28 February, 2008

little girls, little girls, everywhere I turn...I can..hear them

Does every soprano have that little girl voice? The voice that you started with? That white, clear, silvery, crystal, easy thing that you just had naturally every since you can remember?
That voice whose qualities were praised by teachers as a natural gift.
The voice that got you through age 15-18 and all state choir and high school competitions.
The voice that got you into undergrad and a cappella.
The voice that then began to grow and be shaped and suddenly, around age...22...ish...find itself again. This time a bit more vibrato, a bit more roundness, a bit more...plummy...than that white angelic boy-soprano/chirpy thing that was.

So you think you said goodbye to it. But really it's still there. For me, it's on the eee vowel. HELLO 15 year old! You just totally ruined that nice legato line that I was trying to sing by popping into your old self and just sounding a bit--girlish and young.

What to do to say g'bye to that voice (even though it's what your ears really want to hear, and the only thing that really sounds like 'you', to 'you') :
Conscious thoughts about eee.
Every time there's a word or an approach to it on a decently high note.
Think about freeing it from it's close-jawed cage.
Opening or dropping JUST that tiny bit so that it is in line with everything else that I've learned since then.

I hope.
The more I learn this LOW role, the more I learn about what the potential for my voice is.
And I'm excited by what I'm working towards.

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