plans and singing

This has been a busy past couple of weeks for me and my voice is alittle sad right now. Singing through a head cold does eventually have its ramifications.

That said besides singing in the normal end of school departments and studio recitals, I got to sing at a reception for donors to one of the non-university choirs that I am in. This went really well. I've been singing the Laudamus Te from Mozart's Mass in C minor like crazy. This is a really impressive sounding piece, lots of tricky coloratura and other flexible leaps of 13ths and such. For you non-singers colorotura not only refers to the type of soprano that sings super high, but to fast moving runs through (usually) the higher part of your voice. Anyhow, it sounds super super difficult to sing, it certainly isn't easy and took some mastering, but to be honest, that's just what my voice does. Give me these long sweeping lines and I struggle much more. Though I am working on it, my Dupius le jour is sounding nicer and nicer. I just have to be careful with it as it is heavy in comparisen to the Mozart and Strauss that I am used to. Anyhow people were very impressed and I got to chat with all sorts of people for the rest of the affair about how Mozart composed and that he considered specific voices when he wrote. Of course the weekend was such that as soon as I left that I had to change out of pink and into black for a new composition concert I was singing in. My voice is less than thrilled with me and I had to not sing the Libiamo solo from TRaviata at rehersal the other night. (I know a 20 year old like me has no place singing anything Violetta, but really at this school I am the best prepared to do it)

There is alot of research that I am trying to get underway as I start thinking about my BA. Unfortuantly as the quarter rushes to a close I do not quite have the time to fit it in yet. I'm hopeing to be all through with exams by tuesday of exam week and the use the rest of the week for research. I am very excited by where this research might go, though I am being much too slow on the up take to apply for a Fulbright for right after I graduate.

That's ok, I've been thinking that I might take the year off. as I havn't ahd the time to really consider where the best school for me might be. I am not going to a conservatory now so this may or may not work against me when I apply for MFAs. Alot of places want you to have had 3-5 major roles before they accept you. I clearly do not have that opprotunity here. Would it be worth it for me to go to someplace like DePaul or Roosevelt for a year and then later apply to a bigger name place? Or should I bother looking at big name places? I would much rather stand out than be part of the crowd. I have this romanticized vision of a year off in which I'm paid to sing in an opera chorus as I research and get ready to apply to other programs. Yes I know how compeditive these things are and that it's just a vision, but I havn't pulled ideas together such that I know yet.

why sosc?

I am so not about writing sosc papers any more. not that I was ever very good at them.
That has been my day, sosc paper, and lentils for dinner, not very good lentils.
Also we listened to a terrible Franck quartet today, you know the kind that's 45 minutes long and makes you want to run into a wall repeatidly? well maybe I've just wanted to run into a wall repeatedly all day and the quartet just aggrivated the situation.
mostly I am awsome and not whiny...to whit!
that is all...I fix paper with out real thesis....

Child development

Freud talks about a natural sexual progression that everyone takes, starting of course with our mothers and sensual sucking, that being breast feeding of course. We then move to the anal stage, the genital stage (or self loving), and finally through social simulation we direct our libido towards a member of the opposite gender. Stalling out at any of these stages cause trouble, forming individuals that Freud labels as "degenerates". Now modernly calling a homosexual a degenerate is more than even a questionable thing to do, but we're talking about lat 19th century early 20th century upper class viennese/ german people.
So the child develops through these stages, they are probably taught by family or by school that certain activities are deemed as innapropriate. Thus if there is a "stalling out" at one of these stages, and the individual desires what society deems as inappropriate we suddenly are looking at repression city, and possible neurosis.
What I find most interesting is the question of why an individual stalls out at some stage. Traumatic events are one explanation of this. And I can't call any others to mind.

Vygotsky also talks about childhood development, but in a different fashion. He talks about the development of language and thought. So language is primarily a social thing, created for communication. A child begins to speek such that he can communicate to others what he desires. It is only later that the child turns this new found type of communication back onto himself. Then he begins to talk in an ego centric way, talking in an manner that he assums everyone understands but does not. Finally this becomes inner speech, or in my interpretation concious thought. Vygotsky is not very clear in defining what exactly inner speech is, because it is not pure thought, there are words attached, but their sound pattern is only sort of attached.

How do these progression at all work with each other? With language we move from the external to the internal. Society/family shows us speech and we pick it up for social reasons, it is only later that we incorperate it into our inner lives. With sexulaity, or the growth of the libido we move from the internal desire to the external manifestation there of. sort of.

So a thought, desires can not be repressed until we have the language to do so. Or one might say until we have to socialization to do so. Would it be reasonable to state that with inner speech comes thecreation of the super ego? I think this might be a reasonable thing to say. so inner speech is conscious thought and "pure thought" could be seen as unconscious thought.

so....what's my thesis about all of this?

forgiveness

so you can't forgive someone until you can figure out why they have hurt you or how. But sometimes it is equally surprising to find out that you've been hurt. how much of other peoples actions are something that actually slowly eat away at your patience or make you feel less valued as a whole?
and how do you change that in a positive way. You can't just go up to a friend and tell that that they way that they are hurts you, you have to track it down to an identifiable behavior. And what do you say then. 'You two have been my friends for three years and I feel like you don't value me or need me any more' 'Your vocal relationship ( perhaps self ritious approach to conversation about god would be a better descriptor) with god makes me feel undervalued as a person' 'your obsession with the future makes me despair about the present' 'Please include me/us in your lives again'. These are things that you want to say to someone, but would be devestating to say, and would probably make things worse. especially since these are people who I value being near me.
Or at least I did. Have we changed so much over three years? am I stuck in the past unwilling to forge ahead? I don't think that either thing is true. I also thought that I had gotten over being hurt by others self ritiousness, but clearly not.
So I'm not angry at anyone, just sad and hurt that I'm not important in their lives anymore.

long time

It is hard to write for a blog you know that no one reads, but then you find yourself in a strange contradiction. If you are writing merely for the approval of others what does that say of you, yet if you are writing just to project yourself onto the vast infinitude of cyber-space then...why? one might as well just keep a journal, plus then one has the wonderful ascethetic of writing in a journal, hopefully with a fountain pen in a dimmly lit dustily appulstered library, or on some secluded knoll in the countryside. So....very british I guess....

Anyhow, I have been reading Freud. Some of his observations seem to be spot on, some others less so. I have been thinking about psycho-analysis, and I think that if you know the whole singing opera thing doesn't work out I would like to do that. Firstly because I think that I would be good at it. I am a good listener, this may seem cliche, but it's true, people who don't talk to other people talk to me. And secondly I think that I would like it, because I like theorizeing about why people act the ways that they do.

I don't actually have any interesting long musing thoughts to share at the moment so I will simply leave you with what there is.

ahhh!

reading period is upon us. I have so much to write, I just don't know if I'm up to it.
no
of course I am.
I am embly, the great and mighty wielder of the sometimes non-linear pen!

so I'm writing a paper on Gretchen am Spinnrade. It's actually pretty interesting and I'm enjoying it. That paper should be totally ok for next week.

However. the Galileo paper that I need to write. not so much. and the professor has said that it doesn't matter when we hand it in. this = super big problem, because the urgency to get it done is no lnger there, but I don't want to think about it come vacation and spring quarter. I don't need it hanging over my head.

any way. I am also freaking out about what I'm going to do with my life. But that doesn't matter, not right now at least as I have more important freaking out to do.

any way, I leave you with some angst, as really that is what the internet is made of:

My soul seems to be collecting itself. It now hovers around my head, like a swarm of gnats waiting to bite my face. I will try to collect it and make it perform it’s daily duties. I think in time it will learn to love. It merely needs that chance. I will now ball it up and place it inside me, somewhere where I can find it. And if the moment arises I will be able to use it. And maybe, just maybe it will have the wherewith all to know what to do. Be gentle when needed, and swarm with the fury of screaming bats when my body needs it’s defense. For now I will keep it as safe as possible. Perhaps it will return the favor.


um and while I'm at it, why not something preachy:

The man seeking truth will not be able to settle for the complicated nature of the factual world. The factual world of science is left far too much to interpretation, experimental findings all are assigned value depending upon what the experimenter is expecting. This shows that fact is subjective and dependent upon human interpretation. What one must be most careful with when declaring that a fact is truth, is using scientific induction to generalize from the specific. Fact must be fallible or falsifiable, where this should not be the case with truth. Another thing we must be careful with when assigning ideas the terms fact or truth is how much they will be questioned. If we allow fact to have the same gravity as truth then it will not be questioned. The basis of science is its questioning nature, previous theories must be found inaccurate in order for science to progress. The progress of science is what make man a fascinating creature, but one must sacrifice pride of the absolute simple universal truth in order to begin to understand the world around us. Scientific fact can teach us much about the world, but one must not confuse fact and theory with the truth.

trouble singing opera

Of late there have been articles expressing the inadequacy of opera training and performance in the United States.
The conservatory is churning out cookie cutter small light voices that fizzle out in a few years singing on the stage and then they meet obscurity. Opera companies also are not taking the time to "invest" in bigger voices that take more time to mature.
I'm not being particularly articulate about this right now, but essentially these articles make me feel justified in my decision to attend a liberal arts/research university rather than conservatory for my undergraduate work.
so that begs the question: what the heck do I do for my graduate work?
Do I continue doing theory and musicolgy and study voice on the side?
Do I go for vocal performance despite the negetive rap everything's getting right now?
Ultimately what I want to do is sing opera. It's just what I want to do. Teaching theory and researching, while enjoywable is truely second choice for me right now.
There are plenty of stories of people who make it as opera singers after years of doing somehting else...do I want to be that person. I feel like despite the dangers of singing too much at a younger age, that I would have the energy for performance earlier, and want to do things like have a family and perform less later.
That said I have been told that you really shouldn't bank on even starting to pursue a career in any seriousness before the age of 25. At the youngest. So. What do I do for the next five to eight years of my life? Start pursueing voice seriously, and work small things until perhaps something happens later? Work at other aspects of music while taking lessons and...biding my time?
Really I wish there was someone that had real advice, because everything that I've done up to this point has been my own research and intuition. yes. Ultimately you have to depend entirely upon yourself, because no one's going to get things done for you. But I wish that I had more than my head and afew words here and there from others.
I guess that's the problem with going to a big research university, no one knows anything about music performance.