wouldn't want to teach whatever it is to someone else. I do lots of "bad" things -- imitate other singers, play around with the break, change the sound sometimes to make an "effect", and on top of that I do a lot of bad "vocal hygiene" things, like belt out shapenote, sing without warming up, and switch between tenor and soprano in the same rehearsal. None of which I could recommend to others.
My voice is very unusual -- I know this because the first time a trained singer hears me, they generally say, "Wow, your voice is very unusual!" I am probably a true contralto, not a mezzo, but contralto has been out of fashion since the 1950's, so we call ourselves mezzos just to get some respect. Eula Beal and Marian Anderson were contraltos. So what works for my voice might not work for most. I refuse to try to force my voice up. The one time I did teach someone, it was an old friend who happily sang in local productions -- UNTIL he took some voice lessons, and then he suddenly got so uptight that he could hardly sing at all. I had him bring the songs he was working on, and I immediately told him they were WAY too high for his voice. He said he could never hit the high notes at his lessons, but the teacher had insisted on those keys because she thought he "should" be a tenor, even though he had always sung baritone up until that point. Fortunately he wasn't taking lessons any more, so we got him some songs in a lower key for baritone and suddenly he could sing again. Duh.
In the past 2 years or so, I have added a good minor third in range to the top of my voice, rather unusual for someone "my age." Why didn't I do this earlier? The reason is really stupid -- I was sure I knew what I would have to change in terms of vocal technique in order to get any decent high notes, and I was not willing to do it. So I never really tried at all, not even at home. I did eventually notice, though, that in shapenote I was hitting quite a number of those higher notes, and it didn't require nearly as much effort or change as I had expected. Then in the Bach group, when the sopranos were repeatedly not hitting the 3 high notes in the "Wachet auf" chorale and the director was getting upset, for some reason I thought, "I feel like I can sing that part." I told the tenors that I was going to switch to soprano on the chorale, since I sing tenor in this group and they generally follow whatever I do (that would have been interesting). I did hit the notes, the director seemed OK with it, and from then on I sang soprano on that chorale. So when I got into a women's group as a 2nd alto, I would occasionally help out the sopranos when the altos were not singing. I have to be careful because I still sound like an alto, so blending is a bit of a challenge, but I'm learning how to do it. But for the most part, all I had to do was have a different feeling about my ability to hit the notes! How would that be for advice during a lesson -- try to feel better about the notes. You would probably say, "for this, I'm paying money?" It is pretty pathetic now to think about it -- that I never really tested out my theory of what I would have to do in order to hit any higher notes. And on those days I can't have the right feeling about the notes, I cannot sing them.
So that brings me to now, and wanting to have some better high notes, and thinking that someone who switched from tenor to soprano might be a good person to help me with that. I'm a little concerned about no air conditioning there -- hoping I do not pass out during the lesson. Progress report to follow after I've had a few lessons.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Shoes
I have a lot of shoes. i have even been called "Imelda" on occasion. Considering all the types of shoes I do NOT wear, it is surprising that I still probably have 60 pairs of shoes. They are not arranged with photos on the outside of the boxes, or in special built-in cubbies, but they are fairly well-organized in stacking cardboard cubes. I have to switch things around twice a year, from spring/summer to fall/winter and back, since I have shotgun closets where you can't see anything that is in the back.
I have a lot of requirements before I will even consider a pair of shoes. Price is right up there -- I do not have any Manolos or Jimmy Choos. The closest to designer is one pair of Ralph Lauren flats, bought at TJ Maxx. They are mustard yellow, and go with a surprising number of my spring clothes. They are so comfy that if they had come in other colors, I probably would have bought more. But $40 is about my limit, and that would have to be a REALLY special pair, such as my Tom's sparkle espadrilles. On a sunny day, these might be a hazard to planes overhead. They are definitely casual, yet festive. I wear them to work, or out doing errands. They are enough "bling" that I don't wear any other sparkle items with them.
Some of my favorite pairs of shoes came from Goodwill and places like that. While various people have told me they would NEVER buy second-hand shoes, nothing bad has ever come of it, and they are either already broken in, or brand-new because they probably hurt someone else's feet. My Eastland leather ankle boots that I wear for all heavy-duty yard activities, like mowing or using the weed whacker -- I bought them at a thrift store in Corryville that no longer exists, sometime in the late 1980s, for $5, and they will probably outlast me. I only wear them for yard work, since they are perfect for that, and each spring I oil them up really well with Vaseline and they pretty much look like new.
All of my shoes are flats. This includes my dress shoes. So often I am in a performance and I can hardly believe that some of the women can even stand up in the shoes they are wearing. I definitely need to feel solidly planted on the ground when I'm singing. Doubly true if I have to stand on risers. I have a lovely pair of velvet flats with a gold chain across the top -- bought at Family Dollar -- that have been my cool weather performing shoes for years. They don't wear out since I save them for those occasions. For warmer weather, I have a pair of black woven flats, bought at Big Lots, that are quite elegant with my black dress pants.
I will not wear any fake leather shoes, because my feet tend to be hot. I will buy cheapie strappy shoes for summer that are not leather, but if the toes are closed, they have to be cloth or leather. I will NOT wear Crocs -- these in my opinion should be banned. How anyone got people to agree to wear something so ugly, I cannot figure out. I don't care how comfortable they are, they are troll shoes. I don't like white athletic shoes, either -- my feet are big enough without wearing white padded things on them. For real exercise, I do have 2 pairs of dark-colored supportive athletic shoes, and for just running errands and things, I like the classic canvas sneakers, preferably in black. I have 3 pairs, all second-hand. I also have a pair of Ralph Lauren navy blue canvas high tops (bought from Bluefly), that my parents really hate. They are super-comfy and I wear them quite a bit during the pre-summer and pre-fall season.
I am fond of fringe and suede and vaguely Native American styles, so I have several pairs of fringed moccasins and ankle boots, and a pair of Pocahantas sandals that are a little over the top, but I don't care and I get a lot of compliments on them. I embroidered beaded flowers on a pair of those Chinese cotton shoes, but those are not as comfy as they look, so I probably won't buy any more.
I don't wear heels, ever, ever, meaning anything higher than 1". I also don't wear slides -- they won't stay on my foot. And what is with athletic shoe slides? I don't wear flip-flops, either, because they also will not stay on my foot. I had a pair for when I was swimming and using a public shower, but I had to be really careful not to trip over them, so eventually I bought some of those mesh shower shoes before I broke my neck or something.
I don't buy shoes with a leather sole, because we have slippery tile floors in my department at work, and also leather soles are noisy. I do not buy anything that looks orthopedic or geriatric. I also don't buy shoes that show a lot of "toe cleavage", because anything that is cut low goes right across a sensitive bone in my foot. Shoes styled more like a classic penny loafer or men's huraches work out better. Ankle boots are really my favorite, because the foot part can be a little bit loose and they still will not be sliding off. Apparently a lot of people buy these and do not like them so much, because I have 4 second-hand pairs.
For slippers, only leather moccasin style will do. No bunny slippers or maribu slides for me. Around the house I actually prefer some padded cotton German boot liners -- bought from Sportsman's Guide, 6 pairs for some small amount, so I always have a pair of those available.
I bought 2 pairs of sandals from Pay Less for the upcoming season, and I suspect that will be the extent of my shoe buying. No promises, though. Particularly if I see something at a yard sale or flea market. But it is rather apparent to me that I probably could live the rest of my life without ever buying another pair of shoes. I probably have half a dozen pairs that have never been worn -- they were just too comfy and too good of a bargain to pass up, even though I didn't need them at all. So they sit in the closet, waiting until another pair wears out.
A male friend at work wears the same pair of athletic shoes to work, then changes into either the black or brown pair he keeps under his desk. In some ways I envy that simplicity, but then I see some sparkly flats at Goodwill ......
I have a lot of requirements before I will even consider a pair of shoes. Price is right up there -- I do not have any Manolos or Jimmy Choos. The closest to designer is one pair of Ralph Lauren flats, bought at TJ Maxx. They are mustard yellow, and go with a surprising number of my spring clothes. They are so comfy that if they had come in other colors, I probably would have bought more. But $40 is about my limit, and that would have to be a REALLY special pair, such as my Tom's sparkle espadrilles. On a sunny day, these might be a hazard to planes overhead. They are definitely casual, yet festive. I wear them to work, or out doing errands. They are enough "bling" that I don't wear any other sparkle items with them.
Some of my favorite pairs of shoes came from Goodwill and places like that. While various people have told me they would NEVER buy second-hand shoes, nothing bad has ever come of it, and they are either already broken in, or brand-new because they probably hurt someone else's feet. My Eastland leather ankle boots that I wear for all heavy-duty yard activities, like mowing or using the weed whacker -- I bought them at a thrift store in Corryville that no longer exists, sometime in the late 1980s, for $5, and they will probably outlast me. I only wear them for yard work, since they are perfect for that, and each spring I oil them up really well with Vaseline and they pretty much look like new.
All of my shoes are flats. This includes my dress shoes. So often I am in a performance and I can hardly believe that some of the women can even stand up in the shoes they are wearing. I definitely need to feel solidly planted on the ground when I'm singing. Doubly true if I have to stand on risers. I have a lovely pair of velvet flats with a gold chain across the top -- bought at Family Dollar -- that have been my cool weather performing shoes for years. They don't wear out since I save them for those occasions. For warmer weather, I have a pair of black woven flats, bought at Big Lots, that are quite elegant with my black dress pants.
I will not wear any fake leather shoes, because my feet tend to be hot. I will buy cheapie strappy shoes for summer that are not leather, but if the toes are closed, they have to be cloth or leather. I will NOT wear Crocs -- these in my opinion should be banned. How anyone got people to agree to wear something so ugly, I cannot figure out. I don't care how comfortable they are, they are troll shoes. I don't like white athletic shoes, either -- my feet are big enough without wearing white padded things on them. For real exercise, I do have 2 pairs of dark-colored supportive athletic shoes, and for just running errands and things, I like the classic canvas sneakers, preferably in black. I have 3 pairs, all second-hand. I also have a pair of Ralph Lauren navy blue canvas high tops (bought from Bluefly), that my parents really hate. They are super-comfy and I wear them quite a bit during the pre-summer and pre-fall season.
I am fond of fringe and suede and vaguely Native American styles, so I have several pairs of fringed moccasins and ankle boots, and a pair of Pocahantas sandals that are a little over the top, but I don't care and I get a lot of compliments on them. I embroidered beaded flowers on a pair of those Chinese cotton shoes, but those are not as comfy as they look, so I probably won't buy any more.
I don't wear heels, ever, ever, meaning anything higher than 1". I also don't wear slides -- they won't stay on my foot. And what is with athletic shoe slides? I don't wear flip-flops, either, because they also will not stay on my foot. I had a pair for when I was swimming and using a public shower, but I had to be really careful not to trip over them, so eventually I bought some of those mesh shower shoes before I broke my neck or something.
I don't buy shoes with a leather sole, because we have slippery tile floors in my department at work, and also leather soles are noisy. I do not buy anything that looks orthopedic or geriatric. I also don't buy shoes that show a lot of "toe cleavage", because anything that is cut low goes right across a sensitive bone in my foot. Shoes styled more like a classic penny loafer or men's huraches work out better. Ankle boots are really my favorite, because the foot part can be a little bit loose and they still will not be sliding off. Apparently a lot of people buy these and do not like them so much, because I have 4 second-hand pairs.
For slippers, only leather moccasin style will do. No bunny slippers or maribu slides for me. Around the house I actually prefer some padded cotton German boot liners -- bought from Sportsman's Guide, 6 pairs for some small amount, so I always have a pair of those available.
I bought 2 pairs of sandals from Pay Less for the upcoming season, and I suspect that will be the extent of my shoe buying. No promises, though. Particularly if I see something at a yard sale or flea market. But it is rather apparent to me that I probably could live the rest of my life without ever buying another pair of shoes. I probably have half a dozen pairs that have never been worn -- they were just too comfy and too good of a bargain to pass up, even though I didn't need them at all. So they sit in the closet, waiting until another pair wears out.
A male friend at work wears the same pair of athletic shoes to work, then changes into either the black or brown pair he keeps under his desk. In some ways I envy that simplicity, but then I see some sparkly flats at Goodwill ......
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Watching TV
I am rather surprised at how many TV shows there are that appeal to me. I have always thought that my interests were somewhat on the fringe, but there are several shows I follow.
I have digital cable and DVR -- all hooked up to a 13" TV. When the cable guy came to put it in, he asked me where the TV was -- he was standing 2 feet from it. They would run the cable to a 2nd TV for a reduced price since he was already there, so I had him put a cable in the kitchen -- to hook up to my 7" TV. The kitchen one doesn't have the cable box, though, so above about channel 80, I don't get it in the kitchen -- so no Logo or Reality TV in there.
As far as fairly mainstream, I like Anthony Bourdain's travel/food show, more than I like Andrew Zimmern, because I like the travel aspect more than seeing someone eat insects and things. I used to always watch "What not to wear", "How do I look", and "The dog whisperer", but after a while, it starts to all be about the same, so those are shows that I may watch when nothing else is on, or half-watch while reading the paper or catching up on mending things.
I like "Undercover Boss" -- I had assumed this was some sort of drama since it was on network TV, but fortunately heard what it is. I like reality shows that cover REALITY, not some rigged situation like "Big Brother", "Survivor", or things like that. I like "A day in the life of--" types of shows, or "Behind the scenes at--" I don't like shows where they humiliate people or encourage them to be dishonest, or anything that exploits greed or sexuality, so that rules out a whole lot. At first I really liked "American Idol", but I'm over it. I have no interest in any dancing shows - "Dancing with the Stars", "Best Dance Crew", I just don't care. I did watch when Jerry Springer was on, but that was about it.
I really like "Ruby". Does anyone else watch this on Style? "Taking the Stage", filmed at Cincinnati's School for the Performing Arts, has been disappointing. It is nice to see our town portrayed in a positive way, with scenes at various clubs and out on the street, but the show itself really is not about going to school there.
"Intervention" is interesting, in part because I know some of the background about Candy Finnigan, the main interventionist. But that show as well as "Addicted", they do become just more of the same. I watched a couple episodes of "Hoarders", but that REALLY is all the same -- how many pack-rats do you really want to see? "Clean House" doesn't interest me for the same reason -- I did try to go to the monster yard sale when it was held in Cincinnati, since the sale was right near where I live, but there were hundreds of people there, and when I arrived, the wait to get in was estimated at 3 hours, so I just went home -- I do not need to wait that long to buy someone else's junk. "True Life" and "Made" on MTV have some interesting episodes -- though I realize I am WAY beyond the age of their target audience.
"Be Good Johnny Weir" on the Sundance Channel is fun. They've been promoting a new show about women who are friends with a lot of gay men -- just how large of an audience do they think there will BE for that? I mean, I will watch it, but who else? LOGO, the "gay" channel, has a really good travel show called "Bump", and they air some quite unusual documentaries, such as the life of Keith Haring, and the life of Freddie Mercury. I have eto pass, though, on "RuPaul's drag race."
The BBC channel has "You are what you eat", where they ambush some big tub of lard in Britain and show them how to eat better. I like that show, but I could do without seeing the people getting a colonic. They are very interested in elimination over there. have learned some about foods and nutrition from that show. I do not watch "The biggest loser" -- the way they humiliate the people, and all the yelling -- after seeing that, if I thought trainers generally behaved that way, I would never go to the gym, so I am rather upset with the whole way that show works.
The tattoo shows are disappointing - "L.A. Ink", "Miami Ink" -- they really are interpersonal dramas and just tangentially about tattoooing. So the one-time documentaries on tattooing and body modification are much more interesting to me. I like shows about how you train to do certain things -- being a marine, fire fighter, sniper -- all the kinds of things I could never possibly do.
There are a few medical-related shows that I watch -- the primordial dwarfs and the conjoined twins interested me, for example. Once it gets into anything gross, though, I don't want to see it. I definitely don't want to see surgery, childbirth, people in the E.R., or autopsies. I'm not interested in true crime or investigation shows, or psychics, or haunted places.
I don't watch any sort of dramas, and I don't watch movies. I have never rented a DVD or even taken a movie out from the library. I think the last time I went out to a movie was around 1995, and that was because the outdoor event we had planned on got rained out and we had to do SOMETHING. I don't watch any sitcoms, either. "Seinfeld" was really the only sitcom that was worth the time for me.
I do watch some classical music on PBS, and I wish there was more of that. I was quite upset when the cable company cut some of my PBS stations -- I now can't watch much bluegrass without a lot of searching around in the program guide. I like other concert shows, too.
At this point the only sport I watch is figure skating. Even that isn't what it used to be. The new rules pretty much force everyone to do the same things. The skaters I really liked -- Karen Kwan (Michelle's sister), Laurent Tobel, Paul Wylie, Lucinda Rue (a phenomenal spinner), they would not even make the first cut any more. At one time I really liked gymnastics, but the girls in particular are so young and so underweight now, I don't enjoy watching any more.
Overall I feel like I get my money's worth from cable, especially since I added the DVR. Once I got the hang of the search function, I can look for the shows I want and program them to be recorded, and then I can watch them and fast-forward through all the commercials. I really would much rather stay home and watch something rather than go out to a movie, or usually even to a show -- most of the shows or concerts I attend are either something a friend is in, or something I am in. The prices for the big venues, that just is not in my budget.
So -- what do you watch? I think I've made it easier to leave a comment on here, so I hope you will.
I have digital cable and DVR -- all hooked up to a 13" TV. When the cable guy came to put it in, he asked me where the TV was -- he was standing 2 feet from it. They would run the cable to a 2nd TV for a reduced price since he was already there, so I had him put a cable in the kitchen -- to hook up to my 7" TV. The kitchen one doesn't have the cable box, though, so above about channel 80, I don't get it in the kitchen -- so no Logo or Reality TV in there.
As far as fairly mainstream, I like Anthony Bourdain's travel/food show, more than I like Andrew Zimmern, because I like the travel aspect more than seeing someone eat insects and things. I used to always watch "What not to wear", "How do I look", and "The dog whisperer", but after a while, it starts to all be about the same, so those are shows that I may watch when nothing else is on, or half-watch while reading the paper or catching up on mending things.
I like "Undercover Boss" -- I had assumed this was some sort of drama since it was on network TV, but fortunately heard what it is. I like reality shows that cover REALITY, not some rigged situation like "Big Brother", "Survivor", or things like that. I like "A day in the life of--" types of shows, or "Behind the scenes at--" I don't like shows where they humiliate people or encourage them to be dishonest, or anything that exploits greed or sexuality, so that rules out a whole lot. At first I really liked "American Idol", but I'm over it. I have no interest in any dancing shows - "Dancing with the Stars", "Best Dance Crew", I just don't care. I did watch when Jerry Springer was on, but that was about it.
I really like "Ruby". Does anyone else watch this on Style? "Taking the Stage", filmed at Cincinnati's School for the Performing Arts, has been disappointing. It is nice to see our town portrayed in a positive way, with scenes at various clubs and out on the street, but the show itself really is not about going to school there.
"Intervention" is interesting, in part because I know some of the background about Candy Finnigan, the main interventionist. But that show as well as "Addicted", they do become just more of the same. I watched a couple episodes of "Hoarders", but that REALLY is all the same -- how many pack-rats do you really want to see? "Clean House" doesn't interest me for the same reason -- I did try to go to the monster yard sale when it was held in Cincinnati, since the sale was right near where I live, but there were hundreds of people there, and when I arrived, the wait to get in was estimated at 3 hours, so I just went home -- I do not need to wait that long to buy someone else's junk. "True Life" and "Made" on MTV have some interesting episodes -- though I realize I am WAY beyond the age of their target audience.
"Be Good Johnny Weir" on the Sundance Channel is fun. They've been promoting a new show about women who are friends with a lot of gay men -- just how large of an audience do they think there will BE for that? I mean, I will watch it, but who else? LOGO, the "gay" channel, has a really good travel show called "Bump", and they air some quite unusual documentaries, such as the life of Keith Haring, and the life of Freddie Mercury. I have eto pass, though, on "RuPaul's drag race."
The BBC channel has "You are what you eat", where they ambush some big tub of lard in Britain and show them how to eat better. I like that show, but I could do without seeing the people getting a colonic. They are very interested in elimination over there. have learned some about foods and nutrition from that show. I do not watch "The biggest loser" -- the way they humiliate the people, and all the yelling -- after seeing that, if I thought trainers generally behaved that way, I would never go to the gym, so I am rather upset with the whole way that show works.
The tattoo shows are disappointing - "L.A. Ink", "Miami Ink" -- they really are interpersonal dramas and just tangentially about tattoooing. So the one-time documentaries on tattooing and body modification are much more interesting to me. I like shows about how you train to do certain things -- being a marine, fire fighter, sniper -- all the kinds of things I could never possibly do.
There are a few medical-related shows that I watch -- the primordial dwarfs and the conjoined twins interested me, for example. Once it gets into anything gross, though, I don't want to see it. I definitely don't want to see surgery, childbirth, people in the E.R., or autopsies. I'm not interested in true crime or investigation shows, or psychics, or haunted places.
I don't watch any sort of dramas, and I don't watch movies. I have never rented a DVD or even taken a movie out from the library. I think the last time I went out to a movie was around 1995, and that was because the outdoor event we had planned on got rained out and we had to do SOMETHING. I don't watch any sitcoms, either. "Seinfeld" was really the only sitcom that was worth the time for me.
I do watch some classical music on PBS, and I wish there was more of that. I was quite upset when the cable company cut some of my PBS stations -- I now can't watch much bluegrass without a lot of searching around in the program guide. I like other concert shows, too.
At this point the only sport I watch is figure skating. Even that isn't what it used to be. The new rules pretty much force everyone to do the same things. The skaters I really liked -- Karen Kwan (Michelle's sister), Laurent Tobel, Paul Wylie, Lucinda Rue (a phenomenal spinner), they would not even make the first cut any more. At one time I really liked gymnastics, but the girls in particular are so young and so underweight now, I don't enjoy watching any more.
Overall I feel like I get my money's worth from cable, especially since I added the DVR. Once I got the hang of the search function, I can look for the shows I want and program them to be recorded, and then I can watch them and fast-forward through all the commercials. I really would much rather stay home and watch something rather than go out to a movie, or usually even to a show -- most of the shows or concerts I attend are either something a friend is in, or something I am in. The prices for the big venues, that just is not in my budget.
So -- what do you watch? I think I've made it easier to leave a comment on here, so I hope you will.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Singing, part I - my singing history
I don’t recall when I started singing, or a time when I didn’t sing. I do recall my first audition, or, rather, the outcome – it was for the 5th-6th grade choir in school, in 5th grade, and I did NOT get in. Not some elite choir, mind you, but just regular kids at public school. I found this hard to believe, since I had been singing in “Junior Congregation” choir at temple for several years already, and my mother even went in and talked to the music teacher, but, no deal, I was not allowed in the choir. Over the years I have heard people tell stories about how something like this caused them to give up music or dance because someone early on told them they were not good enough, and I wonder how many talented people gave up because they didn’t get encouragement at the right time.
Fortunately I didn’t think all that much of the music teacher’s opinion, so I tooted away on the recorder in 5th grade, but in 6th grade I auditioned again for the choir, with the same teacher, and that time I did get in. I even have a recording of one concert, so that would have been about 1969, including those great hits, “The day is now over” and “Haul out the holly.” (Originally on a little reel-to-reel tape, but now on CD.) And incidentally the recorder playing went pretty well, and to this day I occasionally get together with people and play recorder consort music – I have my own set of recorders in 3 sizes.
In junior high, I took up guitar and folk singing. My mother signed up for a guitar class at the local Jewish Community Center and bought a cheap guitar. That lasted a very short time and I don’t recall ever hearing her play, but the result was a guitar in the hall closet. For the most part I taught myself to play, and I was interested enough that I remember we packed it up so I could take it to summer camp in Georgia, where I sang a few songs over the P.A. on the days I did the wake-up radio show.
I sang in choirs all through junior/senior high, which was all one school, but no auditions required until Senior Choir, which was for grades 10-12. Then there was Vocal Ensemble, a quite elite group of 24, grades 11-12, and requiring one year of Sr. Choir first. I was in Sr. Choir in 10th grade and enjoyed that, and in May of that year I did not sign up to audition for Vocal Ensemble, figuring maybe the following year I would be ready. The sign-up list was posted for about a week, and on the last day, the director asked me to come up after class and said he noticed I had not signed up to audition and suggested that I sign up. That seemed to be a pretty good clue that I might get in, so I went ahead and auditioned. Getting into that group was probably the most significant thing that ever happened in terms of singing, and I was somewhat aware of that even then. I was in the group for my final 2 years, and we sang for various local functions as well as in school concerts. It was quite prestigious to be seen in our (dorky) plaid outfits on performance days – almost as good as the drill team getting to wear their uniforms on game days. I think that was the most enjoyable time for me in terms of a performing group.
Up until the end of senior year, I never took any voice lessons. It didn’t occur to me that people took lessons just to SING, and I was taking piano lessons, which I’m sure was sufficient expense for my parents. I finally did take some lessons that summer, AFTER being accepted into the voice program at Heidelberg College. Then when I got there as a freshman and sang for my teacher, he said it would probably take us 6 months to undo the bad vocal habits I had been taught over the summer.
My 4 years of voice at college pretty much went downhill from there. It actually was the worst time for me in terms of singing. I was afraid of my teacher, but he was considered the best teacher for the mezzo voice, and I was supposed to feel very lucky that I got into his studio. I have some recordings from that time period, particularly my junior recital, and while I was not horrible, I was not good, and I sounded old, a lot older than I sound now. My teacher finally put me out at the end of junior year and said he’d be surprised if any other teacher would even take me. I had been singing in a local church choir the whole time I was there, and one of the other choir members was one of the voice professors, a mezzo herself, and she was happy to take me in for my senior year. I made a lot of improvement that year, but not enough to be in any way ready for my grad school audition in March, which went very badly, and I knew it would – I had already enrolled in library school for the following year.
I have a vague memory of singing at some sort of coffeehouse while at library school, and when I took a semester off, I sang and played banjo in a benefit show. Once I started working full-time, I moved to Clifton in the early 1980s and discovered the Queen City Balladeers, and for 5 years or so that was my main music activity, performing at the coffeehouse as well as in 3 of the Edensong concerts in Eden Park, once as a solo act, once as part of Walter Craft’s band, and once with my own bluegrass group, Sheryl’s Front Porch Band.
During the late 1980s/early 1990s I had a managerial job that required evenings and weekends, often on short notice, and I was exhausted most of the time, so I didn’t do very much with music. Then in 1995 I transferred to a desk job, strictly weekdays 8-5, and I started thinking about doing some music again. I was at a “Rise up singing” party, invited as the guitar player, and it was probably about my 3rd one of these when I commented to one of the other women about how bored I was playing “Take me home, country roads” at every party. She said if I wanted to sing a lot of new music, I should come to the Cincinnati shapenote singing group, and she gave me a bookmark with the location and everything. I told her I would go.
Probably if I had not told her I would go, by the time it rolled around I would have chosen not to go, but I generally follow through, so I did go. It was mid-summer, and a very small group, I think 7 people, and one sang so loudly that I literally could not hear myself, and at the end I told my friend I didn’t think this activity was for me. She asked that I give it another try, and told me that the loud person was from out of town and not usually at our group (he is now a friend, but still very loud!) So I did go again and got hooked on it, bought the book, and for several months spent a few hours a week practicing beating time and learning how to lead from the book.
The local group meets monthly and occasionally does extra singings or performances, and there are several conventions nearby, so for a while I was doing that once or twice a month. At a regional singing in Yellow Springs, I happened to meet the director and accompanist for a Cincinnati classical chorale of 20-24 people, the Cincinnati Camerata, and they had put out leaflets about an upcoming concert. I went to that with a friend, and all through it, after each number, he’d say, “You could get into this group!” and then showed me the blurb on the program about auditions coming up in about 3 months. I finally said I would call about an audition if he would not pester me for the rest of the show.
I may write some details of the audition in a later installment about auditions, but the very short version is, I was accepted into the Camerata right at the end of my audition, in part because I can sing a low F and he needed that on a particular piece. This is probably the most elite group I was ever in. The first year was a lot of fun, in part because it was new, and a few of the men were very welcoming. Over time, though the cattiness in the women’s sections got tiresome, and the director was hot-tempered, often justifiably, because people did not learn their music at home like they were supposed to. Also, there were several choir directors in the group, and two of them started to hire or recommend me for choir subbing or special occasions, and once I started doing that, I felt overloaded with rehearsals, so after 2 years with the Camerata, I left the group. I still attend their concerts, and I have no regrets – it was a great experience, but now they are doing mainly very modern repertoire, which is not the kind of music I like to sing.
My contacts from there led to being invited to sing with the Bach Association of Cincinnati, which I do for part of the year, and I continue to do choir subbing, though generally not for pay since the economy tanked. During a summer pick-up choir gig in 2009, I met the person who it ends up was about to become the former director of Women in Song, a west side women’s choir, and while my main interest was to work with him again, he suggested I do it anyway, saying he had heard they had a promising young director taking over.
Women in Song is not anywhere near as demanding as Camerata. It is all just “regular” people, though an audition is required. I did mine by sending the director a couple of MP3s of my singing. We do 2 concerts a year, with big breaks in between, so that allows me to stay with the Bach group and also do a bit of shapenote and other things. The most interesting thing, other than finally singing in an all-women’s group and making some female friends, is that the director is a male SOPRANO, formerly of Chanticleer. I am actually learning a lot from him and finding a few high notes that have eluded me for about 30 years. Also, since I have never sung in a women’s group, and quite a bit has been written for that voicing, I am doing music that is new to me, which I always enjoy.
All of the choir singing has gotten my voice back to a fairly classical sound, and that has made shapenote problematical. While the local group is used to my voice and rather enjoys it, I have been criticized on several occasions (including right to my face) by out-of-towners who say I do not sing it “right”, or who assume that I sing the way I do to be snobby. So I have cut back on that activity. Maybe once I can no longer do the classical singing, I will go back to it on a more regular basis.
That brings you right up to today, preparing for next month’s Women in Song concert. I’ll also be joining the director’s church choir just for that concert, since it is a joint concert and I’ll already be there, so why not sing with them? I will sing with just about any group if given the chance!
Possible future installments : auditions ; how to sing ; shows – the good, the bad, and the extremely weird.
Fortunately I didn’t think all that much of the music teacher’s opinion, so I tooted away on the recorder in 5th grade, but in 6th grade I auditioned again for the choir, with the same teacher, and that time I did get in. I even have a recording of one concert, so that would have been about 1969, including those great hits, “The day is now over” and “Haul out the holly.” (Originally on a little reel-to-reel tape, but now on CD.) And incidentally the recorder playing went pretty well, and to this day I occasionally get together with people and play recorder consort music – I have my own set of recorders in 3 sizes.
In junior high, I took up guitar and folk singing. My mother signed up for a guitar class at the local Jewish Community Center and bought a cheap guitar. That lasted a very short time and I don’t recall ever hearing her play, but the result was a guitar in the hall closet. For the most part I taught myself to play, and I was interested enough that I remember we packed it up so I could take it to summer camp in Georgia, where I sang a few songs over the P.A. on the days I did the wake-up radio show.
I sang in choirs all through junior/senior high, which was all one school, but no auditions required until Senior Choir, which was for grades 10-12. Then there was Vocal Ensemble, a quite elite group of 24, grades 11-12, and requiring one year of Sr. Choir first. I was in Sr. Choir in 10th grade and enjoyed that, and in May of that year I did not sign up to audition for Vocal Ensemble, figuring maybe the following year I would be ready. The sign-up list was posted for about a week, and on the last day, the director asked me to come up after class and said he noticed I had not signed up to audition and suggested that I sign up. That seemed to be a pretty good clue that I might get in, so I went ahead and auditioned. Getting into that group was probably the most significant thing that ever happened in terms of singing, and I was somewhat aware of that even then. I was in the group for my final 2 years, and we sang for various local functions as well as in school concerts. It was quite prestigious to be seen in our (dorky) plaid outfits on performance days – almost as good as the drill team getting to wear their uniforms on game days. I think that was the most enjoyable time for me in terms of a performing group.
Up until the end of senior year, I never took any voice lessons. It didn’t occur to me that people took lessons just to SING, and I was taking piano lessons, which I’m sure was sufficient expense for my parents. I finally did take some lessons that summer, AFTER being accepted into the voice program at Heidelberg College. Then when I got there as a freshman and sang for my teacher, he said it would probably take us 6 months to undo the bad vocal habits I had been taught over the summer.
My 4 years of voice at college pretty much went downhill from there. It actually was the worst time for me in terms of singing. I was afraid of my teacher, but he was considered the best teacher for the mezzo voice, and I was supposed to feel very lucky that I got into his studio. I have some recordings from that time period, particularly my junior recital, and while I was not horrible, I was not good, and I sounded old, a lot older than I sound now. My teacher finally put me out at the end of junior year and said he’d be surprised if any other teacher would even take me. I had been singing in a local church choir the whole time I was there, and one of the other choir members was one of the voice professors, a mezzo herself, and she was happy to take me in for my senior year. I made a lot of improvement that year, but not enough to be in any way ready for my grad school audition in March, which went very badly, and I knew it would – I had already enrolled in library school for the following year.
I have a vague memory of singing at some sort of coffeehouse while at library school, and when I took a semester off, I sang and played banjo in a benefit show. Once I started working full-time, I moved to Clifton in the early 1980s and discovered the Queen City Balladeers, and for 5 years or so that was my main music activity, performing at the coffeehouse as well as in 3 of the Edensong concerts in Eden Park, once as a solo act, once as part of Walter Craft’s band, and once with my own bluegrass group, Sheryl’s Front Porch Band.
During the late 1980s/early 1990s I had a managerial job that required evenings and weekends, often on short notice, and I was exhausted most of the time, so I didn’t do very much with music. Then in 1995 I transferred to a desk job, strictly weekdays 8-5, and I started thinking about doing some music again. I was at a “Rise up singing” party, invited as the guitar player, and it was probably about my 3rd one of these when I commented to one of the other women about how bored I was playing “Take me home, country roads” at every party. She said if I wanted to sing a lot of new music, I should come to the Cincinnati shapenote singing group, and she gave me a bookmark with the location and everything. I told her I would go.
Probably if I had not told her I would go, by the time it rolled around I would have chosen not to go, but I generally follow through, so I did go. It was mid-summer, and a very small group, I think 7 people, and one sang so loudly that I literally could not hear myself, and at the end I told my friend I didn’t think this activity was for me. She asked that I give it another try, and told me that the loud person was from out of town and not usually at our group (he is now a friend, but still very loud!) So I did go again and got hooked on it, bought the book, and for several months spent a few hours a week practicing beating time and learning how to lead from the book.
The local group meets monthly and occasionally does extra singings or performances, and there are several conventions nearby, so for a while I was doing that once or twice a month. At a regional singing in Yellow Springs, I happened to meet the director and accompanist for a Cincinnati classical chorale of 20-24 people, the Cincinnati Camerata, and they had put out leaflets about an upcoming concert. I went to that with a friend, and all through it, after each number, he’d say, “You could get into this group!” and then showed me the blurb on the program about auditions coming up in about 3 months. I finally said I would call about an audition if he would not pester me for the rest of the show.
I may write some details of the audition in a later installment about auditions, but the very short version is, I was accepted into the Camerata right at the end of my audition, in part because I can sing a low F and he needed that on a particular piece. This is probably the most elite group I was ever in. The first year was a lot of fun, in part because it was new, and a few of the men were very welcoming. Over time, though the cattiness in the women’s sections got tiresome, and the director was hot-tempered, often justifiably, because people did not learn their music at home like they were supposed to. Also, there were several choir directors in the group, and two of them started to hire or recommend me for choir subbing or special occasions, and once I started doing that, I felt overloaded with rehearsals, so after 2 years with the Camerata, I left the group. I still attend their concerts, and I have no regrets – it was a great experience, but now they are doing mainly very modern repertoire, which is not the kind of music I like to sing.
My contacts from there led to being invited to sing with the Bach Association of Cincinnati, which I do for part of the year, and I continue to do choir subbing, though generally not for pay since the economy tanked. During a summer pick-up choir gig in 2009, I met the person who it ends up was about to become the former director of Women in Song, a west side women’s choir, and while my main interest was to work with him again, he suggested I do it anyway, saying he had heard they had a promising young director taking over.
Women in Song is not anywhere near as demanding as Camerata. It is all just “regular” people, though an audition is required. I did mine by sending the director a couple of MP3s of my singing. We do 2 concerts a year, with big breaks in between, so that allows me to stay with the Bach group and also do a bit of shapenote and other things. The most interesting thing, other than finally singing in an all-women’s group and making some female friends, is that the director is a male SOPRANO, formerly of Chanticleer. I am actually learning a lot from him and finding a few high notes that have eluded me for about 30 years. Also, since I have never sung in a women’s group, and quite a bit has been written for that voicing, I am doing music that is new to me, which I always enjoy.
All of the choir singing has gotten my voice back to a fairly classical sound, and that has made shapenote problematical. While the local group is used to my voice and rather enjoys it, I have been criticized on several occasions (including right to my face) by out-of-towners who say I do not sing it “right”, or who assume that I sing the way I do to be snobby. So I have cut back on that activity. Maybe once I can no longer do the classical singing, I will go back to it on a more regular basis.
That brings you right up to today, preparing for next month’s Women in Song concert. I’ll also be joining the director’s church choir just for that concert, since it is a joint concert and I’ll already be there, so why not sing with them? I will sing with just about any group if given the chance!
Possible future installments : auditions ; how to sing ; shows – the good, the bad, and the extremely weird.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Stage fright
I have some good news and some bad news about stage fright -- which do you want first? Actually they're both the same -- either you have stage fright or you don't. After 40+ years of performing, that is my conclusion. Some people, including some very famous people, have it and learn to control it, but I think if you have "it", you are stuck with it.
I do not have stage fright. That is not to say that I don't have concerns on occasion about a performance, or that I am never anxious about some particular aspect of a show, but as far as the throwing up backstage/hands shaking/can't remember the words, no, I never have that. One time, MANY years ago, I had a feeling during rehearsals that one person was going to be too scared to perform, so I learned her whole song, and sure enough, on the night of the show (actually a youth temple service), she would NOT go out, and since this was a featured song written by one of the participants, that was quite a problem, so I said, "Well, if you REALLY don't want to do it, I can do it" -- which I did.
I think I have to give some credit to my parents for this. Neither one of them has ever been a musician, so they were never "stage parents." Whenever I would perform or practice, they were complimentary -- no critical remarks, or exhortations that I should be better, or that someone else was better. Also, both of my parents have done a fair amount of public speaking -- my father for his job, and my mother at temple, and neither one got all bent out of shape about doing it. So I had good examples to model.
I have had several performances ruined by the stage fright of others. In every case, the person did fine during numerous rehearsals, but once we got in front of the audience, forget it. One was a man whose daily job included public speaking, and I had seen him do this, always very natural and not even using notes most of the time, but sing a couple of folk songs with me? He was such a wreck, he brought the lyrics out on little pieces of paper, but then his hands were shaking so much that he dropped them all over the stage. Someone else who sang harmony just fine during rehearsals suddenly could not find her notes and sang totally off-key for the whole song.
I am a little bit sympathetic, because there ARE things that make me very anxious, such as highway driving (therefore I don't do it -- ever), and situations that may result in extreme pain and injury. Like anyone approaching me with a needle. So I DO know the feeling. I wonder, though, why people who have extreme stage fright don't just -- stay off the stage!
I will not do something if I think I'll be really bad at it -- that would include any type of dancing, and I've turned down solos where the high note was questionable as to whether I could hit it every time. I can memorize tons of lyrics in various languages, but I can't memorize dialogue, so I don't try to do that. When I do public speaking, I have notes, but I never try to write out or memorize word-for-word what I am going to say. I don't worry that I will blank out and not be able to say anything, because that has never happened.
What DO I worry about? Tripping, dropping something, lighting someone's hair on fire during candlelight service. Tripping or falling off the risers is my biggie, and I have refused to stand on the back riser -- I'm not that great on my feet, so I don't want to be in the back row where I might fall off. Processionals are not my favorite, either, though I've learned to walk and hold a hymnal, but I may not be singing if I have to negotiate any steps. My voice is prone to cracking in a certain part of my range, especially late at night, such as midnight Christmas eve service, and sometimes that does happen, and I just don't care all that much -- really, who is going to remember? I ALWAYS hit the high note -- the problems are in the forgettable low range areas.
I guess part of my lack of stage fright is that over the years, almost everything has happened to me, and yet I survive. I've had a guitar string break the moment before I walked out on stage (I played the whole set without that string), had the scenery fall down during an opera (we continued to sing while holding it up with one hand), had the music blow off the piano outdoors (I improvised and an audience member brought the music back), and the lights or the sound system have gone out several times (depending on the situation, you keep going, or stop til they fix it).
Underneath it all, I just don't CARE all that much. So often I want to say, "Hey, people, it's just a SHOW!" Will anyone remember this a year from now, or even next week? Probably not. I want to do well, but if I don't, well, you didn't pay much to get in to see me. Some of what has happened to me and close friends just in the past decade -- standing on stage and singing a little ditty definitely is not that big a deal in comparison.
So what is my advice if you have really bad stage fright? Don't go on stage. And, if this makes you mad enough that you DO go on stage and are successful, just to prove me wrong, then we've both accomplished something.
I do not have stage fright. That is not to say that I don't have concerns on occasion about a performance, or that I am never anxious about some particular aspect of a show, but as far as the throwing up backstage/hands shaking/can't remember the words, no, I never have that. One time, MANY years ago, I had a feeling during rehearsals that one person was going to be too scared to perform, so I learned her whole song, and sure enough, on the night of the show (actually a youth temple service), she would NOT go out, and since this was a featured song written by one of the participants, that was quite a problem, so I said, "Well, if you REALLY don't want to do it, I can do it" -- which I did.
I think I have to give some credit to my parents for this. Neither one of them has ever been a musician, so they were never "stage parents." Whenever I would perform or practice, they were complimentary -- no critical remarks, or exhortations that I should be better, or that someone else was better. Also, both of my parents have done a fair amount of public speaking -- my father for his job, and my mother at temple, and neither one got all bent out of shape about doing it. So I had good examples to model.
I have had several performances ruined by the stage fright of others. In every case, the person did fine during numerous rehearsals, but once we got in front of the audience, forget it. One was a man whose daily job included public speaking, and I had seen him do this, always very natural and not even using notes most of the time, but sing a couple of folk songs with me? He was such a wreck, he brought the lyrics out on little pieces of paper, but then his hands were shaking so much that he dropped them all over the stage. Someone else who sang harmony just fine during rehearsals suddenly could not find her notes and sang totally off-key for the whole song.
I am a little bit sympathetic, because there ARE things that make me very anxious, such as highway driving (therefore I don't do it -- ever), and situations that may result in extreme pain and injury. Like anyone approaching me with a needle. So I DO know the feeling. I wonder, though, why people who have extreme stage fright don't just -- stay off the stage!
I will not do something if I think I'll be really bad at it -- that would include any type of dancing, and I've turned down solos where the high note was questionable as to whether I could hit it every time. I can memorize tons of lyrics in various languages, but I can't memorize dialogue, so I don't try to do that. When I do public speaking, I have notes, but I never try to write out or memorize word-for-word what I am going to say. I don't worry that I will blank out and not be able to say anything, because that has never happened.
What DO I worry about? Tripping, dropping something, lighting someone's hair on fire during candlelight service. Tripping or falling off the risers is my biggie, and I have refused to stand on the back riser -- I'm not that great on my feet, so I don't want to be in the back row where I might fall off. Processionals are not my favorite, either, though I've learned to walk and hold a hymnal, but I may not be singing if I have to negotiate any steps. My voice is prone to cracking in a certain part of my range, especially late at night, such as midnight Christmas eve service, and sometimes that does happen, and I just don't care all that much -- really, who is going to remember? I ALWAYS hit the high note -- the problems are in the forgettable low range areas.
I guess part of my lack of stage fright is that over the years, almost everything has happened to me, and yet I survive. I've had a guitar string break the moment before I walked out on stage (I played the whole set without that string), had the scenery fall down during an opera (we continued to sing while holding it up with one hand), had the music blow off the piano outdoors (I improvised and an audience member brought the music back), and the lights or the sound system have gone out several times (depending on the situation, you keep going, or stop til they fix it).
Underneath it all, I just don't CARE all that much. So often I want to say, "Hey, people, it's just a SHOW!" Will anyone remember this a year from now, or even next week? Probably not. I want to do well, but if I don't, well, you didn't pay much to get in to see me. Some of what has happened to me and close friends just in the past decade -- standing on stage and singing a little ditty definitely is not that big a deal in comparison.
So what is my advice if you have really bad stage fright? Don't go on stage. And, if this makes you mad enough that you DO go on stage and are successful, just to prove me wrong, then we've both accomplished something.
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