Thursday, February 16, 2006

DICHTERLIEBE DIARY 12

Ben and I have begun working again, under the eye of a superb vocal technician who is taking us-me-through the twenty plus minute cylce note by note.
I'm not a micro detail oriented person at all, far from it.
I don't pick up socks, I leave underwear on the floor and drink out of the milk carton. Not good when you are trying to communicate the secret locked into music and German poetry. So being stopped every three notes is new to me. To my relief,I'm far from rattled by this. It seems a note by note approach is the way for me to go to embrace this work in a technical sense. "More space... Breathe lower.. Why are your larynx so high...you are getting too edgy..stop it...Oh your epiglottis is wrapped around your neck-I had look this one up...Then there's the b flats in the middle of the page. Piece cake note, right? Middle of the register, yes? No.
Get a good breath under those middle notes. Voices can be naturally weaker in the middle range and that is the heart and meat of any voice. Forget the high notes
(I don't have them anyway) and stop growling your low notes. Und so weiter.

But I finish these session with a stronger feeling throught. What I still can't do consistently is support the tone enough to give off a long line of decent sound.
It's usually "Aus meined tran--WHEEZE--nen SPREEsen-gapsp--etc.
Not away to sing of the flow of one's tears to the beloved.

I never had a flippant attitude when Ben and I took on this project last fall. (
(See the archives). But if you spend your time listening to recordings it all sounds much much easier than it ever is. They should publish Wunderlich's rehearsal tapes (they probably sound fantastic, sigh) I have not a natural vocie but a manufactured one, note by f----ing note. Thank God I don't really have talent as a singer, and that the passion for musick has an outlet in radio, writing, comedy and pre concert talks, or all of the above.

Stay tuned.

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