It's like... well...

Do you remember when you discovered The Phantom of the Opera?

I’m talking Andrew Lloyd Weber, Michael Crawford, Sarah Brightman, and all the rest.  Perhaps that discovery was just a generational thing…

I remember.  I think I was a freshman in high school.  I don’t recall exactly what my first exposure was.  It might have been the excerpts we played in symphonic orchestra.  It might have been tidbits in the choir.  Eventually, I laid hands on the ENTIRE SOUNDTRACK!  I remember how the music resonated in my soul!  I remember how I wanted to be able to sing every note of each part.  I knew the soundtrack word for word.  I knew the timing.  I could pick out any of four parts going at the same time, all following a different musical tangent and combining to form a chaotic and frenzied whole that crashed to a dramatic climax!  I couldn’t just start wherever in the middle somewhere.  I mean, I could, but I desired the full experience.  I would start at the beginning of the first tape and make sure I had a full couple of hours to listen all the way through to the end.  I felt driven to listen to it over and over again.  The music MOVED me!

OK.  Fast forward.

Let’s not talk about how many years later it is now.

I have moved through all sorts of music in the interim.  I stumbled close to a particular genre when I ventured into listening to Evanescence.  Perhaps they were merely a gateway band?  Fearless Leader recruited me for a recording project.  I loved it.  Then, Fearless Leader recruited me for a full time singing position!  I’m beyond flattered, and thrilled.  He sends some music my way.  I eat it up.  He sends some more music my way.  I eat that up, too.  I find more music on my own, and I’m really digging it.

I quietly delighted in the Kamelot/Nightwish Concert at the end of September 2012.

Finally, the Silverthorn album is available in the United States, and I download it.  I listen to it once through, and import it into my Kamelot playlist.  I’d play the list on ‘shuffle’ and one of the new songs would randomly pop up from time to time.  But these new songs were different…

Whatever I was doing, I had to stop and savor the sound when one of these new songs popped up.  Once it was over and we moved onto something else, I felt a little emptier.  What was going on?

Aside:  I’m a Virgo.  I have to analyze EVERYTHING.  Why do I like this?  Why don’t I like this?  Why does this work?  Why does this not work?  What makes ‘this’ different from ‘that’?  How?  What?  Why?
You get the idea.

Back to the playlist.  The music is DARK.  I love it.  It resonates with me.  But Kamelot has always made dark music!  What’s the big deal?  Unable to take the emptiness, I pull up the Silverthorn album and play it from beginning to end.  The story is complete.  I can now move on.  Um, not so fast.  EMPTY!!!

“FINE!”  I shout to my soul.  “There you go!”
I set the album to ‘repeat all’.  Soul is now sitting back and nestling into its place the way one nestles into a cozy chair in front of a fire with a good book.  Lost in the story.  Lost in the music.  Lost in the DARKNESS.

Aside:  I **LOVE** dark music.

I have not felt this sort of musical obsession pull since my personal discovery of Phantom of the Opera.  Les Miserables came close.  Rent was catchy, as well.  And, of course, there was my general introduction to the world of Symphonic metal…

Thank you, Kamelot, for this musical ecstasy experience.  More, please?

Meet F#

F# is the current ‘bane of my existence’.  It’s not that I bear any particular ill will toward F# in general.  I play violin!  I actually prefer F# to F-natural!  However, this F# happens to be the second one above middle C.

I thought that E was my biggest challenge.  I brought it to my vocal coach, saying “Is this just plain out of my range?  Is it an interval thing?  Should I just scrap it altogether?”  After some analysis, she came back with “It’s just waaaay up there.  You really can’t belt that out, it’s completely head voice.”  We got down to work, and it has become a little better.  Don’t be fooled, though.  There is plenty more work to be done on it.

So, along comes F-natural.  I find that it is somewhat hit-and-miss.  Perhaps I’m not warm enough, or maybe I’m not loose enough.  Tension is a problem with me.  Maybe I’m just not making the face!

Aside:  It’s a real thing.  I stand in front of my coach, and she says, “I suspect that this can be more extreme.  It isn’t supposed to be pretty.  Offend me!”  So, I make the face.  It isn’t pretty.  The sound is offensive.  But it gets EASY!  Because there are physiological changes that happen by engaging those muscles!  My stage performance may get interesting…

More aside:  We talk about extremes a lot.  In the end, we usually want a happy medium, and I tend to find that happy medium by exploring the extremes.  I can’t remember exactly what we were doing, but my coach said that my “Ah” was sounding a little too open, and she wanted to hear me flatten it out more so that it became more of an “a” (like ‘cat’) and less like “o” (as in ‘calm’).  Let me tell ya, I flattened it all right!  She immediately said, “OK, that was too much!” and praised my exploration of the extreme in the same breath.

Back to F-natural.  It seems to be in every flippin’ song!  Why can I hit it just fine in this one, and then feel like I’m reaching and straining in that one?  It’s the same note…

Fearless Leader says he really wants to cover this other song.  I really want to cover it, too!  The first chorus?  No problem.  The second chorus?  It feels higher…  The third chorus feels even higher still!  It turns out, the first and second choruses are the same.  The third is, in fact, a third higher.

And starts on F#.

The second one above middle C.

At the moment, it is THE highest note I have been asked to perform.

What do I sing?

I am a classically trained vocalist. =D

I had my doubts before, but now I am positive.  I had a phenomenal vocal session last night and was singing up to a high F!  We did some really crazy (obnoxious?) exercises and had a couple of breakthrough (eliminate bad habits?) moments.

Fearless Leader is going hate it, because I see a scenario playing out something like this:

We’re singing through a phrase, and when I reach for the higher notes, I feel a little strained, and the sound is coming out thin and not quite on key…  I will recognize that this is because I have reverted back to ‘choir girl mode’ and tried to reach it with everything in my head wide open with my voice in the back of my mouth.  I will need to resituate and bring my voice forward into my nose.  So, I’ll need to take a break from the phrase and do a few scales in “nya-nya”.  This sounds something like the meow mix commercial… (Meow-meow-meow-meow / Meow-meow-meow-meow  / Meow-meow-meow-meow - meow-meow-meow-meow) …only much more nasal and offensive!  Then, to return to the phrase, singing not-the-words, but “nya”.  Are you hearing obnoxious-nasal-new-york-accent?  Because you should be!  Then, finally, returning to the correct words and actually making the sounds I intended to in the first place.  Fearless Leader is really going to hate listening to the raucous honking that it takes to get me up into my nose in my upper ranges…

Seriously.  Anyone would be offended by the nya-nyas.  It’s worse than singing ‘ah’s with my tongue lolling out of my mouth.

And this is classical!

I am now empowered, though, because I know what it should feel like and can now recognize when it doesn’t feel like that – which means my voice will do MORE and last so much LONGER.

Yes.  Apparently, I am a classically trained metal singer.  Who knew?

I guess Fearless Leader did...