Today we worked on stretching multilinguism along with my vocal cords.
And we stopped playing nice about my scales.
"Don't be lazy with that last note. Stretch it. Do the motion with your hands. That's it. Now do it harder."
"Yes ma'am"
"Now do it without clenching your shoulders"
"Yes ma'am"
"Now do it without clenching your neck"
"Yes ma'am"
silence
..."I didn't just do that, did I?"
"I'm sure the people outside heard it."
Oh my.
"Now do it again, and let it move around your tonsils."
"Maja, I'm willing to work with the idea that my diaphragm is a voluntary muscle, but my tonsils aren't even a MUSCLE!" (this, of course, after the obligatory english-french-german confabulations to determine which gooey bit she was pointing to in her throat. There sure are a lot of them when it comes to singing...)
"Just do it."
"Yes ma'am"
"And don't clench your shoulders, or your neck"
"No ma'am"
"Good. I had a feeling you'd have vibrato."
"What-o?"
"Remember that thing you asked about the different kinds of sopranos? There's the little bird, the dramatic queen of the night, and the vibrato. You have vibrato potential, it's like people who can move their ears or roll their tongue."
"You're calling me a freak, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Cool."
Multilinguism being our next intellectual goal, since my Vaccaj are in italian, and my first lesson was in french, my next song is in German.
It's beautiful. Gods, I had no idea a collection of black spots could pound out so beautiful.
It's complicated (complicated for me, meaning that it has more black dots crowded together in varying order than my scales). And very high. Most of the little black dots are floating in space above the five little lines. I know that means little in actuality, but in my head I see the notes soaring.
And it's beautiful. Gods, it's beautiful. It melts and cries at you. It's about a flower (oddly in sync with the book I'm reading) begging a little boy not to tear it from the ground.
It has half-notes and terribly cruel things. It skips and feints and reaches little girl fingers to you.
"Learn to sing like a little bird first, the drama queen and the vibrato will come later. Just remember the feeling of the explosions and vibrato. Remember it, and then forget about it, so that it becomes subconscious and involuntary."
What a way to trick myself into developping instincts.
Wandering out of the conservatory, we were still singing. Making plans to go to the Opera Thursday, before the Kebekois bar that I've been avoiding all this time, after my complaint that I'd been to the opera in Limoges, but not yet in Paris. Apparently we're going to see one of the world's leading sopranos.
Way to intimidate me. ;)
Following Maja for a few stops before continuing home, we sang in the metro car. The german song. Her two tones lower, my two, slightly sharp and grating, but at least on key, two tones higher.
You have never heard such a silent metro car when we got to the end of the second phrase.
Speaking of which, Maja was off fiddling with a tape she was making of my scales, I was fiddling with the piano.
We started the german song.
I learned the first phrase.
Then I learned the first half of the second phrase, and tentatively kept going, not wanting to stop singing just yet.
Silence. Again.
"You know this song?"
"No, but boy am I glad I'm getting to know it."
"Then how did you know that second bar?"
"It looked right."
"So you can read."
"I guess so...."
"Hrrrmmm..."
I could see the torture she was already planning for next Monday scrawled across her face.