I Know Things Now...

I've been performing for nearly 13 years now, 4 years of classical training and the past three years performing professionally and yet today I taught myself something new! I have spent a lot of time in the past week or two learning the score for Annie and prepping to teach it to the cast. Today was my 3rd meeting with the young lady playing the title role and I had to stop and think about why something works. There have been 3 times in my life that I have had that "aha" moment with my own voice and they have all happened while teaching. Sure it is selfish of myself to develop my voice in a lesson that belongs to another person but what can I say... I am a firm believer that "to teach is to learn". I can hear my voice instructors' cries of frustration as the read "3 times" and to them I say, those are "aha" moments. In the studio I feel I have more of the "duh" moments than anything else. Moments where the task at hand is easily solved by something we have already worked on. I am sure that all students have these moments where they are frustrated with an outcome and the instructor is kind enough (most of the time) to gently remind us of the solution and it slaps us in the face and our only option is to say "duh".

I have to constantly remind myself that this young lady doesn't have the training that I am used to working with. Not because she isn't good, but because she has a really great raw talent it is so easy for me to forget that she hasn't been studying for years. And so, I will often be mid-sentence describing how a certain vowel feels on a certain pitch and I have to stop and make sure that she is actually feeling vowels and pitches. I think sometimes we allow the nuts and bolts of singing get in the way of "just singing". If asked to sum up all of the vocal instruction with my current coach it would be "just sing!" My coach is constantly telling me this. If I had a dime, a penny even, for every time she has told me "to just sing" I would be a very wealthy young man and not have to worry about being an actor or a coach.

I enjoy teaching. Last month, at our cast party I taught an impromptu violin lesson. Our host, whose children were in the show, had mentioned on facebook that her son plays violin and her daughter the cello. I had remarked that I wasn't going to leave the party until I heard some violin and she took me seriously. She made her son haul out the violin and play something for me and the teacher in me jumped into overdrive and we had a 30 minute lesson right there. Mind you, it was more like a master class since the remaining guest at the party also took part but it was fun! I have never wanted to teach instruments so I know that it was the amazing training that I received from my strings professor that enabled me to diagnose what I was hearing and correct it. AND I LOVED EVERY MINUTE! But alas, I am still just a poor ex-college student working to pay my bills. Well looking for a job to pay my bills. I just applied with Twitter and with a few other places so keep your fingers crossed.

One of those positions is Director of the new center our Fine Arts Institute is opening in a neighboring city. We meet with the city manager tomorrow morning so currently I am doing laundry to look my best. I am listening to My Fair Lady and had forgotten why I love this musical. Such great writing, the orchestrations are spot on, and the performances of Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison are everything one could want from a Doolittle and Higgins. Oh, it is the Broadway album, not the movie that starred Hepburn's body and acting yet Marni Nixon's singing. The orchestrations are phenomenal! They provide just the right amount of drama and pizazz to convince the audience that Harrison's stylized speaking on pitch is singing. I love it! Although, Harrison was not the nicest person during the beginning phases of working with the orchestra; he was constantly complaining that he couldn't hear the melody part. Which I can understand. When you rehearse a musical you only have the piano accompaniment which will sound, on the whole, nothing like the final orchestrations. I remember doing Fiddler a few years back and when we finally put the orchestra and singers together it was a time that I wish I had a video camera. Since we never had a proper sitzprobe (sit and practice) time with the orchestra. We sort of just moved from the rehearsal hall to the theater, read gym, and expected it all to go smoothly... hahahhaha. It took a little bit of extra rehearsal but we got it and it sounded amazing!

I feel that I have rambled on this evening. So I leave you with this thought, "Go see a show!"