Singing!

All in all, today turned out to be a successful day! I finished the phrase work that my HPU students will be showing for their final, an informal workshop performance next month, I got quite a bit of reading done for my school work, I taught an entire evening of classes at Dancer's Edge in Kernersville, filling in for another teacher and I had a wonderful singing lesson this afternoon!

I have been studying with my instructor, Barbara for only a few months. However, I am slowly now coming to understand how I must train the muscles in my body to allow me to sing with ease and clarity. She has me do a whole host of interesting exercises, with straws, resistance bands, wooden sticks, weighted balls, etc. to trick me into doing what is most correct for the body...and into singing on pitches I wouldn't normally even attempt! And in addition to singing, the work has made teaching dance easier for me! Generally, when I teach, my voice gets extremely tired. Learning to breathe and project in a more efficient manner has helped my speaking voice enormously! Today, I think I made some real progress. I found some muscles I did not know I had (odd, coming from a dancer, but these are tiny ones!) and I sang out in such a way that I actually felt my ears pop a little, and vibrate. I guess I don't really know how to explain the sensation in my ears today, but when it happened, my voice opened up tremendously! Barbara said that I was doing so well today, that she wants me to bring an actual song to sing at our next lesson. I thought it would be many more months before she asked me to bring music to our session! I'm considering just a few songs to begin with, one of which is, "It's a Good Day," as sung by Peggy Lee. I have always loved this song, and though it may not strike many as the kind of song you would take to sing at your music lesson, it is one I know well and feel I will without a doubt, be able to hit all of the notes in it!

Good night!

~Cara