Progress!

The long awaited return to my lessons has begun. What a wonderful session we had, not one but two hours of revision and learning. We started by looking at a classical aria. The purpose of this study will be to develop modulation, and colour by adding different dynamics to the interpretation.
Next, we looked closely at the rhythm of Basin Street Blues, which I had got somewhere towards getting right, but there were still issues to resolve. Learning in French has given me a most useful tool for counting. Instead of the traditional 1, 2,3 or 1 and 2and I have been taught to use the names of the note values which in French correspond to the designated beat. So a crotchet is counted as croche, a crotchet as noire, a minim as blanch-e(with the last 'e' sounded). What I had forgotten was the actual progress of the beat in order to differentiate the sounds. A full beat goes up and down; the half beat either up or down depending on where it starts. We marked the score showing where the beat actually falls, so I was able to see why I was slightly out all the time! We then spent a while saying the rhythm, clapping the rhythm. Hopefully I can work on this on my own now.
Another difficulty was pitching some of the intervals correctly. In particular the minor thirds. So back to the keyboard, and some warm-up work using major and minor thirds. Of course singing Jazz style music requires a sound knowledge of major and minor sevenths. So on to these - another piece of useful revision.
When it came to singing the piece, I was confronted with two new pieces of learning! The first, and perhaps the most challenging at this stage, was the way jazz musicians emphasise the beat. Instead of a 1, 3 pattern, it is a 2, 4 pattern. By listening carefully to the percussionist I was able to hear this. What a revelation!!!!
Finally, I was asked to consider which consonants in a phrase could carry a stronger emphasis. It took a while to understand what I was being asked to do, but finally I realised that I needed to make my lips and tongue work more percussively. Ultimately I need to be able to vary the type of sound between smoothly sung notes, and percussion style notes. All designed to help the jazz singer create interesting solos. (I think it will be a very long time before I can attempt something like that with a band!!!!!) Finally some suggestions for future songs to study. All in all a wonderful return to work! Now I have two weeks to put this into practice!!!

Performances and other news......

'Sympathique'
Verteuil 15th June 2011

Good intentions inevitably go by the wayside! However I have not been completely idle. I have managed to perform a couple of times recently which was great fun. These two images were taken during an evening at a friends party in June. I was singing 'Sympathique' a great French number. I ended with 'St Louis Blues'. Having a performance to work towards really helps keep the motivation going! I find I am far more confident now, and I am getting a real buzz from being on stage.

St Louis Blues
Verteuil, 15th June 2011

Comments I received afterwards, both from friends and a professional musician at an event in July were most encouraging, and helped me feel that I had really absorbed my lessons on communicating the songs, and being 'Linda' not just copying someone else. So that is a great achievement, especially as the last performance featured two French songs! In preparing for these events, it became clear that my repertoire will have to be amended.

My guitar has been in my hands regularly, finger-tips are now hard again and I am working hard on new chords, especially some barre chords. The penny has finally dropped that these are actually based on simple chord shapes....

I have a singing lesson booked for the beginning of August, so another target to encourage me back to work.

Finally, a friend has just loaned me his studio recording gear! So more fun to come. Today I managed to make my first recorded item. Sounds grander than it actually is - it means I found out how to record a few words and hum a bit into the mike!

Beginning Again

What a long period of inactivity! I have not been disciplined at all - too many interests and other activities. I had a major role in the local pantomime which was great fun and a great success, but which took up a great deal of tme; My music teacher has had to suspend lessons as she has a new job until June, and I have had a bad bout of bronchitis!
Excuses, excuses! I  hear you saying. Mmmmm well you could be right. So what am I going to do about it?


Aims for the month of March, (What's left of it) 

1. I am going to spend ten minutes a day with my guitar - even if my voice isn't up to much, it's no reason for not keeping my fingers in training! I must master the Bm Bm7 Fm chords once and for all!
2. A little work on getting to develop my understanding of Band-in-the-Box wouldn't go amiss either! I'm trying to get used to entering notes of a song so I can have an accompaniment.....
3. Finally, it wouldn't hurt to re-read all my entries in order to revise what I have learnt !

New Challenge -last lesson before Christmas notes

Yet another hit and miss period of practice! Still - listening to songs under study must count for something mustn't it? Having finally bought the playback track of Va Savoir, I have been working on it. Thought I was getting on quite well too, when I suddenly realised that there was a short section I just could not sort out. Studying it with the 'dots' in front of me, then trying to hum it in my head to see if I had got it fixed, I realised there was a flaw in the score when hearing the song sung. Sandy was puzzled too. After several attempts together, she recognised the problem. Thankfully it was not me being stupid! So back to the keyboard this week to try and sort it out.
I have now been set a new challenge! Nothing like a new item to keep the interest alive. My task for the next three weeks is to study Bossa Nova rythm and learn the song Dindi by Carlos Jobim. It is wonderful, and whether I will be able to do it justice remains to be seen. Ella Fitzgerald's version is a dream.......
What about the guitar? Well slowly but surely my left hand is beginning to work better. I have 3 classical pieces that are coming on quite well, and my chord learning is progressing. All I need to do is to be able to shift from one barre chord to another easily  Hmmmmm Let's hope this coming week sees me a bit more disciplined about working at it! If only 5 minutes a day........

Useful Revision

This week has seen me focusing on understanding how chords are constructed. I now understand the triad - intervals 1, 3 & 5. I realised finally that A7 is the triad plus the 7th. Needless to say there are slight complications dependiing on whether one is playing A7, Am7 or A MAJ7!
I have also been typing in a score for Va Savoir - one of the French numbers in my repertoire. This has been a great exercise as I am learning how to use a new piece of software called Musescore. It is a free download, and seems to be as good as Finale Songwriter. In copying in the various elements of the score, I have been trying to interpret the chord names  - things like Am7 or Am6 or even E7b(9#) and writing the chord on the stave. So today's lesson helped me clarify these strange names:
Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si Do are all intervals: Tonique, seconde, tierce, quarte, quinte, sixte, septieme, octave (french terms!) To interpret the 9 - all one has to do is to identify how many intervals it is from the seventh. It is two. Two intervals would make this note the Re in the next octave up. Well I think that's what I understood anyway. I will have to look back at my notes in the morning.
After this brain teaser, we then set out to revise some physical issues regarding singing and making a good sound at varying volumes. The key thing is to be at ease and listen to my body. If something is not working well, ask what is wrong, how is the body feeling? Is there tension somewhere, especially in the jaw. Tensing the jaw means the adam's apple is pushed into a poor position which does not allow the air to travel freely and thus it squeezes the sound. A simple exercise singing three notes to 'Ah' soon demonstrated this. So I need to get back to the facial massage, sticking out the tongue and other loosening strategies I learnt some years ago, and have got very lazy about doing' Not a pretty sight, so as Terry Wogan used to say, "Blindfold the budgie!"
The other really interesting example I was given was to think about the trampoline. One has to land properly in order to make the next jump. The same is true when singing - the correct placement of the previous note affects the quality of the next one. Very often when a note is out of tune, it is because the previous note was badly executed.
When working on a song, it is important to identify where the stresses are and understand why the problem exists. If it is insufficient breath, sort out the breathing etc. Perhaps the key is wrong - change the key.
I know the intervals, so they shouldn't pose a problem...... Finally I should enjoy trying to sing the song in different ways and seeing what sounds good or interesting -record the efforts and listen to them this helps develop ones own unique style.
Wow, lots of useful ideas today! Now I need to get on and put them into practice.....

October 8th 2010 - From disaster to new encouragement!

How often my good intentions evaporate! For all sorts of reasons I just did not get on with much serious, regular practice, and by the middle of this week my next lesson was looming! What on earth was I going to say?
Before I beat myself up totally, however, I  spent some time reflecting on what I had achieved, and found I could tick off most of what I had been asked to do! Phew!!!!
The advantage of writing this Blog is that I can check up on myself, review what I have set myself and identify achievements. When I did so this morning, the day of my lesson, I discovered I had actually spent quite a bit of time on theory!

• Degrees - re-visited
• Scale pattern - revisted and revised
• Order of sharps - revised
• Key intervals : tonique, Dominante, Sensible (l     V     Vll) fixed in my head
• Streets of London - key revised (good old Chordie.com)
• My Grandfathers' Clock - key revised ( like-wise thanks to Chordie.com)
• Lots of listening to Va Savoir, a wonderful French classic I want to add to my repertoire.
• A Scat exercise transposed into two different keys.

All in all I was greatly comforted. My lesson itself was really constructive too.

Main discussion

• Noted the order of flats and how to work out which key apiece of music is in
• Revised work on Relative Minor keys, and how to identify whether a piece of music is in its relative minor or principal key. This was prompted by a piece of music I had bought and transposed via 'Scorch' before printing. It was in CMajor, but had so many incidentals in the score I wondered whether it was in fact in the relative minor of Aflat. We decided that it was in C, and couldn't understand the strange transposition! The main thing, however ws that the notes worked, and it suits my voice perfectly.
• Started talking about Blues, the' blues note' and the Pentatonic minor

My tasks for the coming fortnight

• Experiment with the Blues material on the keyboard - use an F chord in the left hand, and play about with different sequences of the degrees :      l      iii    lV  V   Vll
• Make sure I can play the new chords in Streets of London and sing the song well
• Make sure I've addressed the best breathing points for me in Grandfathers' Clock
• Write out the key signatures of the different keys, noting  the tonique, dominant and Sensible notes ( l  V  Vll)

Monday October 17th

I've not done a great deal, as usual! The days go by so quickly and other activities crowd in. It's not that I am un-motivated, just ill-disciplined! 

• Shortly after my lesson, I sat at the keyboard to work on the relative minors. That was fun, especially once I realised how to play a scale using the relative minor with the original key! What a revelation.
• I have  found a brilliant piece of software for writing music. It's called Musescore and it is a free download. So I have had some fun learning how to use this. 
• Yesterday was a great session. I spent time working on the revised chords for Streets of London. Transposing it into Bflat minor means I have to learn the Bflat and Eflat chords. These are barre chords in the A shape. It is a question of learning the shape and then getting the fingers to obey - they don't want to. Still it is coming and I am gradually starting to change the chords and hum the tune provided I do it SLOWLY! I don't think I'll be able to sing it and play it all by the next lesson, but at least I have made some progress. It is a much better key for my voice, so once I have mastered these chords I shall have some excellent new resources to use.
•  Grandfathers' clock is coming along well and I'm beginning to experiment with the finger picking style too.  Yesterday I found a great way of making the strings sound like a ticking clock.

I hope today I'll play around with the blues chords....... we'll see!

Music Lessons - New Term

Friday September 17th 2010
I´m pleased to note that today my music lessons have started again after a long summer break. It was wonderful to be able to share how much I had been able to do this summer - it is usually a fallow period with little motivation. Having created this blog has been one of the reasons I have achieved more! My dear friend who follows my progress is quick to remind me that I haven´t posted a new entry!!!
I now have some more precise targets for the next two weeks:
The main themes are to do with breathing and transposition skills.
Breathing  We began be reviewing posture when playing the guitar. An interesting observation was that when breathing as a singer or instrumentalist, the instrument breathes too. I don´t need to be too worried therefore. Although I have been brought up to believe that whole lines and phrases should be sung in one breath, this sometimes results in tension and discomfort as one struggles to sing the last notes. In the genre of music that I am studying, the most important factor is to be comfortable. An audience can quickly tell if the performer is tense or in discomfort.

•  I need to identify those moments in a song which are habitually difficult because of lack of breath.
•  Then I need to look for useful places where a smaller breath can be taken to support the voice.

Transposition When trying to learn new songs with the guitar, I habitually choose the Cmajor key because these are the chords I am most familiar with. This is not always the best key for my voice as the pitch can sometimes fall between two voice placement areas. Both songs I sang today revealed this tendency. This discovery  has opened up a new opportunity to revise earlier work on transposition and to apply it to guitar chords.

•  I need to remember that when raising or lowering a key by any given interval, there may be consequences on the key signature, so caution! 
• Another important knock on effect as far as the guitar is concerned, is that I will need to increase my chord repertoire! 

Degrees Whilst discussing the above, we returned to the topic of ´Degrees´.

•  I need to revise and be very sure on the tone/half tone patterns so that new keys can be discussed and identified quickly. 

So after a great lesson, with much laughter and encouragement, I have lots to do in the next two weeks......