Sunday, June 10, 2007

Fifth recital down.

Today I sang a German art piece ("Still vie die Nacht" by Karl Bohm), a Tom Lehrer song, and was in the chorus of a number from "The Mikado."

I've sung in 5 recitals since 2005. I took voice lessons for a year before getting up there at all. Early lessons revealed odd auditory-processing problems with pitch that, thankfully, did (and still do) improve with practice.

One of the songs at my first recital was "Little Lamb," which a young Natalie Wood sang in "Gypsy," a movie I saw when I was 3. I couldn't sing it without crying for the first few months of learning it because of memories connected to a trauma at that age. My voice teacher was a saint. I'd sing 8 measures, cry, and then we'd do it all over again the following week. Getting to where I could sing it in public was a victory in itself.

In fact, all of these 5 recitals have been mostly about getting up there. Performing through the quaking knees, spasming lungs, and quivering cords of stage fright. Well, yahoo, I've done it, I'm a trooper, yada yada.

I'm done with being Ms. Trooper. Next time, I don't want my performance to be about being brave. I want it to be about the performance. Next time, I don't want to just get up there.

I want to knock 'em dead.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I'm having trouble finding the lyrics for "Still vie die Nacht" by Karl Bohm. It's crazy, isn't it?!

So, in searching for that, I came across your information and am hoping that you found those lyrics, after all!

Please help!!!

Thanks, Nan, for any direction you can give me!

Sincerely,

Rob
wannabecpa at gmail dot com