The "audition" went great. Mary Sue and I basically just flipped through my arias book and she had me sing random things to test me out through trouble spots in certain arias. It was really a lot of fun! Of course some things I hadn't sung in three or four years, so they were very problematic, but she also wanted to see how quickly I could change and how I take advice. I ended up getting a great little lesson. The biggest problem was that I had just come from an hour long lesson and the only break I had from singing was the bus ride to the church!
So, some cool things she told me: picking the best pitch in the phrase and sing around it, counting my vibrato, and of course using my air more. So, picking the best pitch in the phrase was kind of cool to keep from switch the timbre too much. This worked especially well in phrases going from low notes up to my middle voice to keep me from pressing too much on lower notes and then not having the right position in my middle voice and thus losing overtones. I'm going to go out of order from my list to talk next about the air thing. It was the same problem I encountered when I had a coaching with Mark Trawka at Pittsburgh Opera last year in that I often back off the air when I go down in pitch instead of keeping the sound alive. Also, I change the majority of pitches in my throat, not with my air, which is bad. So, that's something we worked on a bit and I know needs to change, so it's sort of up to me. But my coloratura was really cool when we figured it out in that brief amount of time.
Now, the coolest thing was counting vibrato. I'd heard of doing this to get a more pleasant sound, but never to actually know how to release a note. She had me count how many reps my vibrato went through on high, dramatic notes, and then always release on an odd number; that way I was always releasing UP instead of down. It was so cool! The sound keeps going after the note, and it works especially well if a note needs to be released tenderly instead of dramatically. Probably the coolest thing we talked about.
So afterwards we went to get some coffee and talk, and then walked around Florence for several hours. It was a great time. She said she'd like me to come to Arizona to visit her Rotary club and maybe do a concert. She also wants to introduce me to some great directors, conductors, and composers. So exciting!
So, speaking of Rotary, I've had some great dinners and social events with them lately. Last night we had a gala d'auttuno with the theme of Casino Royal. I was afraid that more people would be in tuxes and only a few of us with be in suits, so I wore a black suit, white shirt with French cuffs, and a silver tie. Some guys had tuxes, most of us were in suits, some were in jeans and hoodies. It was really cool though because we got a lot of chips and two free drinks with our cover charge. The only games they had were Poker, Roulette, and Blackjack. I was holding out for a while on Blackjack, but I gave up and began playing Roulette, and losing a lot. Also, I had to explain how to play to some people all in Italian. After a while of losing and being down to only a few chips of hundreds and a 500 I left, hung out with friends, and kept having a great time. But eventually I went back, played at a different table, and did alright back and forth and got a little bit of money back. Then I got mad because the guy spinning the wheel sucked and the wheel would stop spinning before the ball finished. Not exciting, so I left. Same thing of hanging out with people, dancing, making new friends and everything. Then a friend gave me some chips because he had won a lot at Poker and was going to Blackjack. So I went back to a table, and started playing high stakes and getting a lot of chips back. It was a lot of fun and on the last spin I bet 2,000 on black, 2,000 on the cross with 35 black, and I bet around 6,000 or 7,000 on the column below 35. And, as luck would have it, the ball landed on 35 black! But then the jerks just said, "okay, done!" and left. They wouldn't even pay us! And then I argued and they just kept telling me it was the last roll and didn't matter, but of course there were prizes to win and I'd won something like 16,000 or 20,000 in chips. They didn't have enough 500's for me! So, I told some of the guys that knew me and they helped explain it to the guys giving out the prizes and I won a gift certificate for two to a spa outside of Florence and two more free drinks! Great night. Made a lot of new friends, got prizes, and was the only American not speaking English. There were at least two American girls there that I only really met by them being at my table or because I heard them talking to other people, and they weren't even trying to speak Italian. Not even for simple colors and numbers! Very strange to me.
So anyway, had a great night and met a lot of new people and got closer with my other friends that were there. Soon I'll update you all on the really cool Italian Thanksgiving I had!
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