Later this afternoon I'll record another music school pre-screening audition. Yesterday's voice lesson was surprisingly productive. I'd gone in feeling a bit cruddy (ah, seasonal allergies), but C assured me I was doing well - in good voice, breathing well, good energy.
I had an "aha!" moment when she had me working an exercise to loosen the root of my tongue (because tension anywhere in the vocal production tract is killer!). I realized that my tongue was tensing up upon my inhalation unless I remembered my back breathing (i.e., expanding my full rib cage on the inhalation). Another reason to do that back breathing!
Coincidentally, my Voice for the Actor prof had just introduced tongue exercises on Wednesday, including one to release tongue tension. I love it when my various classes dovetail! It's like I'm triangulating on good technique, reinforcing it from multiple angles.
Similarly, what both C andd my TA voice teacher have said about sustaining energy through a vocal line just got a boost from the energy exercises my Voice teacher had us do in class on Monday, to sustain energy through and past the end of a line. All good!
C got a call from her mother during my lesson that she had to take. Once she got off the phone, she explained that there was a completely unacceptable situation in her mother's building that the family was addressing. When she explained the situation, I was livid for her mother's sake. We then joked about "OK, now caress your lover's pillow" as I prepared to run through my other song. Maybe it was having my blood boiling, but boy, was my energy good for that song! :D I may have to use that trick this afternoon.
I'm trying not to get too worked up about this. I need to relax (hah - as if!), breathe, remember the main technical points I've worked on since I did this last year, breathe some more, and, most importantly, enjoy the music. After all, I picked these pieces because I liked them and knew I could live with them for months (or, in the case of one, over a year). Now they're old friends; I need to sing them with that love.
If nothing else, I'm bound to do better than last year. That was discouraging - back to singing only a week after taking about 3 weeks off because those blasted seasonal allergies were making singing actually painful. This year I'm healthy (knock wood), and I've got an additional year of technical work, practice, and coaching under my belt.
I plan to get to campus early, find a practice room, and review all the technical and textual points I want to perform, do some loosening-up exercises, and maybe even get myself to relax a bit so I can enjoy singing these pieces.
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