I was thinking while on the bus this morning that I had forgotten to mention something yesterday about my voice lesson. When doing warm-ups, we started with the middle range and then high. After that she wanted to test/hear my lower range and as I was hitting a low “f” in my chest voice with really good volume she looked utterly shocked. Yvonne said she has mezzo’s who can’t hit that note that loud. It was pretty exciting, and I felt like I could’ve gone a couple notes lower.
Apparently Wednesday’s are student’s day in Salzburg. This means some bars, shops, and café’s are half off.
We got our tickets for the festival. I have a lot of master classes, Don Giovanni, Jedermann which is the “every-man’s play” shown here every year since the very first Salzburg Festival, and Lirderabend which will be a concert of German Lied... I think.
Lunch today was quiche and potatoes with tiramisu for dessert. It was delicious as usual.
Master class was fun today. Dr. Hardenbergh likes to tell stories. She told us one today about how she couldn’t roll her “r’s” until she was in graduate school. She had thought it genetic after speaking with a speech pathologist in high school when she was taking Spanish. Her Spanish teacher had threatened to fail her unless she pronounced the word correctly with a rolled “r.” Once in graduate school, she was told she couldn’t be a singer unless she learned to roll her “r’s.” At the time Dr. Hardenbergh had a roommate who could and she would just watch her roommate do it from every angle to see if she could figure it out. It wasn’t until sometime later when traveling abroad and in a summer program, I believe, that she could suddenly do it. It made me think back to my undergraduate when I couldn’t roll my “r’s” in the front (which is needed for Italian especially) but I could roll them in the back. It wasn’t until my senior year when Dora, my former voice teacher, told me to start rolling my “r’s” in the back and see if I can inch it forward. I tried and after just a day or two I could do it. I was very excited. It’s these little achievements that feel just amazing.
After the master class, a few of us were just hanging out in the library, catching up on e-mail, facebook and skype. I signed up for a practice room from 16:45-18:30. Then I had rehearsal with the pianist from 18:30-19:15 for the competition on Saturday morning. Rehearsal went well… and he knows the pieces that are tricky, for him anyway. I, however, will just sing over anything he plays pianists don’t tend to screw me up anymore thanks to rehearsing with my mother. (It’s not that you don’t play well mom, but playing the music I now sing is quite difficult as I’m sure you’d agree).
Because of the late rehearsal, I didn’t get home until about 20:00. Lisa was long asleep, but the others waited to have dinner till I got home. I had a quick dip in the pool to cool off while Martina made dinner, then we enjoyed dinner sitting out on their patio. It has been very warm this week, but it looks as though it will start to get chilly this weekend.
We enjoyed a nice dinner together followed by coffee and cake. By the time we were done it was already 21:30 and I still had homework to do for German, so I ran up the stairs and now that it’s done it is time for bed!!
Gute Nacht!
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