Do I apologise for lack of blogging first? or do I come up with some excellent excuses first? (It’s hard to type on my ipad! My fingers are too cold because Christchurch is cold! WordPress sometimes crashes the ipad browser! Those are pretty good right?)
Or do I breeze right on by those and just summarise the first semester?
So far, I have joined a new choir and participated in an awesome concert. The choir – http://www.christchurchcitychoir.co.nz/ and the concert was ‘Missa Gaia’ or Earth Mass. Traditional mass parts (kyrie, agnus dei etc.) set to modern and beautiful music, with a full band, amazing percussion, wolf song, whale song… Trust me it was awesome fun. I also got to sing in a quartet making wolf howling noises, which sounds crazy but was actually very cool. We had a fabulous gospel soloist, a kapa haka group and their amazing soloist… Wish you could have all seen it!
I have also been doing pretty well with my studies, think I am averaging an A across the board, fingers crossed it continues. Obviously first year is easy, but I will pat myself on the back anyway!
Singing lessons are amazing fun as always. MM is an excellent teacher, very encouraging and inspiring. My main problem outside of lessons continues to be performance nerves. Ugh, so horrible. My throat gets all tight, my breathing goes wacky, and I end up producing a sound which is more thirteen year old’s first recital than actual singer. But I will keep putting myself in situations where I have to do it, and fingers crossed it will work itself out. I have come up with a few strategies, like having a proper preparation routine, lots of controlled stomach breathing and bluffing the confidence as I walk into the room!
Christchurch is gorgeous still. Yes, shakey, but still awesome. And freezing. Did I mention freezing? OMG so cold! The water that puddles on top of the garage has frozen this morning! I am on holiday which means singing practice. I have heaps of music to learn. I may get to sing a solo for my choir course (different from the other choir) which is called ‘Schafe Können’
I wonder if that will work. i haven’t blogged from my ipad before. There is a picture of sheep because the English title is ‘sheep may safely graze’
So in short, I aten’t dead, and singing continues to be awesome!
My Singing Blog 
Embedded video worked just fine :).
Bah, you and your excuses. Earthquake, schmearthquake.
I am sure your confidence will keep improving as you get more settled with your lessons n stuff, right? It’ll all be so second nature that you’ll stroll on out with nary a care and be all BOW BEFORE ME to the audience. And then you can be an obnoxious diva or something and it will all be fabulous.
Hmmm I tried to reply from my email but it seems to have been trapped somewhere in the interwebs…
I totally should have used the earthquakes as an excuse!!! DAMMIT!
And I am most definitely adding BOW BEFORE ME to my preparation routine! Should I go for a madlaugh too?
You are doing so well. It is wonderful and inspiring to see a friend going for her dream and succeeding. Please don’t belittle your grades by saying first year is easy. Think of all the work you did preparing just to get into this programme! It’s not easy, you are just prepared.
Love
Awww, thanlks Giffy 🙂 you are right, I will take credit for the work I have done!
Huggggles!
Keep up with the good work! I enjoy reading through the articles on your blog. I recently stumbled upon a video that told me about something called a beta blocker and It gets rid of performance anxiety. You could talk to your doctor about it if your nervousness continues to make you sound like a 13 year old. lol