Pre-Voice Lesson Blog

I wrote this yesterday.  The voice lesson is today.  I'm way too lazy go back and fix the tenses.  My apologies.

I’m very anxious to see how tomorrow’s voice lesson goes.  I haven’t practiced nearly as much as I usually do.  A practice log would look something like this:

Wednesday: 1 hr
Thursday: 20 min
Friday: 20 min
Sat: none
Sun: none
Monday: 40 min.               

This is due to piano camp and my absolute exhaustion.  I’m still tired.  Next week will be better.  It’s not a lack of motivation, just a lack of physical and mental effort to put into to practice.  Next week will be much, much better.  I am still exhausted.
                                           
I’m hoping that I didn’t do too much damage.  My break is really starting to even out, and that makes me very excited.  I think it improved this week, even with the sad lack of practicing.

I will fess up to one thing: I am an all-or-nothing type of person when it comes to practicing voice.  If I miss a day, I am thrown out of wack, because I cannot make up what time I lose. 

Warming up is becoming increasingly boring, but I do it because I trust Dr. Singalot, and plus, we’re paying way too much money for me to squander this opportunity.  I am tired, which doesn’t help the boredom.  Then I remember how awful it would be for me to look back 20 years from now, and think, “Gee, if I’d warmed up properly, my voice would be a lot less croaky”, and I keep going.  20 minutes is a long time when you’re ahhhhhing,ohhhhhhhhing, ehhhhhhhhhing, eeeeeeeeeeeeing, and oooooooing up and down the piano.

We went to the gym today.  Dr. Singalot told me that it would help my breath support.  Okey dokey.   Again, I really trust his opinion.  We(my mom and I) did 35 minutes on the elliptical.  I could have gone longer, but I wanted to be able to walk the next day.  Yes, I am 99% serious. 

Physically, I’ve never been in better shape in my life, which, if you know me, is kind of sad.  However, the farm requires enough physical labor.  More than most kids my age do around the house, I know.  I have what I like to call “practical strength”.  Yeah, lifting weights heavier than 20 pounds would probably kill me, but I can lift and carry 60 pound bags of feed with no problem.  I can get a LOT of sound out of a piano.  I have extremely fast reflexes, proven to be at least as fast as a cow’s.  I can carry very heavy buckets a good distance without my arms falling off.  And it’s astonishing how fast you can run when a cow is giving birth.  In other words, my physical strengths work well in the real world, but in a gym-type setting, I’m not so hot.

The people in a gym are interesting.  Some are morbidly obese, some are skinny skinny, and some are freakishly buff.  I’m somewhere in the middle, I hope. 

 I'll have a voice lesson update later, I'm sure.