Vacation?

So I sit and ponder the grande scheme of things. I finally watched my little video of my performance, and while I cringe at it, it's still an experience. I can either run away from it or because why else would I be doing this if I ran away, I can learn from it and keep going. This is how I am. I am overly critical of myself, I know this. I want things to be perfect, but life is an imperfect creation, more importantly life is what we create of it. I'm hoping that all my problems with regards to performing can be erased like when I used to train people and had to keep their attention for 8 hours. I used to be nervous and scared then too, but I did it so often that I forgot to be scared. So that is what I will do, take each performance no matter how good or bad and keep doing it until I no longer shake the second I stand on stage. That is my only solution.

Lessons...

Tonight I had my recital. I am not happy with myself about it. The sad thing is it isn't something to be upset about, but I am. I am making my way through my second and last song when my voice cracked, as in my note just ripped apart and just it was humiliating and humbling and upsetting to me. I, who when I played the violin, didn't squeaked. My voice cracked, my very own instrument. My family and my partner that was there were really supportive and tried to assure me that it wasn't that bad, but I was in virtual tears and I tried to push it from my mind. They said that I handled it well but I won't know until I get the courage to look at the recording of it. I want to put it off. But we can't stop the storms nor can we stop the truth when the truth comes out. Maybe tomorrow I shall have the courage...in the morning, or afternoon...

What I will be doing tomorrow night

First performance of this "year." I feel only slightly nervous about it. But not as much as usual. I feel a little under the weather, though I shall not let them know. That's the key. Don't let them know when you're down, nor when you mess up. More often than not they won't notice. But the perfectionist in me may not relent and I will give some small sign. This is the lessons we must master if we want this to go somewhere, no?

Thus the end of a semester.

So to speak it is a semester I get two weeks off from lessons, with only a recital on Tuesday to say good bye to 2009.

I am getting better, just need to practice more.

PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE!

It may not be perfect, but it will make it better.

Or at least I hope it will.  I can feel so tired lately, I hope that I am not getting sick.

Oh well hopefully Tuesday will go well.

Different schedules require a lot of brain power.

My schedule is not so different as the fact that I did not wake up next to my partner for the first time on a wednesday in a while.  So I woke up at 12:30p thinking that it was just another day.  I hunkered down to watch some television when I decided to think "What day is it today?"  "Oh shit!"  was my reply as I hurried to get ready for my lesson that occurs every Wednesday at 1:30p.  Lucky for me that it only takes 30 minutes to walk there, but it had snowed last night, and it was raining when I left.  But I made it.

Fortunately I was not the only person to forget what day it was.  My lesson was interrupted by my partner phoning me, despite me hitting ignore (not willingly, but necessarily).  Oh the days when it was easy to know when and where we were.  

The lesson went well despite the whole forgetting the lesson I did have.  Still need to learn to just sing, not think about singing.  I love singing, but the hardest thing for me to do is turn off my brain.  I used to be an insomniac, ever since I started seeing my partner, sleep is easier, but there are times when I can just hear the whirr of my brain starting to kick in.  It's frustrating because most of my problems stem from my brain not being able to shut off.  I over think things, even the things that are second nature to me.  Oh well the journey continues to go on, I hope that there is no end to it.

Yesterday was another day

So had a lesson yesterday, it went a lot better than usual, still learning how to settle my body so that the sound I produce is natural and not forced.  It's like any work of art, it's always a work in progress.  But it was interesting because my lesson sounded better to me than my practicing has.  I wish I could always sound good, but it takes practice and awareness of what my body is doing that I don't always have.

Before every lesson for the past few months, while I'm waiting for the door to open to usher me into the lesson, I sit outside and I listen.  I really enjoy taking lessons at the Conservatory as I am constantly bombarded with sounds.  Some are pleasant and some not so, I constantly hear an off tune violin which leads me to believe that even the most trained musician forgets that their instrument needs to be tuned.  But there is one sound that is extremely pleasing and humbling at the same time.  There is a woman who takes lessons just a few doors away from me and she's a singer as well.  But her voice is unlike my own barely trained voice, it is beautiful, rich, and very, very good.  This voice is able to pass through doors and walls in the sound controlled hallways of the conservatory.  So my teacher and I always comment on it and how we would like to see the possessor of such a voice.  But for now we just listen for the swell of a sustained note to pass along the hallways of the musical learning.

Til next time

While the brownies are in...

I feel I should give a proper update on my lesson since my previous post was a little on the lacking side.  I had a splitting headache which continued into the next day.  I definitely needed rest to recuperate since that wasn't going to happen while working an insane schedule.

So like I said late nights mean hard lessons, and by gods it was a hard lesson.  Just physically demanding on me since I had little practice and my body was just so tired.  It literally wished it was still tucked away in bed.  But I refuse to give into the demands of what I term weakness of body.  Did I ever mention I am the hardest person on myself?  I think I have a time or two.  So instead of calling sick to my lesson I persevered.  My teacher was easy on me, it's hard to be an artist, trying to learn a craft, and be held back by the fiscal demands of said craft (Let's just say my credit card is taking a beating).  She had said that despite my body's lack of cooperation that I was making headway with the singing.  We'll take her word for it.  All I could do was laugh at my feeble attempts to hit my notes and by the end was ready to curl up into a ball on the floor right in the room and sleep.

Needless to say that I have not practiced at all this week as my schedule is almost as crazy.  Thankfully not as crazy as last weekend.  But when the time comes I will have to make the effort.

Late nights mean hard lessons

I can't express how terrible this weekend has been.

Opening weekend of a movie that has become the 3rd highest revenue intake on an opening weekend of all time (New Moon) when you work at a movie theatre and then having to work on cheap tuesdays.  I didn't get home until 4 AM I had a lesson today at 1:30 PM.

If lessons were free I wouldn't need to work.  Then I may be able to rest like a normal person.  The nice thing about working at the theatre is that the hours are good enough for me to fit in lessons, it's just when the schedule goes crazy and I'm exhausted from just the idea of work.  

Oh well the lesson itself didn't go so badly, lots of activity going on at Conservatory that was curious, but never found out what it was all about.

So that is all for an update that I'm going to give, my head is tired.

November 18, 2009

Blah...I had a lesson today and I've been feeling like I've been running around.  It's hard working part time for a place that has weird hours, living with a boyfriend, and trying to fit in a moment practice.  These are the big things the little things inbetween like making sure I'm fed, and my cat is taken care of.

I am extremely hard on myself if a lesson doesn't go well (or well according to me).  I usually end up feeling bad, and wanting to cry.  So it was a very tough lesson for me.  My teacher is great, she's nice when she's trying to smooth out what's going wrong with my voice, instead of just beating it into my brain.  It's more guidance and advice than 'this is how you're supposed to do and if you can't do it then you fail.'  I'm pretty sure I'd be exaggerating that last bit on any score, but that's what my brain fills in.  

Why I fail at music is two fold:  I'm scared shitless about failing (sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy) and I'm mildly Type A.  If it's not perfect than it's useless (again my brain).  It's a long road getting to the point where my voice inside isn't so loud, and there are days I just want to be lazy say yeah you're right brain and give up.  Sometimes it's a real struggle.

So this is what my lesson gave me:  No matter how bad it feels like, it's probably not as bad as it could have been and I should just lighten up sometimes!

the beginning

Ok so here's the deal:  I'll write about my venture into the wild and perhaps not so glamorous world of singing, but I make no promises that it'll be any bit enlightening.  It's mainly so that I may have a way of tracking my progress, that is if I even remember to do so.

My name is Samantha, and for the past few years I've embarked to discover a voice that I didn't know I even had.  I missed music.  Music for some strange ineffable reason has a strong hold on me.  It's not a terrible thing, just hard when finances aren't always there to help out with discovering music.  BUt maybe this isn't a beginning more a continuation of something that is just a part of me.

I started in the world of music when I was 10, my parents decided to get a piano, sign up my sister and I for piano lesson with my dad learning as well.  It was neat going every week learning things out of books one at a time, stealing books to maybe learn something that I wasn't given.  I'm not going to lie, I was curious about the sounds that came out of an instrument.  And I was good at it, I found something that gave me a reason to be.  Music never asked me to love it, but it was beautiful and charming and I found I could just be me with music.  Music is just me and the instrument, me and the notes, I could get lost and be fine.  It was about this time that I had actually starting to listen to other music.  With music I wasn't teased, I wasn't shunned, music gave me a safe harbour from a world that is far crueler than a child should ever know.  So that was the beginning of my life.  

I have dabbled with other instruments after the piano, even showing a knack for learning difficult instruments like the Violin/fiddle, the flute, the french horn.  I have even discovered things about my limitations as a person.  I have absolutely no sense of rhythm I'll start out alright and then my mind blanks and I will lose the beat and the count.  Still with that glaring set back I continue to experience music.

A couple of months back I had a surgery, not major surgery where I could die on the operating table, but it did provide me with a sense of perspective about me and my life.  The only thing that has ever held me back was fear of failing.  Even with music, my fear would become so great I would shake and panic and just overall begin shutting down, hence why I could never quite reach 80% on my piano exams despite knowing the songs and all that.  I tend to blame this process and fear on a lack of faith in myself.  I've come a long way in learning to trust myself, but till then I have constantly doubted who I was and what I have done.  It's a harsh life, but the truth all the same.  So after surgery I'm sitting around looking at the fantastic view outside my hospital window when it hit me:

I knew myself so well that I could tell when something wasn't right with my body, why couldn't that be the same with the things I love as well?  Music has always been my life, even after I had quit piano, I was always in Band, I had even gone back to piano because music had a siren's call on me.  Even after years of not really having music as a major role in my life (Go those four years of university, and post graduation lull!) I still looked to keep it in a part of me.  I worked at a music store, I even had the guts to try out for a "reality" singing show.  I had even decided to start taking lessons again.  This all led to my epiphany that the only thing outside the people in my life that has truly made me happy was music.  And singing is just making me happier.  So why not make that into my life.

I know it's not easy to be a singer in today's world.  Everyone wants to be famous, everyone wants to be the artist.  Well good for them, but that has not bearing on my decision to focus on music.  Yes, being recognised for my talents would be nice, and much appreciated, but music is for me, if others happen to enjoy it with me then they are more than welcomed to do so.  I will never stop them since, hey, I would like to make a living off it, so that suits me just fine.

My dilemma is how to approach a music life.  My singing teacher is helpful always ready with suggestions, got me signed up to do a music festival in February (slightly terrified), I practice more than I used to...My loved ones are supportive some more realistically so than others...ah well that's my goal and mission...mon raison d'etre so to speak...

Love

Samantha