Change is hard.

So in figuring out what is my most healthy sustainable quality I get to make some interesting noises, in my opinion. The accompanist is happy. My teacher is happy. I am not. I wish I could hear what they hear but I think it sounds like crap: strained, throaty, childlike, and thin. I know this is only part of the process and not the result. If this was the ideal sound for my voice, I would quit it all right now and take up business again. Thankfully it is not, so I'm not. I really love school. I hate the stage I'm at though. I really enjoy performing and I do not fell that I have anything worth presenting. Notes are learned, words are memorized, intention and mood examined, dynamics applied, yet nothing I consider "a performable sound".
I am trying to do what I consider undergraduate work in unifying my registers. So I pulled teeth and got my professor to agree to an extra 1/2 hour lesson. So I saw him for 1 hour of tech and 1/2 hour of rep. I am so glad I did, it will be worth every penny.
I listened to an audio recording of Wednesday's lesson last night while laying in bed. It think I got a gist of what they hear. I just have such a strong physical connection to the sound and it feels harder and more muscle engagement in different places than ever before. I need to come to terms with this energy. It is not effort-filled but there is effort. It sounds brighter but fuller. I have to coordinate differently than before, I am okay with the idea of that.
I think I will go and listen again. I might learn something.

Ugh!

I haven't been sleeping well. I just can't sleep through muscle spasms. Who knew?
So I feel weak. Last night I went for coffee with some friends, which was great fun. I didn't drink caffeine because of the hour, but I did have an unfortunate muscle spasm. It was so bad that my heart started racing and beating really hard. Not fun.

So at my lesson today... I was wiped. I still had the desire, but it felt like pulling teeth to coordinate myself. My gracious teacher noticed that I was feeling like less than myself and gave me some great ideas to combat the situation. Great suggestions like "Gravol". I forgot about "Gravol". I'm not a bath person but to have a hot, relaxing bath is a stellar idea too.

He tried to make a light hearted serious joke with me today about how emotionally draining retraining these core technical things can be. Myself, as the ever desirous person to laugh that I am, made a joke right back. I don't think he got it though. The dynamic with a new voice teacher is so interesting for the first year. Never really sure where the boundaries are with each other, getting to understand the other persons history. As a voice teacher myself I always found that first year with a student to be a test year. For some students it might take less or more. He'll get me yet.

So then my plan tonight is to listen to some Schubert, and go to bed early. What will I actually do? Download music and Facebook is what I will do.

For later

I have yet to integrate my chest and head voices smoothly. I have always managed my registration with a head down method, singing head voice lower. Since my chest voice has a very good balance of inspiration and glottal engagement, I must find that laryngeal balance higher. So with the guidance of my professor I must blend up, not down. I have to retrain my overblown vocal folds. It is not just the acquiring of the new technique that is causing the frustration, but figuring out this new laryngeal balance means at this moment I will sound pretty bad. The embarrassment in retraining really is testing me. It is hard to allow myself to sound this kind of bad and here is why.
When I was working on the blending yesterday there were a couple girls in the hall and they burst into laughter. I know it sounds horrible; it is strained, throaty, sounds like yelling, and the vowels are too spread. So now I'm only going to go practise at after 5:00 when there are less people there. BAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Calm

So my lesson today was probably the most fundamental technique lesson on breathing and onset I have ever experienced. Yet I have this sense of weird calm about it. I went into the lesson with hopes but no expectations. I was willing to be creative, look foolish, and listen out side my head for sounds in response to what my teacher was asking of me.
In his words... 'today you came further than... at any point up to this point, and today you showed yourself that you're going to make changes, that you can make these changes... change deeply ingrained physical coordinations and your concepts of singing."
This should scare the Beelzebub out of me. It would have last week. Simply because everything I knew physically about creating a sound is different with what he was getting me to do. It feels different. It sounds different. The energy is different. My jaw and the resonance is different. But different is scary, different is unfamiliar, and different is difficult to recreate. But not today.
I believe my calm is because I trust this teacher. I don't believe I have fully trusted an applied voice teacher before. I have always been second guessing and critically analyzing everything in the past. But this one... has been there, done that, and proven his teachings with his former students. All that I have studied, and I studied singing treatises for fun in my spare time, he has not said anything that I have not read before by historically acclaimed pedagogues. Just the words he chooses to challenges me, the order of exercises in which he takes me through the lessons, his patience as he pauses for a split second so I may absorb the new physicality, with this I'm not worried. Change is good. This... is... good. :>