I'm sure there will be a light at the end of this tunnel...Day 4

A rainy day in New York...

Had 30 minutes of vocal warm up, my voice is starting to show fatigue...due to my lack of sleep over the past few weeks....so I'm being kind and just doing gentle vocalizations to wake up the voice. Worked on soprano section from "Because" from Across the Universe.

Here is the lunch I prepared, made with delicious (NON SWEET bread...it's really hard to find good bread here!)...Lettuce, spanish onion, provolone cheese, Italian salami...mmmmmmm

Then I went up to Harlem for my first singing lesson with a new teacher Christian Fletcher (new to me, not new to teaching...just to clarify hahaha)

He is exactly what I was hoping for...he has a strong classical background with a sound knowledge of musical theater and pop and how I can adapt the vowel sounds from classical into theater. I had stopped taking vocal lessons 2 years ago in Australia due to the nature of the shift work I was doing...My voice has changed so much since then! It used to be Soprano and light...now its belty/mix and I can barely get to a high C comfortably...well now I know what i want! I want to strengthen back to my FULL range. Keeping the belt and the low notes, and making the soprano as crisp and gorgeous as I can. 

Christian was encouraging, he told me about his extensive background in singing Internationally, the mentors he has had as well as the many students he has working on Broadway. He assured me that he will not 'pat me on the head and tell me i'm doing a good job' if my technique, placement and quality of sound is not where it should be. I did a number of scales on different sounds and vowels so he could hear where my voice was at. I then sang through "A Way back to Then" from Title of Show. I felt like I was just yelling out the belty parts and he confirmed that it sounded that way, but after I corrected my mouth shape and the shape of the sound it was in such a good place. A safe place for my voice, and then I knew...yep this is the right singing teacher for me!

After my lesson I walked down towards the physio appointment I had scheduled. With time to spare I stopped at Starbucks (which vaguely resembles REAL coffee) and wrote pages of notes from my singing lesson. I hope to get alot of repertoire before my next lesson. Christian suggested some traditional songs from Gershwin, Judy Garland and Cole Porter to work on the jazz tones in the lower part of my voice...I'm so up for it!

Then the physio appointment...apparently I have a grade 1-2 sprain in my ankle...The worst being 3. And I cannot dance on it for 4 weeks!!!!!!! I then start stressing about my program (as I need to dance to complete it...and I am only 3 months into the program!)....Nothing I have control over though...STUPID ANKLE!

I then went and viewed 3 more apartments...the search continues...

Then I went to rehearsal for the showcase and told everyone that I can't dance, which means that I can no longer do the "Telephone Hour" piece as it is all dancing. This nearly pushes me to tears...as we have been rehearsing for weeks!!! But anyway I will just stand side stage in the wings and sing. GUTTED!

I know there is a lesson in all of this...somewhere. I am just waiting for it all to be clear to me...

Then dinner with Libby...Salmon and veggies

So there's my day in a nut shell!