akintsucrooner

MY EIGHT CYLINDER LIFE

By E. Perryman

2.7.19

Singing blog at WordPress: akintsucroooner

Delicate, agile, ingenue, calm, pure, mellow….words not often used to describe me.

My viking songstress profile includes: beefy, leisurely, intense, rich, heroic, and robust.

I’m glad to have a “horn.” I just don’t always get to take it out for a jaunt.

Questions I’ve encountered along the singing road:

1. You got a forte high A? Check.

2. How’s your flow and phrasing? Um, I occasionally have to recalculate my gps. Someday I hope to bring a smile to my coach Giovanni Longo’s face with my cruise control slancio.

3. Got feeling? Sure do. This ain’t my first rodeo.

4. Can you give me some vibrato free, pianissimo singing above the staff? Check please.

So yes, big fat, rangy, 19th century singing is right up my alley. Light, bright, and straight singing, well, it shall always be a work in progress for me.

Tonight was a dramatic treat. We sang the choral version of the Brahms 1st symphony finale at my church job.

This octavo was published over 60 years ago. I think it’s safe to say that choirs don’t sing “balls to the wall” much like this anymore.

Church choir music of the 21sf century has gotten a little soft. This octavo proves it.

The part writing in the Brahms sits in the break and above, has a serious range, and requires some courageous intestinal fortitude. Gotta get that head voice and chest voice going, cuz there ain’t no place to hide in this war horse.

It sure was fun to let Bessie out of the spanks tonight and ride the cushy 1980s choral Cadillac.

Below I take you on my meme journey as a dramatic soprano.

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Bessie, or the artist formerly known as Perryman’s chubby cords, loves to leap around and sing some good angular Anglican music. There’s something about how Britten wrote his choral music and where it sits that makes me Bessie a happy phonator. #ohbejoyful #bennyandhisleaps #brittenbabe #goodcleanenglishsinging #bigbessielovestocroontheroyaltongue

My dad loved to have me sing and explore all voice types when I was taking lessons as a kid. The high soprano coloratura stuff was never my forte except for this one phrase in Haydn’s verdure clad. I could always sing this no matter how jacked up my technique was. One of my students sings this like she ate it for breakfast. She even got a “damn” from my queen of the night wife from upstairs. #haydncreation #tomanynotessir #tortoisedramatichere

I have found that singing is a subjective blend of brain, body and, brawn. We all have individual, physical receptors in which to create sound. Vocal study involves finding the most effective pedagogy that suits your individual instrument.

My favorite word to describe an often intangible process of phonation is proprioception (“the sense of the relative position of one’s own parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement. It is sometimes described as the sixth sense.”)

Many vocal directives work for a variety of singers but most singers need a blending of approaches to find their freest sound.

In the world of chorus singing, choristers often hear a common choir director phrase whether they’ve sung in a children’s chorale, church choir, or community chorus….

It may have helped or given you fuzzy brain…..

Or perhaps you don’t remember because were too busy chatting up the the other choristers….

“Drop your jaw” is a familiar choirmaster phrase…..

As well meaning as it may be, it is hard to implement “dropping your jaw” without incurring tension…

Lowering shoulders (avoiding “setting” the sound) and lifting the upper molars was the ticket tonight for my voice student as we navigated registers to find her greatest ease…

So I was inspired to find a suitable meme after this discovery and who better than Ryan G to deliver this singing motto….

#akintsucrooner

Great teachers emanate out of knowledge, passion and compassion. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Many go through times of great struggle. We become broken. Singers often experience this especially in pursuit of a self sustaining career. For me, learning how to sing has been filled with great disappointments and great triumphs. Disappointments have been the majority of my 40 plus years of voice study and performance. From the days of waking up without a voice on performance day, having to sing without a core or high or low register, to Bobby Brady cracking in performance, it has been a humbling ride. But I would do again and again because it has been worth it.

My blog uses “kintsu” as a prefix because of the term Kintsukuroi (金繕い, “golden repair“.

This is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

Kintsukuroi is how I envision my ongoing singing journey and one I am grateful to be a part of, now at the half century mark.

A teacher who knew and worked with me especially in the midst of my kuroi period in my 20s/30s was Dr. Alfonse Anderson.

I had a chance to sing for him this past weekend. It was a great blessing to get his expertise now after 20 years of woodshedding and trudging through this wacky world of singing.

Thank you to all of the many teachers/coaches, including my own students, who continue to help and inspire me with the muse I have been given.

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My 11 voice lesson takeaways and bel canto checkup on 11.24.18 with Dr. Anderson:

1. Don’t throw away breath on consonants, they should be within the vowel.

2. Find vowels at adduction and don’t go away from adduction throughout phonation.

3. Keep vocal tract open during inhalation.

4. Trust the track, all vowels don’t have to be formed with the mouth.

5. Don’t reach, go down into your body.

6. Avoid natural body response to collapse throughout support.

7. Feel your voice in your body.

8. I’m not gonna fool with your high note, but I’m gonna fool with it.

9. “Lean into it” APPOGGIO Yesssss

10. Keep ribcage expanded especially with high note approach; sit out when taking a breath.

11. There are no high notes, find the correct adduction and you’ll find the correct phonation.

AN ODE TO MY OPERA COACH

11.21.18

My Rs can be chewy and my L has a tail, dark vowels are my pal where diphthongs prevail.

My line loves to punch & my jaw likes to hold, your ears are acute when my phrase leaves you cold.

My oo drives you nuts when it’s shallow and small,

I rise to the task so my tuning won’t fall.

Just one note to find, you say and repeat, I gather my mouth, a sausage defeat.

Bernlina, banana, amore, amor, enjoy now your birthday, new joys to explore.

Happy Birthday, my coach extraordinaire, Giovanni Longo! May it be a stellar year, indeed. — with Giovanni Longo and 2 others.

I’ve been pulling up those Mozart spanks for awhile. And don’t get me wrong, I love their dulcet, refined, snug, get in line feel.

Wolfie has helped me with my upper extension, passagio, mix, fioratura, and ensemble singing. This was especially helpful for a throat that has aged like fine wine. Thank God too. Ain’t nobody needed to hear my cracking, spread self in my 20s.

Now as I am 12 days away from my 50th Birthday, it’s time to sport some Hanes Wagner’s way, some stretchy cotton numbers.

And last night I had my first big girl rodeo with Walküre’s Sieglinde, singing in an orchestra read through with green mountain Mahler society in Vermont. I am so grateful for my teaching job that grants 3 personal days so I can have enriching experiences like these.

By the end at 10pm, I was just cooking with oil and was ready to do it again.

Whereas singing lighter rep tires me out, I was energized and invigorated singing through that thick orchestration.

My dad used to transpose my songs as a kid into 2 Keys, low and high, depending where my voice was that day. Wagner is like a balm to my voice and love of low and high. Sieglinde sings low B, jumps around in the upper break, and gets to chill on an (ee) vowel on loud high As; my fave note and vowel.

I am officially coming out as a big girl singer. Hearing the big voiced men last night, I thought to myself, I found my peeps.

Hopefully someday ill be saying” I sang the ring and I liked it.”

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Before I walked, you carried me, perhaps a little too long in my Dad’s estimation.

When I got more brave with my steps, you encouraged me, soothed me and sheltered me as I held on to your hand for balance.

I first walked on my own when you came home from your gall bladder surgery. When you came through the front door, my Italian opera career began. There was no dry eye in our living room as I walked to you on my own with my arms stretched out to you.

My elementary steps were usually behind your polyester 70s skirt cuz people were kinda scary. They still are sometimes; that doesn’t exclude my own self.

My teen footsteps weren’t most likely what you had hoped for with my goth wanna be theatrical self but you adjusted with a lot of humor.

My angry, angsty, young adult steps were annoying, pride invoking, fiery, and often disappointing.

Your steps became heavier when your soulmate took an early train out of our mortal world. You have carried on mightily since that fateful October day in 2001.

I continue to learn how to now nurture and help you through the aging process.

Now you are visiting me in the northeast for the 16th year. This year, I have some extra wheels with a seat and breaks ready for you. I hope they will help you navigate as your pains are greater and your energy is less.

I can only hope to help shelter and sooth you as you did for me and as I know my father would insist upon.

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Sometimes it isn’t easy to look closely at oneself. It is much easier to get annoyed by others and their shortcomings. Some people are more obvious and more blunt. It is much easier to point fingers at the obvious but I, for one, admit that I have my own shadow side.

Even the most “evolved” folks have metabolized their own misguided teachings learned from a young age.

I work on being open and affirming despite differences in style and beliefs that I may have with others. It isn’t always easy to silence the react button especially when I think I am “right.” Our lives can often be a narrative that we have convinced ourself of which may not actually reflect “reality.”

In the three situations below, I have learned about a lot about what is underneath with racism in our culture.

1. I learned of someone near my age who moved to a white neighborhood in the 60s as the only family of color in town. As an adolescent weighing less than 100 lbs, this person experienced grown women muttering about watching their purse in ear shot of them.

2. I learned of a group of women, 60 and up, who locked their doors and windows when they saw 2 African American men near their car. The gentlemen didn’t get mad. They just found it funny and laughed. The women then laughed too.

3. I remember distinctly clutching my purse as an adolescent when I saw someone of color on the escalator at the mall. I had heard to do this by a relative who was born over 113 years ago. The person I was clutching my purse from looked at me like I was nuts. I realized it, was mortified by what I had done, and learned a huge lesson.

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